Today I want to talk to you about the difference between KNOWING AND BELIEVING. You see most of us assume they are the same thing, but they are not.
In fact, this might be the most important thing you ever learn about your brain!
I know what you're most probably thinking…
She's officially gone nuts. Knowing and Believing are irretrievably linked in the human mind.
And I hear you. To know something is to believe it…
Except when it's not.
Now, if we were on a phone call, I'd ask you not to hang up, to hear me out…
But since we're not, I'm just going to ask you to keep reading.
You see, I used to think that too, and then I became a hypnotherapist.
And even then, I didn't realise what I shift I had had in my understanding of our amazing minds and how they work, until I was describing the process of analytical hypnotherapy to a friend and this statement slipped on out…
‘Oh sure, your adult mind might logically KNOWS things, but your child mind BELIEVES, and often the knowing and the believing are not congruent.'
Yes – there may have been some bubbles (not the soapy kind) involved in that conversation, but it doesn't detract from the meaning.
Our minds are like a deep, deep ocean. There are a lot of things going on underneath the surface.
Sometimes, when the waves are massive, and the surface chopped up, it's obvious. But other times, everything can seem quite calm and peaceful, even though in the depths, the monsters lurk.
So, what am I referring to when I use the words KNOWING and BELIEVING?
Well, as adults, we sail on the top of that deep ocean. We are a product of it, but not conscious of everything going on within it.
As adults, we KNOW THINGS.
Things we have been taught. Things we have observed about the world. Things we have read.
We are continuously taking in information and processing it, and from that we take our knowing.
Knowing to me feels like a surface level thing. It just doesn't have the same level of emotional attachment as believing does.
Knowing is logical and analytical.
Knowing something does not normally cause people to take dramatic action in their lives.
Knowing does not cause people to take up arms and to rush into battle.
BELIEVING does!!!
Belief is the part that involves emotion. The bit that sweeps people up and breathes passion into them.
While knowing is more surface level and analytical, belief is our core.
It is what we believe about the things that we know that creates our actions, inactions or reactions.
To know the enemy is marching on the capital is one thing, but it is the belief they are going to rape and pillage and destroy everything you have worked for that will make you take action to avoid your approaching fate.
We think that that knowing we have as adults, is what creates our underlying belief systems, but that just isn't always true.
I'm not saying it can't be, I am saying it most often is not.
You see, our belief systems were formed very, very early. Hardwired into our brains from when we were still little children.
Things that happened to us then, are what shaped the way we see, and what we believe about the world.
Now the sucky thing about that, is that often those beliefs were formed as a protective mechanism. A way to survive a traumatic incident.
What we learned, when we were young and powerless, often led to us believing things about the world and about ourselves that does not serve us now.
And even more suckily, we still believe those things!!!
As an adult WE MIGHT KNOW we are smart and capable and successful…
Yet all of that IS FOR NOTHING if the child that still exists deep inside of us BELIEVES that we are unworthy, unlovable, and unimportant.
Can you see the issue this sets up in our lives?
On one hand we KNOW we are capable, and yet for some reason we cannot seem to find the motivation to do what we need to.
We find ourselves self-sabotaging, giving up before we have a chance to succeed, continuously chopping and changing, a victim to our shiny-object syndrome, and putting up with sh*t in our lives that it just doesn't make sense to put up with.
It is because our adult brain is being undermined by our inner child's beliefs.
And until you are able to uncover those beliefs, understand them, and dissolve them, then you are going to keep going around and around in the same patterning.
You might break free for a while, but sooner or later you will regress to where you are living a life that ultimately backs up that underlying belief system.
We are not made of the surface level of our mind. We are made up of each and every decision about the world and ourselves that we ever made, and most of those decisions are swimming deep, deep under the surface.
They are the monsters that lurk in the dark.
Imagine a timeline stretching from when you were a new born babe, till now. Along that timeline stands you, in many different ages. Every time a younger version of yourself decided something, they took a place on that timeline.
All of you are the collective that created your foundational belief system.
Everything you see in the world backs up that belief system, it is like a warped lens that you look through, whenever you observe something. Your back up thought processes.
Sometimes, things happen that allows us to have such a profound shift that we are able to recreate that belief system.
More often than not, it is more that we are able to adapt for a while, like a piece of elastic being pulled out of shape.
So, what do you do if you want to totally rewrite your belief system? is it possible?
Yes, of course it is.
There are many things that you can do that will get you started on that journey, and opening yourself up to the possibility is the very first step.
However, from my personal experience, talk therapy, self-development books and manifestations can only get you so far. You need to be able to become aware of the limiting beliefs that you have, and often they are trapped deep within your unconscious mind.
Even then it is not a one-off process. Because your belief system has been backed up and strengthened time and time again.
It is like peeling back the layers of the onion, working your way further and further down to the core.
But the effort is well worth it, because at the end, your foundational beliefs will align with, and support your adult knowing, and that is when the true magic begins.
Now, if you would like to talk some more about this, feel free to jump on my calendar to see how I can help you discover and shift these beliefs that are no longer serving you.
https://donnajoyusher.com/success-session
I look forwards to meeting you then.
In Your Corner
Donna Joy
