Do Your Beliefs Lift You Up or Hold You Back? – Episode 518

Listen to this podcast episode now:

Listen to this podcast on Spotify, Apple podcasts, Soundcloud

Watch on You Tube: https://youtu.be/XQGPDirJwV8

 

Greetings everybody! Ted Moreno here, Certified Hypnotherapist and High-Performance coach, welcome to another episode of the Ted in Your Head podcast. I appreciate you being here.

As a certified clinical hypnotherapist in private practice for over two decades now, I work directly with the subconscious mind which is where our deepest programming lives. Our automatic reactions, our habitual behaviors, and most importantly for today’s episode, our beliefs. Using the tool of hypnosis, I help people who are struggling with anxiety, fear, bad habits, and negative thinking patterns by updating their beliefs, which is just another word for programming, so their subconscious mind, 88% of the mind, starts working for them.

If you want your 88% to start working for you using hypnotherapy, I will tell you later how we can make that happen.

In today’s episode, I want to tell three stories about the power of belief.

The Rockefeller Story

Once there was a young man sitting on a park bench, worried sick.

He owned a business and had gotten himself into a huge amount of debt. He could see no way out. Creditors were calling. Vendors were demanding payment. He was, by any measure, in serious trouble.

Suddenly, an old man sat down on the bench beside him.

“You look like you have the weight of the world on you, young fellow,” said the old man. “What’s wrong?”

With nothing to lose, the young man poured out his story. The debt. The creditors. The hopelessness of it all. The old man listened in silence.

When the young man finished, the old man said, “I believe I can help you. What’s your name?”

He pulled out a checkbook, wrote a check, and pressed it into the young man’s hands.

“I will meet you here in exactly one year and you can pay me back then. I believe you can do it.”

And with that, the old man slipped away.

The young man looked down at the check. His jaw dropped. It was a check for five hundred thousand dollars, signed by John D. Rockefeller, at that time one of the richest men in the world.

He knew that check could erase his troubles in an instant. But after thinking about it, he decided to put it in his safe at home, uncashed.

Then, something remarkable happened.

With that check sitting in his safe, the young man felt a surge of confidence and optimism he had not felt in years. He renegotiated with his vendors. He settled with his creditors for less than he owed. He closed several big deals. And within a year, he had turned his business completely around.

Exactly one year later, he went back to the park bench with the uncashed check in his hand, ready to return it.

The old man arrived right on time. But just as the young man began to speak, a nurse came running up from behind.

“I am so sorry,” she said breathlessly. “I hope he has not been bothering you. He keeps slipping away from the rest home and telling everyone he is John D. Rockefeller.”

And with that, the nurse led the old man away.

The young man stood there, completely stunned.

For an entire year, he had been negotiating and closing deals and rebuilding his business, all on the strength of a check that was completely worthless. Signed by a man who was not who he claimed to be.

It was not the check that saved him. It was the belief.

The Dante Story

Here is the second story.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti was a famous 19th century poet and artist. One day, an elderly man approached him and asked if Rossetti would look at some sketches and give his honest opinion of them.

Rossetti looked at the drawings carefully. He could see right away that they showed no real artistic talent. He told the man as kindly as he could.

The old man seemed disappointed but accepted the verdict graciously.

Then he asked, “Would you be willing to look at one more set of drawings?”

Rossetti agreed. He looked over the new sketches. And this time, he was immediately struck by what he saw. Real talent. Real potential. The kind of work that suggested a very promising future.

“These are quite good,” Rossetti said. “This artist has real talent. With hard work and encouragement, the future could be very bright.”

The old man went quiet.

“Is this young artist your son?” asked Rossetti.

“No,” said the old man, his voice heavy with sadness. “These are my drawings. From forty years ago. A teacher told me back then that I had no talent and no future as an artist. I believed him. I got discouraged. And I gave up.”

He paused.

“If only I had heard your words back then.”

Think about that for a moment. An entire lifetime of creative potential, set aside because of one person’s opinion. One belief, planted by an authority figure, accepted as truth, and never questioned again.

That is the power of belief. And that is the danger of it.

The Elephant Story

One day a man was strolling through the circus. As he passed by the elephants, he noticed that the only thing that prevented these huge animals  from running away was a small chain attached to a collar around their legs. The chain was tied to a little peg hammered into the ground. The man thought to himself “Surely, that small peg can be easily pulled out by this 10-foot-high creature. How can this be safe?”

So, the man approached the elephant trainer and asked about the skimpy method used to hold the elephant.

“Yes, it is safe” the trainer replied. “When the elephants are babies, they are tied in the same way except using a metal stake deep in the ground. This is enough to hold the baby elephants. Because they’re tempted by the world outside, they do try to break free again and again, but the chain pulls them back and it inflicts pain on their legs. They learn that any effort to escape is futile, and they soon give up trying altogether.”

The trainer continued “Now, as a big elephant, it remembers the pain it felt as a baby. It remembers that as hard as it tries, it can’t break free and can only go so far as the chain will allow. It has long given up trying to escape, so we need only secure it with a small peg in the ground. It doesn’t matter that this elephant stands 10 feet high, weighs 14,000 pounds, and can easily pull the peg out and trample both of us. The memory of its limitation prevails and it never tries again.”

The man walked away shaking his head. One of the world’s strongest animals, able to uproot trees and destroy villages, held captive by a skinny chain and a small wooden peg. It still believes, somewhere in its memory, that escape is impossible.

Held captive by a belief formed in infancy.

