Core Beliefs and Your Optimal Health
Your core beliefs are paramount for self knowledge and healing. At True Nature, an important piece in the process of healing any challenging health condition is the definition and refinement of long-standing core beliefs. Everything you believe affects what you think, feel and do and has a relationship with your holistic health.
You are one of a kind
Core Beliefs are at the Heart of Everything We Do
We begin to develop core beliefs in the very early years of childhood. Most core beliefs are based upon our understanding of how to hold on to and maintain the provision of our very foundational needs...as a child, those are typically food, shelter, and attention. When we begin to learn by experience what is motivating our parents, siblings, and other significant others, we formulate beliefs about ourselves in the world which are centered around pleasing these powerful people/forces in our lives. If I am "this", then "that" will happen is the rudimentary understanding that is reached in childhood. The problem is that most of us never re-examine the beliefs that are set at this very early, vulnerable time in life when we are at the mercy of others to care and provide for us. As adults, we are often still functioning with beliefs that no longer serve our greater purpose in life, nor our choices to feel and behave in certain ways. These beliefs are held sub-consciously and we are most often unaware of their strongholds until we enter a conscious process of discovery and challenge.
To explore and expand in this area brings empowerment not only in our psychological and spiritual selves, but in our physical selves as well, thereby enhancing healing. It has been well documented that all energies of a human being combine to become the full operative system. Well known writers such as Bruce Lipton and Caroline Myss have defined how energy begets energy and how we live on all levels is how we are. If there are mental/emotional/spiritual energies that do not serve us, they will integrate with our physical bodies, making our biography our biology. But we have the power to change how we are, on all levels, by drilling down to what is generating our behavior and current reality.
Gandhi put it beautifully when he stated, "Your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your values, your values become your destiny." This is a never-ending cycle, repeated so many times daily that it would be nearly impossible to witness and count every cycle. Literally every thing we do is motivated by a belief, thought and feeling.
Possibly the #1 Dysfunctional Core Belief
Let's look at a few very common core beliefs which create dysfunctional thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Perhaps the #1 belief I encounter in this practice with clients is "I am not worthy.".
This is an unfortunate outcropping of children looking at the system in place around them and determining that those who hold the power are not interested in hearing their experience. Very few of us have grown up with a solid experience of being heard and valued for what is happening to us. The larger body of experience is that parents (innocently, mostly, and sometimes not) are afraid of their children's feelings, afraid of what it means to acknowledge feelings day in and day out, and are using methods that will dismiss or quiet the expression. Children are quite innocent in their feeling of life...they seek to just know that something they have felt is real, and when the response from the outside is that it's silly, not okay, selfish, not real, or not convenient, they often internalize that this force that feels so right and so tangible to them is "nothing", also often becoming internalized as "I am nothing".
As the years go by, this belief takes on the teenage and adult layers of meaning, adding power and more dysfunction to all thoughts, feelings, and actions. Poor self awareness, poor self love, poor acceptance of others, and poor health are typically the result. All of these can lead to addiction, poor lifestyle choices, poor relationships and lack of purpose in life. All the while, an adult may be completely unconscious as to what is driving the results when he or she is perfectly capable of seeing that the results are not what they desire.
Until beliefs are explored at their base and through a willingness to feel the pain of how they started, they subconsciously stimulate all thoughts, feelings, and actions.
Some examples of thoughts and feelings that may stem from such a core belief are:
I am jealous of people who are "worthy"
I hate my own feelings
I need to repress my feelings in front of my family/loved ones because they don't like them
I will never be happy or at peace
I resent my family/loved ones
Life is hard
And so on...
Some examples of feelings that may stem from these thoughts are sadness, anger and fear. These feelings may then lead to an endless list of behaviors, none of which are producing joy, peace or optimal health. It is also quite common that the feelings take over, either being repressed or given too much power in one’s experience.
There is is an analogy that is very fitting for how important the core belief is to realizing a life of flow and integrity with what matters to us - and that is the axle of a car. The axles are driven off the performance of the engine and transmission. The axles then drive the wheels…which take you (along with steering!) to where you want to go…The core belief wheel also takes you where you want to go - with a healthy supply of fuel to your own engines and a healthy core belief which moves the wheel to healthy thoughts, feelings and behaviors.
The Process
In the True Nature Process, in addition to working on core physical health, we partner together also to look with both careful and compassionate eyes upon all types of beliefs which may be impacting the ability to achieve optimal health in both body and mind. (Core Belief discovery may also be added on as a single service or in combination with other services.)
This is a fascinating process wherein specific questions open an inquiry and support you to step into greater awareness of your beliefs/thoughts/feelings/behaviors. These questions and the steps that follow were developed over decades of personal and professional exploration. We don't "blame" the past for creation of what is now, but rather honor where things originated with clarity and conviction to change. We "turn" a dysfunctional core belief into something that is of our own choosing and creates light and inspiration inside ourselves. We must work this process in order to allow the conscious mind to move subconscious material that is unhelpful to a successful life.
Here are a few of my favorite "turns" from working with people who have held a belief of being nothing...
"I am a creature of creation, embracing all my experiences with gentleness."
"I am a powerful, feminine force in this world."
"I am love and life itself."
"I am magic and alchemy in action, and patient to witness it."
These bold, beautiful statements are not just mere affirmations, they are personally created core beliefs reflecting individuality which was found in a true nature discovery process. They become replacements of unconscious, unhelpful beliefs that may have been held for a long, long time. The discovery process we use together at True Nature is one which has been refined over decades of practice.
Please take some time to be with the True Nature Core Belief Wheel and ponder how this process may benefit you in your healing and optimal health. For more information on this and other healing processes, please email me at julie@truenaturehealthconsulting.com. We offer holistic telehealth services.
The True Nature core belief wheel