Reply To: Exercise 6: Unwanted Beliefs
Evelyn’s Beliefs that Led to Undesirable Emotions
-How did this exercise compare with writing your beliefs?
This one took me longer to get at any meaningful answers. Also, this one tended to reveal beliefs that revolved around the same topic whereas my answers for the first exercise were more diverse. Finally, the beliefs I worked through in this exercise tended to start with beliefs about myself, whereas beliefs about myself were infrequently identified in the first exercise.
-Were you able to separate your beliefs from the emotions they provoked?
Yes. No problem. I’ll note, though, that I rarely identified a name for the undesirable emotion; there was a neuroceptive sense of “yuck,” and that’s what I went with.
-Were you able to separate your beliefs from your identity?
Yes. I know who I am/ who I really am. I know how to recognize the beliefs that align with this truth and those that don’t. However, the belief cluster that I found most dense was definitely tied in with my ego’s most pressing insecurities.
-How did you feel while thinking about the beliefs and emotions?
I felt: resistance, resignation, self-criticism, self-forgiveness, clarity, and empowerment.
-How did that feeling change over the course of the exercise, if it did?
See: sequence of emotions listed above.
-Did awareness of the belief make the emotions stronger? Weaker? Different?
Awareness of the cluster of ‘apex’ beliefs (for the sake of this exercise) made their power over my life weaker. Bring a thing into the light from the shadows and it’s much easier to recognize its true shape; once you recognize its true shape, you usually see that it’s much smaller and more feeble than it was when it was hiding in obscurity, which in turn makes it less powerful. I’ve been through this process before, but never by this route. It was neat-o.
-Where and how might you apply your experience in the rest of your life?
I’m already changing the behaviors that revolve around the cluster beliefs I spent most time reflecting on this week. In other words, I can use this experience for self-improvement. I can also use the framework to help bring shadowy beliefs into the light: next time I’m feeling an unwanted emotion, one question I can ask myself is “what is the belief that led me here?”