As I mentioned in this week’s podcast episode, I am currently working on my beliefs. I have a lot of shitty old beliefs that are keeping me from becoming my best self. I am ready for a system upgrade! I want beliefs that support my work to be a general bad ass.
In order to overhaul my beliefs, I have to actually identify the beliefs that I have been lugging around for most of my life. My beliefs have spent most of my life lurking in my subconscious, but I have found a few ways to lure them out of the darkness.
(1) I journal. I write, What are my beliefs? or What beliefs do I need to address? And then I wait. My inner voice then offers up a belief and I basically write the transcript for my inner voice.
(2) Second, I call up strong memories and journal about them. In Episode 23, I talked about the day in the second grade when my school principal, an Irish nun, called me and a few other kids to the front of class and announced that we were not getting communion. That was a shaming moment and the memory of it brings up intense feelings. It was a defining moment in my life. I didn’t realize it at the time – I was eight years old! – but that day, I internalized a belief about needing to fit in. I went home and sulked and begged until my parents agreed to let me take first communion. I was so happy! I fit in again. But now I am 42. Now I prefer being authentic over fitting in. Writing about the strong second grade memory helped me identify and release a shitty old belief.
(3) The Tarot also helps me identify my beliefs. I love using my Tarot deck as a tool for tapping into my intuition. I shuffle the deck, spread out the cards, and ask, What belief do I need to work on? Then I pick a card and start journaling about my immediate reaction to the card. For example, last Sunday I picked a card that depicted three men doing construction work on an interior that was part of a church. I immediately thought, I have to release my beliefs about the authority of old institutions. I have to start believing in myself.
I kept journaling about the Tarot card I had pulled. I realized that all my life, I have subconsciously believed in “the authorities” over my own judgment. That’s why I went to law school and practiced law for eight years. I wanted to please my parents, and I thought they preferred that over my call to be a writer. And more: I wanted to please society. Society had laid out a clear path to success. Who was I to dispute what society said I needed? But I want to believe in myself now. I don’t want to keep deferring to the authorities, whether they are my parents, the Catholic Church, my kids’ teachers, society, friends, social media, etc. etc.
(4) I am currently listening to not one but two of Jen Sincero’s books. I read a couple of her books years ago, before I had kids, and loved them. A couple of weeks ago, I started focusing on my beliefs as my next area of self-work. Around the same time, I got a strong longing to read Sincero’s books again. I downloaded one audiobook from the library and bought another on Audible. HOLY SHIT. She writes extensively about beliefs in the book I bought yesterday! Damn, I love when my muse tells me what book to read and it’s exactly the book I need for the work I am doing.
(5) I have been using the Noom app for nearly a year now and it has helped me address a lot of the beliefs I hold about food. My beliefs about foods have helped me discover some fundamental beliefs about myself.
Identifying my beliefs is going to take a lot of patience. After all, my beliefs have been hiding in the darkness of my subconscious for most of my life. But I can be patient. Now that I have found a few shitty beliefs, and felt the catharsis of letting them go, I want to replace all my shitty beliefs with new radiant beliefs help me become my best damn self.