Now here is the thing. We can cut the elephant some slack. Its brain, remarkable as it is, does not have the capacity for self-reflection that we do. It cannot step back and examine its own beliefs. It cannot ask itself, is this still true? Does this still apply to me?

We can.

And yet, so many of us are living like that elephant. Held back by beliefs that were formed long ago, in circumstances that no longer exist, by people who may not have known any better. Dragging a chain that lost its power years ago.

What Is a Belief, Really?

Let’s talk about what a belief actually is.

A belief is simply a thought you have had so many times, for so long, that it has stopped feeling like a thought and started feeling like reality. It has become the water you swim in. The air you breathe. So familiar that you no longer notice it is there.

And here is the really important part. We do not see our beliefs as beliefs. We see them as how things are. As unchangeable truth. As just the way it is.

But they are not. They are thoughts. Repeated, reinforced, deeply embedded thoughts. But thoughts, nonetheless. And thoughts can change.

Think about some of the things you used to believe. In Santa Claus. The Easter Bunny. The Tooth Fairy. At one point, those beliefs were absolutely real to you. And then, at some point, they changed. New information came in. Your perspective shifted. And the belief went with it.

Your other beliefs can change too. Including the ones that are holding you back.

Here is something worth considering: How do you know what you know?

How do you know that you are not creative? Not good with money? Not the kind of person who succeeds at things? Not lovable enough? Not smart enough? Not capable enough?

How do you know?

Somebody told you. And you believed them. Just like the artist believed his teacher. Just like the elephant believed the chain.

Most of our beliefs were not consciously chosen. They were handed to us. By parents. By teachers. By friends. By the culture we grew up in. By experiences we had before we were old enough to evaluate them clearly. They are hand me downs. And like any hand me down, some of them fit beautifully and some of them are long overdue for letting go.

The Hypnosis of Belief

Here is something I find endlessly fascinating as a hypnotherapist.

All belief is a form of hypnosis.

When someone you trust and believe in tells you something, again and again, with enough authority and repetition, you will eventually accept it as fact and act accordingly. That is hypnosis. And it happens to all of us, all the time, whether we realize it or not.

If you believe that making money is somehow wrong or shameful, your mind will find ways to stay poor. If you believe you are the kind of person who always struggles, you will find evidence for that everywhere you look. If you believe you are not good enough, that belief will quietly shape every decision you make, every risk you take or do not take, every relationship you allow yourself to have.

And if you believe, like the young businessman with the worthless check, that you are backed by something powerful and real, you will act accordingly. You will negotiate. You will close deals. You will find a way through.

The belief does not have to be based on external reality to be real in its effects. The businessman’s check was worthless. But the belief it created was priceless.

How Hypnotherapy Can Help

This is exactly where hypnotherapy comes in.

Much of what I do in my practice is essentially de-hypnotizing people from the beliefs that are creating unhappiness and limitation in their lives.

Beliefs like I cannot quit smoking. I cannot lose weight. I am too afraid to try. I am not good enough. Life is a struggle. I do not deserve success.

These are not facts. They are deeply embedded beliefs. And in a relaxed, focused hypnotic state, we can go directly to the subconscious mind where those beliefs live and begin to update them. To replace the old, limiting programming with something new. Something more aligned with who you want to be and the life you want to live.

It is not magic. It is neuroscience. And it works.

A Practical Exercise

Before we close, I want to give you something practical to take away from today’s episode.

Here is an exercise that I find incredibly useful and that I sometimes recommend to clients.

Set aside some quiet time and get a journal or a piece of paper. Write down your most strongly held beliefs. About yourself. About money. About relationships. About what is possible for you. About what you deserve. About how the world works.

Write them all down. Do not edit yourself. Just let them come.

Then, next to each one, ask yourself this question: How do I know this?

Where did this belief come from? Is it something I consciously chose? Or was it handed to me? Does it still apply to my life as it is now? And most importantly, is this belief working for me?

If the answer is yes, keep it. If the answer is no, or not anymore, then it is time to consider letting it go. And if you are not sure, sit with it. Keep asking the question.

Because here is the thing. You are going to believe in something. That is just the nature of being human. We are belief making creatures. We cannot help it.

But you get to choose what you believe. You get to evaluate your beliefs, question them, update them, and consciously replace the ones that no longer serve you with ones that do.

That is not just possible. It is one of the most powerful things a human being can do.

In Closing…

Your beliefs are not your truth. They are your programming. And programming can be changed.

The artist who gave up painting for forty years believed a lie. The elephant that could snap its chain with a flick of its massive head believed a lie. And the young businessman who turned his entire life around on the strength of a worthless check believed something that was not true either. But at least his belief was working for him.

The question is not whether you have beliefs. You do. We all do. The question is whether your beliefs are lifting you up or holding you down. Whether they are opening doors or keeping them closed. Whether they are the chain around your leg or the check in your pocket.

You are the authority on your own life. You get to decide what you think. What you believe. And what you are willing to let go of.

Choose wisely.

I will leave you with two quotes from a man who was never afraid to question his own beliefs, or anyone else’s. George Carlin.

First: “The reason I talk to myself is because I am the only one whose answers I accept.”

And second:  “Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.”

Until next time, remember: your mind is powerful. Use it on purpose. And take care of yourself, because the world needs the best version of you.

Ted

P.S. In case you didn’t know, you can watch this on video here at YouTube. Or, Listen to this podcast on Spotify, Apple podcasts, Soundcloud and iHeart Radio