Embodied Living Part 4: Belief is Everything

The complexity of being a human BE-ing and why it all boils down to belief

Hi there, this is my fourth post on Embodied Living, my journey of piecing together my thoughts as I have navigated deconstructing Christianity, deconditioning from internalised beliefs and healing from deeply seated wounds. This writing reflects the shift in my spiritual growth and awakening that comes from this and how this has in turn given me the freedom to pursue, create and slowly begin to live a life that allows for greater authentic expression and more embodied spirituality.

I am not putting this out there as the way but using this space to make sense of ideas and thoughts that are swirling around in my head as I discover my way. I feel like I am on to something and I write as usual for myself because it helps me make sense of and create a cohesive narrative of my life (therapists say this is a good thing) and for anyone else it may benefit.

Comments are open so please feel free to leave your thoughts as it helps me reflect more deeply on my own.

Thank you for being here and reading.

PS. Visit this page to read earlier parts of Embodied Living.

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The thing with Belief

As far as I am aware, human beings are the only species on earth who operate from belief and while this is what gives us so much power, it also disempowers us and keeps us stuck.

Belief is everything.

Belief shapes and controls our everything.

Many people have and continue to write books on the role and power of belief and on reflection, if we look at all the problems and dilemmas we face individually and collectively, most if not all are problems of belief.

On some level, I realised this.

When asked at school to select three subjects to study that would later determine my undergraduate choice, I did not hesitate to choose psychology. It was a very personal choice, I needed to understand the whys behind my early life and ongoing lived experiences and believed the answers would be found within those theories and concepts.

It helped to a degree but tired of the innate pathologising and medical model used within traditional psychology, my interest shifted to applied and third-wave psychology of human potential, well-being and flourishing. Around that time, I also began to “do the inner work”. It was I believe about 2012, Western medicine had labelled me a hypochondriac because they had no idea what the hell was wrong with me so, I decided to find a way to heal and get better by myself.

I had started to blog then, I chose the name “On the Road to Healing” and began sharing my thoughts and journey online. Even though my writing was an interesting infusion of psychology and Christianity laced with experimental New Age/New Thought thinking and metaphysics, over time, I built a small community of people who resonated with or were inspired by my words and journey.

I had come through my first faith crisis and guided by my stint in the Messianic movement which had given me insight into Hebraic mysticism, my writing focused on learning to rest in the Divine Presence. I felt strongly within me that ceasing from striving and force, trusting in the Infinite and God’s Love, and discovering how our greatest desire to live life more fully could be found in teshuvah or returning to our sacred origin. What I was writing was pretty radical for the Christian space but nevertheless, it attracted people who wanted to work with me 1:1 and so, I fell into coaching.

But it wasn’t a one-way relationship. I found myself learning from my clients. One awakening was a realisation that every one of my clients, all women had experienced some form of childhood trauma or adverse childhood experience and were trying not to drag their baggage along with them through life.

Most had tried other things but as Christian women were limited to what kind of action they could take, I guess I was the closest and safest thing to woo-woo!

I noticed three core beliefs that were negatively impacting them:

1. beliefs about themselves

2. beliefs about God

3. beliefs about others/the world

Just one of these beliefs was problematic, but all three meant that these women were seeing repeat dysfunctional and self-sabotaging patterns in their health and wellbeing, relationships and work/purpose.

Most of them were ill but holding themselves together, they were strong, survivors or had recovered from illness. They carried so much weight. They had a point to prove. I saw myself in them. Working with them was like looking in the mirror at a version of myself from the not-so-distant past.

They knew something was wrong, that they wanted more, something different. As much as they yearned for and held up a vision of what they desired something held them back.

It was fear.

At the time I thought it was religious fear and anxiety that stood in their way, that their religious beliefs constrained them but now I know differently.

People who choose Christianity or any other belief system that has definitive answers and strongly adhere to it often do so because that person needs to have definitive answers in their life.

It fulfils a psychological need for safety.

Like myself, many of these women needed certainty, craved it to feel safe.

The problem wasn’t that their religion or religious beliefs constrained them, the problem was that they were afraid to question or even allow themselves to question these beliefs because of what their beliefs meant to them.

Maybe you have also experienced this, having your eyes wide shut because it felt safest to just ignore the truth in front of you. I can hold my hand up here for sure, which is why I knew the problem wasn’t their religion but (excuse me for using this cliche of a word), mindset.

But this can be applied to any deeply or strongly held belief, the more we believe it, the more we are afraid to question it or open our eyes lest we discover we are wrong.

Right vs Happy

There is a saying in the personal development world:

You can either be right or you can be happy.

I first heard these words from a coach I was working with and it took me a while to understand their significance.

Most people want to be right, more than they want to be happy, this goes back to the safety of knowing and the threat of uncertainty. We have popular sayings that recognise this dilemma such as “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t” which basically means, why risk it?

When people talk about wanting to be happy, they are talking about happiness that fits the constraints of their beliefs. We think we want to be happy but what we really want is to feel safe. True happiness entails letting go, not just what is outside of us but opening up to discover what lies within us. A good example is the #ChooseJoy and #JoyoverHappiness movement that was rife within Christian evangelical circles some years back. The idea here was that happiness was unsafe and unreliable that it positioned you in opposition to God’s word, was hedonistic and would lead you astray - you get the picture. But I bet each of those people, especially those who shouted the loudest secretly yearned for happiness yet were afraid of it. Too wild, too unpredictable, too messy, too chaotic. The cognitive dissonance reconciled itself by making happiness bad and joy (being content even in the crappiest of situations) the holiest and more God-like no-brainer.

This resulted in people who were super unhappy, remaining in toxic and sometimes abusive situations but who felt they were right. They justified their beliefs through scripture. It is why so many of us leaving evangelical Christianity or toxic religious belief systems struggle with letting go of particular doctrines particularly around right or wrong, a single truth and punishment such as hell. We don’t want to be wrong because being wrong is terrifying, it's safer to be unhappy. Unhappiness becomes our comfort zone.

I invite you to think about this for yourself, how do you respond when someone challenges a belief you hold quite deeply, how does it make you feel?

Threatened?

Like wanting to either punch them, argue with them or run away screaming with your hands over your ears?

The more I reflect on my psychology and patterns of experiences over the years, it becomes clear that what has kept me stuck is the inability and fear to question deeply held beliefs, to allow myself to be open to new ideas, to go inwards. I can never forget a penetrating question asked within a coaching container I was once a part of:

What are you afraid of letting go that's causing you to feel XYZ?

What would open up or expand for you, if you chose to let it go?

The fear we feel and the desire to be right is linked to our need for safety which in turn comes from our earliest experiences and the beliefs they created. That is why deconstructing your faith is an act of so much courage especially if you grew up with it as your truth.

Even back when I was coaching these women, I realised that there was something else going on for them just as there was for me. Recognising that I needed to understand these subconscious and unconscious processes, I decided to study towards a diploma in Cognitive Hypnotherapy.

And what a powerful initiation that year of study became for me. Surrounded by people who thought differently to me, believed differently to me and saw differently to me, I began to allow myself to ask questions and hold doubt like I had never before allowed myself to.

I was beginning to awaken.

…To be continued

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Thank you for reading this post and please watch out for the next part. If you have enjoyed it please like it and leave a comment. You can also support my writing by sharing it with others on Substack or social media.

Warmest regards and gratitude,

Florence x.