https://www.stephanieablett.com/blog/2021/6/15/whats-the-key-to-true-happiness-investigating-your-beliefs
What’s The Key To True Happiness? Investigating Your Beliefs
It’s 2021 and we’re almost on the other side of a global pandemic and we are READY for authentic joy and happiness in our lives. We’re craving it, big time. So what will it take to get us there? What will it take to find our way to a fulfilling life of joy, peace and happiness? The answer is not complicated, but it’s also not easy.
Finding our way to authentic joy and happiness takes investigation, dedication, compassion and trust. It takes time and self love. But if you’re willing to do the work, let me tell you, you will find it. You will find the life you’ve been looking for all along.
When we’re born, we’re born with our slates wiped clean. We have no recollection of any lives we’ve lived, outside of this one, and we have no idea who we are or what we came here to do. We don’t remember anything about ourselves; about the greater aspect of ourselves or about our soul. We’re just empty slates and clean sponges, ready to soak up all that we see in the outside world.
We soak up all the beliefs, expressions, opinions, responses, reactions, etc. of those around us. We soak it all up and call it our own (not knowing that that’s what we’re actually doing). We often go through a large portion of our lives this way. That is, until we get to a place we’re not familiar with, that we can’t recognize, living as a shell of who we truly want to be.
When we get to this place of complacency, we’re hit with a deep yearning for more. We want TRUE happiness that feels authentic and fulfilling. So what do we need to do to get out of it? What do we need to do to find our way? Investigate our beliefs.
We have to unlearn all that we’ve learned; to unravel the persona we created that was a direct response to the outside world, our pain and our trauma. We have to examine what our beliefs are and whether we truly believe them - and with that information, identify who we truly are.
Unlearning everything we know, everything we created for ourselves, is quite the process but it’s what allows us to build a solid foundation for the most fulfilling, authentic, joy inducing life! A foundation of utter truth and empowerment.
INVESTIGATING YOUR BELIEFS
Over the last few years, I have unraveled all that I thought I knew about myself. I have investigated, contemplated and questioned everything I thought I knew about who I am. It was one of the most profound experiences of my life and has led me to the most joyous, authentic version of myself I have ever lived.
There were so many beliefs I held about myself - and my place in this world - that held so much power over me but didn’t support me in any way, shape or form. They were beliefs that were ruled by fear, anxiety, guilt, shame, and confusion. They were ingrained in me from a young age and reinforced over the first couple of decades of my life.
These beliefs told me I would never amount to much because I was just not intelligent enough to make anything of myself. They told me I had nothing to offer, I was never good enough, I was selfish, I was too sensitive, I was lazy, I was not working hard enough, I didn’t know enough, and on and on and on. These were the thoughts and beliefs that ruled all of my decisions and therefore, ran my life.
How can anyone get anywhere when their inner dialogue is so self destructive?! And I know that I am not alone. I know that there are millions of people on this planet with the exact same thoughts - all being ruled by the same self defeating beliefs and behaviours. My guess is that you are too. Am I right?
When you begin to question who you really are and what you really believe, you awaken a yearning to know the truth. You begin to see that you don’t really know who you are at all, because you’ve never given yourself the chance to BE who you really are. You begin to realize that you’ve lived your life as a collection of all of your external experiences and influences.
Today I want to help you unravel that; to begin to create space for all that you REALLY are. It begins with investigating your beliefs. You owe it to yourself to give this concept some of your time and attention. There is so much you’re going to learn in the process.
INVESTIGATING YOUR INNER DIALOGUE
The first step to investigating your beliefs is to investigate what your inner dialogue sounds like. What sort of thoughts are you reinforcing on a daily basis? What thoughts do you think a thousand times per day? What is the chatter that fills your brain telling you? Take a few days - or a few weeks - and really pay attention to this. Write down all of the thoughts that happen multiple times per day. Begin to recognize the patterns of thoughts that are prominent. These are the thoughts that are reinforcing your beliefs and behaviours. These are the thoughts that may be limiting your potential.
