How Beliefs Are Formed

From the ages of 0 to 5 you were like a sponge, absorbing and accepting the information around you without question at an unconscious level.

You were essentially being programmed by your world and the people in it. Patterns were created and beliefs and programs formed. Many of these patterns exist as neurological pathways through which you experience and create your world and are with you still today.

First of all, you were imprinted with the mental and emotional state of your mother. Until about two or three years old you felt whatever she felt. You experienced the world as she did, like an extension of her being, experiencing her thoughts and feelings on a deeper level whether you wanted them or not.

Those first five years were critical to the formulation of beliefs that still exist for you today for several reasons.

At that age you couldn’t evaluate for yourself. You didn’t have the ability to rationalize logically or question anything. You had no way of knowing whether what you were about to believe was really true or not.

Furthermore, as a child you think the world revolves around you. If there is disharmony, neglect, or dysfunction, in whatever form that may take, you think that the problem is because of you. You think that it is because you are bad, wrong, or not good enough in some way.

Any pain you felt, either from punishment directly (verbal abuse, criticism, spanking) or indirectly (such as withholding affection – can be just as painful), became stamped into your consciousness in the form of a belief. It became internalized.

You may have come to believe that love equals pain, or that who you are is not good enough, unlovable or unloving. Your belief was fused with feelings of pain, hurt, sadness, rejection, and so on.

You were a blank slate colored by these experiences, the more intense the experience, the bigger the impact and the more defining and powerful the beliefs and programs that were created.

These programs continue to play out in your life today. Your beliefs do not diminish over time.

Sensitive as you were, you felt deeply at such a young age. You didn’t have a thick skin to protect yourself. Sadly, you may have gone on to create a thick skin to numb yourself from what you perceived as a painful or frightening world.

This means you may also be numb to the depths of beautiful and wonderful feelings and experiences life has to offer. When you cut yourself off from feeling painful feelings, you can cut off the light feelings too; the love, joy, peace, bliss, harmony, etc.

Parents are never perfect. They don’t always know how to do it best, and even those that are more conscious, wise and loving still fall short from time to time. Fatigue, hormone changes, mood swings, stress, and being human can lead to irritability and angry outbursts. It’s impossible to be loving all the time.

Your parents may very possibly simply not known how best to raise a child. Parenting skills, though greatly improving, have left little to be desired in the past. Your parents may not have known how to help you understand your own value and worth, or how to help you express your feelings and needs in healthy ways.

With a foundational belief such as “Love equals pain‟, or “I’m unlovable”, as examples, you may have difficulty receiving, allowing and experiencing love or creating any kind of oasis of love in your life. No matter how hard you try, the change doesn’t seem to happen. Trying in itself indicates that you lack belief or expectation in receiving love. Otherwise there would be no need for effort, and you would simply allow and receive love. Love can feel like a futile quest, and you may even begin to give up, perhaps not always consciously.

Beliefs and scripts from a young age can be shaping your experience, and it can be a catch 22 situation. Your beliefs create more of the same which further compounds those very beliefs. The patterns get repeated again and again.

It starts with awareness and then choice, as well as forgiving yourself and others if that supports your transformation process. You can become aware of the limiting beliefs that are running as patterns and programs in your life and choose new beliefs that serve you and reflect who you truly are and your heart’s deepest desires. You can create a whole new life for yourself.

Lots of love,

Aine