Reply To: Exercise 4: Write Your Beliefs
Beliefs Exercise: by Evelyn Wallace
Did you notice any trends or patterns?
A little over eight years ago, I experienced a before-and-after pivotal life moment: witnessing the death of a friend. At that point, and in the months that followed, I recognized that most of my beliefs about the world were fluff and had been taught to me indirectly by a world that didn’t recognize it was propped up on fluff. I rebuilt my worldview from the ground up at that point: do we really need money? If so, why? What is life all about, anyway? What are these rules for and who made them up? Who do I want to be in this world? That’s all to say: the trend of examining my beliefs is an arc that spreads over eight years.
The trends and patterns I noticed in this exercise was that most of the rebuilding I did in that initial awakening era still hold. There was a frequent undertone of gratitude acceptance, and spirituality. Other beliefs felt more temporary (“I believe the kids are hungry”) and negotiable (i.e. they wouldn’t be hungry soon).
Did you notice unexpected beliefs?
This might be the part of the exercise that I improve upon with time. It might be that I unwittingly suppressed beliefs that I found distasteful, or it might be that I’ve come far enough on the spiritual path that I can have a thought (“this grad school group project is pointless”), decide whether that’s who I really want to be (“this group is not satisfying in the way other groups are satisfying, but that’s okay, and I’m grateful for what it is and not upset about what it isn’t”), then uncover the underlying belief (“life provides what we need when we need it, even if it doesn’t look how we wanted it to”).
Did you notice the difference between beliefs and strategies?
Yes! I definitely had to rework my language around how I was identifying beliefs. There was a lot of judgment at first about what other people could and should do. At first, I would think of my belief as something like, “La Grande is 4-miles wide and most of us should be able to bike everywhere.” But when I was led to identifying the underlying belief, I recognized that I believe that human life does not necessitate toxic pollution.
How do beliefs work?
Great question… for a doctoral thesis! Beliefs are the framework that our lives fit within. How about a bite-sized, tangential story:
At one point this week, I was texting with a very good friend whose Christian identity is his primary identity. When he wrote something somewhat flirty, I recommended he find himself a good Christian woman who could make him spaghetti; then I told him I knew of places where such women gather weekly. He wrote back “the devil herself is telling me to go to church!” I asked if he really thought that, and he didn’t deny it. Later in the day, he sent me something biblical about Satan wanting to destroy things. My question is: why would he ever want to hang out with me? I believe that he’s got me all wrong, but that’s his right.
Maybe the short answer to the actual question is: beliefs inform our thinking, and our thinking informs our behaviors. Sometimes in seemingly irrational ways. Maybe my friend believes that hanging out with the devil is more fun than hanging out with good Christan girls?
How do beliefs affect your life?
That depends on whose beliefs the question refers to.
If the question refers to my beliefs, then my beliefs affect my life by essentially framing what kind of life I lead. I believe every day on earth is a gift, and some of those days, the rain comes down. I do not spend breath complaining about rain—or any weather pattern. Sometimes, when I have to put on all the extra layers to stay dry on my bike, I have a moment of inner-grumble laziness; but that is inevitably followed by the well-earned satisfaction of feeling the rain on my person, moving through space through nature, powered by my own strength and by the ingenious employment of that strength through a manmade machine (i.e. my bike). Plenty of other people believe that rain—or any other weather pattern—is a pain; I know this because I hear them complain about it. In this way, their beliefs about the rain are very much different from my beliefs (as evidenced by their complaints about it versus my biking through it), and my beliefs affect my experience while their beliefs affect their experience.
If the question refers to the beliefs of others, let’s pick up on the last example. Do their beliefs about the rain also affect my experience? I suppose the answer is yes. People driving by, wafting poison into the air I am directly breathing does, in fact, affect me. Sometimes they drive too fast or too close and splash large buckets of water out of puddles and onto me. Inversely, my beliefs (as manifested in my actions) affect them in that they have to slow down and/ or give me space to pass.
Another example:
There was recently a presidential election. My belief that external circumstances need not affect (in any long-term way) my inner state paired with my belief that humans tend to behave in predictable patterns across time and cultures allowed me to experience November 6th with the same grateful state of mind as I had experienced November 5th. Knowing that many did not feel such equanimity leads me to suspect that we are working with different belief systems, and it makes me curious to examine what those belief systems might be.
Where and how might you apply this exercise in the rest of your life?
I am eager to examine the behavior of others through this beliefs-model. I predict it will help me connect at an even deeper level to our shared common interests and will help broaden my compassion for those whose worldviews have seemed incomprehensible to me in the past.