Here are some journal prompts to get you started:
Today, the most prominent thought I had was...
The thought that repeated most today was…
The thoughts that dominated my mind when I looked in the mirror were…
When I became angry, the thoughts that were loudest were…
After I reacted, the thoughts that dominated were....
The first few thoughts that came to my mind when I woke up were…
You’re going to try and identify what beliefs you’re reinforcing the most. These beliefs will likely be definitive ideas - like not being good enough, not being smart enough, not being a good enough person, not being a good enough parent, etc. When they’re definitive, they’re telling you that there’s no space for error - that that makes you a bad person, period. These are the beliefs we want to identify and essentially reprogram.
The thing is, we are not definitive IN ANYTHING. That’s not how we work. We are not either good or bad, smart or stupid, worthy or worthless...we are HUMAN and we experience on a multitude of levels. We need to ALLOW ourselves to do so by letting ourselves out of the box we’ve put ourselves in with these definitive beliefs. We are way more complicated than that, and way more fantastic.
REPROGRAMMING YOUR BELIEFS
When you have identified your most prominent negative or limiting beliefs, write them all out in a list, in a journal or on a piece of paper. For each belief, you’re going to strike a line through it and write LIE underneath. Beside that belief, you’re going to write a NEW TRUTH. So, MY TRUTH =_______________ You’re going to tune inward and identify what your actual truth is in that belief.
For example, if your belief was that you were not good enough, your MY TRUTH statement might be I am always enough or simply existing makes me good enough because the truth is, YOU ARE. If you identify yourself as a piece of the whole; as a piece of the Universe, you have to see that you are the perfect expression of who you are. You came here to be YOU and this life is the only chance you get to BE this YOU. Honour that knowing and BE YOU, from this day forward.
When you’ve gone through the whole list and written all of your MY TRUTH statements, you’re going to make a new list on a new piece of paper that only includes your MY TRUTH statements. Make multiple copies of that list and hang them in your house where you will see them multiple times per day. Have one by the bathroom mirror, on your fridge, by your closet...wherever you know you will see it and read it multiple times a day. This will begin to reinforce these new truths - which will in time, replace your limiting beliefs and negative thoughts.
This exercise is powerful and most powerful when you really commit and surrender to it. Make an effort to stop yourself when you are thinking a negative thought or limiting belief. Stop yourself in your tracks and replace that thought with a new truth. This will begin to create new neural pathways in your brain that will reinforce these new beliefs. BOOM.
Let’s go over the process again:
Start to pay attention to your inner dialogue. Begin to record the thoughts that are most prominent or most repetitive in your day to day life. Identify the thoughts that are reinforcing negative behaviours or limiting beliefs.
Write out a list of all of those prominent thoughts and limiting beliefs.
With each prominent thought or limiting belief, you’re going to strike through it and write MY TRUTH = ______________________.
Take a new piece of paper or new document and write out all of your new truths.
Make copies of these new truths and put them up wherever you will be able to read them over multiple times a day.
Commit to catching yourself thinking the old belief and reinforce your NEW truth.
Allow your new truth to become your new beliefs, empowering you into a new way of living.
These processes are not new - they’ve been talked about by many people (Marie Forleo, Dr. Joe Dispenza, Brene Brown come to mind immediately). It’s a concept that is talked about in various ways, but it really works. I share this process with you because it’s one of the many ways I reprogrammed my brain and retrained my thoughts to be empowering and supportive. I found my way to my own truth and am now living the life that is most joyous and most in alignment with who I truly am - and I want that for you!
If you found this at all helpful, please share it around! Tell your friends and family members about the process and share your results. It’s time we let go of our outer experiences and align with our inner truths.
If you want to take this process even further by taking a deep dive into your beliefs, patterns and traumas, then make sure to check out my program RELEASE. This six week program is designed to help you heal behaviours and beliefs that limit your potential (that are attached to past traumas). Find out more about this program here.
Thanks so much for being here, and for being you. This world needs you in all your authentic glory.
xo!