Deep-seated Belief

It’s already April, and at Experience Writing that means it’s time for NaPoWriMo (National (Global) Poetry Writing Month) and the A-Z Challenge.

This year, I’m looking at the A-Z of Depth. Have you started noticing all the different ways depth, deep, and deepen are used? Have you started seeing the words depth, deep, and deepen everywhere? I definitely notice them a lot. I’ll leave the definitions up for a few days as a reference.

Today, I’m talking about an abstract concept of depth: belief. We often hear people say “seeing is believing,” but we also believe in things we can’t see. Like in my photograph above: I can’t see much of anything through that fog, but I believe the lake, houses and trees are still there.

I was curious as to why humans have beliefs, so I found the article “What Actually Is a Belief? And Why Is It So Hard to Change?” at Psychology Today. In the article, Ralph Lewis M.D. wrote that beliefs are mental representations of patterns our brains “expect the world to conform to.” He also wrote that we evolved these templates (beliefs) as short-cuts so our brains (prediction machines) can conserve energy. I like the idea that beliefs are pattern recognition and short-cuts for understanding the world.

When people hear the word belief, they often think of religious belief, but there are different depths of belief. Let’s take a look:

Those deeper beliefs are often beliefs we don’t think about. Beliefs may have formed when we were children, before we really understood where they came from. We act on them as truths, and not always for our present benefit. These subconscious beliefs, called limiting beliefs, can stop us from doing things we want to do. But luckily, we can search them out and change them. I touched on this in my post 5 Steps to Deeper Discovery, but here’s another activity to try.

Identifying and Changing Beliefs (a short exercise to get started)

I adapted this exercise from Healing Through Words by Rupi Kaur _{( this is an amazon associate link: There’s a really amazing price on the hard-cover of this book right now)}. This exercise has helped me identify my limiting beliefs. It took me a few tries to make a break through. It’s a tool I will continue to use as I work to change.

1. List fifteen things you’re afraid of
2. Prioritize your list and choose the top five
3. Start with the number one fear on your list, set a timer for five minutes and answer these questions:
   Where does this fear come from?
   What specific incident is it connected to?
   How does it affect your life?
4. Now, set your timer for another five minutes and write to the fear directly. Thank it for how it has protected you in the past, but let it know that it is no longer helpful.
5. Read what you wrote, and ask yourself if this is really your greatest fear, or can you now identify your real fear, something that was lingering underneath.
6. Repeat the exercise for your newly identified deepest fear, or if you haven’t identified a deeper fear, continue down your list to your next fear.

Today’s Poem

Two Simple Categories

“It would be relatively simple if every reader knew to which category he belonged.”—C. G. Jung

From my desk where
I write each morning
I can only see out one half of a window.
The seal-broken, fogged pane
like a cataract
blurs the world.

Mr. Jung, you identify
only two types of human nature:
the Plato or the Aristotle;
the introverted and the extroverted.

From where I sit
the types are: those who have clear glass
and those who have fogged.
The impatient-pink spring blossoms
fill both windows
but only one can admire the petals.

This poem was inspired by today’s prompts at NaPoWriMo and Writer’s Digest’s April Poem a Day (PAD) Challenge.

Thank you so much for coming by and reading my post. Any thoughts or questions about Belief? Did you try the exercise? How did it go? Come back tomorrow for more depth exploration and poetry. Happy April.