THE POWER OF BELIEF - All Realities Are Not Invented Equally!

We create our reality about ourselves and about others around us, and those realities will determine our relationships to ourselves as well as others, and who they are around us. Our responses to others, as well as others responses to us are linked to the belief and expectations we have for and about them as well as for ourselves. We create realities, then we forgot we have created them, and then we relate to them as something that someone else put upon us. Others responses to us is a reflection of the expectation we have for and about them. In the wise words of Albert Einstein; "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."

You and I were born into a world of existing ideas, practices, beliefs, traditions and rules. Our ideas have been formed by our experiences with life, family, friends, society and media. I believe the future we have is shaped and limited by the conditions that our past determined upon that future. A changing world and realities require constant updating of personal practices as well as social practices. Those practices and ideas that fit an old rather than a new purpose.

You and I are accountable and responsible for our lives. How will we upgrade past thinking to serve our present and future life? By recognizing and distinguishing the source of our beliefs and expectations. By getting present to how much of what we believe to be reality is what we have made up! Yes, we have made it up... ! Making thing up, making realities (creating expectations) about ourselves and others can be negative and dis-empowering or it can be positive and powerful.

What have we done as a human race that has defied the common perspective? What have we created by empowering our own beliefs and our own realities? Here some examples; 

• Invention of flying Machines 

• Invention of the light bulb 

• Reading & writing as a blind & deaf person 

• Man's first step on the moon

We can go on, and on, and on about so many amazing discoveries and inventions that altered human lives forever... What do all of these events have in common? Someone's beliefs! but what kind of beliefs? Invented ones! Created realities. Wright Brothers, Thomas Edison, Helen Keller, US President John F. Kennedy, and anybody who achieved anything that inspired us, all believed that the impossible was possible.

Our expectations, or what I call "invented realities" have such a power over our performances, personality and professional life. Before we can harness the power of belief/expectations or help anyone else remove and replace limiting and destructive beliefs/expectations, we have to understand why beliefs/expectations have such force. Let us look back at history;

On the light side, the power of belief has: 

• Broken through the sound barrier 

• Pioneered in space 

• Created miracle cures for plagues 

• Upheld the spirit of a nation against a superior enemy

On the dark side, this same power has led to: 

• Wars 

• Genocides 

• The extermination of races 

• Blinded people to solutions to some of the most critical issues facing humankind.

Even more importantly for us, at one time or another, limiting and false beliefs have caused each one of us:

• To miss opportunities 

• To make costly errors in judgments 

• To fall far short on the potential we have to succeed 

• To fail to achieve and accomplish

That is why our ability to invent and create our own beliefs and realities is one of the most powerful skills we can acquire. We need to know where they get their power. I am convinced that past positive and negative experiences, direct plus or minus others' inputs about us, and societies influences are the three primary factors that contribute to the power that beliefs/expectations have over our productivity and our lives as whole. As we create our expectations we have to control what we pay attention to; "our beliefs control our expectations", this force from which belief draws its magic is the power of expectations. An expectation is simply what we expect to happen, see, feel or experience. And as simple as this sounds, expectations have an incredible effect on everything we see, feel, hear and experience. 

Simply put;

• We feel what we expect to feel. 

• We see what we expect to see. 

• We experience what we expect to experience.

Through working with over 50,000 participants, over two decades of coaching and consulting practice, I have seen these common themes in almost everyone, regardless of what they do;

• If we expect to be successful, we experience success. 

• If we expect to see results, we see results. 

• If we expect to feel fear, we feel fear. 

• If we expect a situation to be unpleasant and difficult... It is unpleasant and difficult.

What we believe about ourselves, how we conduct ourselves based on those beliefs, and how we promote our beliefs about ourselves will produce either empowering or destructive results on our experiences of living life. As I always said; "All realities are not invented equally!"

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The Real Goose That Laid The Golden Egg (Based On A Zen Koan I Once Read And Heard Well)

Once I read a Zen story about a goose in a bottle that got fed until it could not get out except by breaking the whole bottle open including the neck of the bottle. The import of that story is that limitations are what we make them, and when the goose is fed enough to be out, it will be out. The bottle is our circumstances, and the goose represents the consciousness in those circumstances. Before I internalized and understood fully the story, I heard or read it three times: Once from a good friend of mine, hypnotist and author Richard "Dick" Sutphen, another time in a book of Zen stories I took out of the Masao W. Satow Public Library a long time ago which was taken off the active shelves and put into the book sale, which I bought, and the third time before I fully internalized it, I just thought of it the other two times I read and heard it.

When you understand that circumstances and limitations are what you make them, reality becomes fully a game and not a battle, and you do understand how to live sanely without destroying yourself doing it.

What do I mean by destroying yourself living sanely? You see all the "realities" and "facts" of all the suffering, fear, greed, avarice and loneliness in the world, and realize the bizarre and insane game being played by most people, especially the supposed "masters" and "leaders", then realize that it is all nothing really except what we make it within ourselves. What do you think I mean by mentioning that story about the goose breaking the bottle when it is fed too much anyway?

We have a choice. We either outgrow our circumstances genuinely, or we "explode in all the craziness". In short, we either get saner, or go in the opposite direction when we realize what it is all about. I chose to get saner, live in reality, and work smarter, which is a bit of a rarity when you think about all the people who do "go by appearances" weakly instead of genuinely and consciously responding strongly. For, indeed, appearances are just that, appearances. Nothing more, nothing less. So, think of it this way, the reality is within us and not appearances outside of us. Another way to put it: You put yourself in the situation anyway, and with honesty and work, you can get yourself out.

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