Want Inner Peace? Cleanse Your Beliefs.

By Lion Goodman

I asked my friend, Philip Hellmich, creator of The Shift Network’s peace initiative, “How’s the peace business?” Without batting an eye, he responded, “Terrific! The demand has never been greater!” We both laughed, acknowledging that we need peace now more than ever before — both outer peace, in the world, and inner peace, inside ourselves.

As a pattern detective, I look beneath every human predicament, experience, and feeling to find the cause of the matter. I usually find it in the beliefs of the individual, group, or culture.

We are all aware that religious beliefs have driven people to kill each other, century after century. The cause of this human tragedy is the belief, “My way is right, yours is wrong. If you don’t realize the errors of your ways, I have to kill you to stay safe.”

Our internal beliefs also cause great suffering at the personal level. Negative self-beliefs, such as “There’s something wrong with me,” or “I’m unworthy of love,” can cause anxiety, depression, relationship problems, failure, and many other ills.

There is a lot of talk about “limiting beliefs,” but the fact is, all beliefs are limiting.

Beliefs separate this from that. Even a simple belief, such as “That is a cat,” limits the world by drawing an arbitrary circle around a part of the universe, and labeling it. This is built into the structure of language.

You can see this process at work when a child learns to talk. A mother points out a furry animal with four legs and a tail, and says, “That’s a cat.” The child repeats the word: “Cat!” Then, the child sees another furry animal with four legs and a tail, and with great glee, says, “Cat!” Mother corrects her: “No, honey, that is a dog!” The child learns to distinguish one group of furry four-legged animals from another, dividing the world into cats and dogs, this and not that. But where does a mountain lion fit in? We keep dividing and labeling, until the world is fractured into millions of bits.

Language has great power. We identify patterns and assign a name to them. Now, we can communicate with others by using the names (rather than carrying around the objects, or pointing to them). This simple innovation allowed human beings to advance from the stone age to the industrial age to the space age to the information age.

This powerful linguistic habit also causes us to divide ourselves into pieces. We label ourselves, and then we believe the label. We cut ourselves off from our infinite possibilities when we say, “I’m not good with numbers.” “I can’t play the piano.” “I’m just a working man.” “I’m not attractive.”

We do the same to others: “He’s a jerk.” “She’s gorgeous.” “He’s a nerd.” “She’s an atheist.”

It’s a very small step from dividing people into categories and labeling them, to judging that particular category of “others.” We are taught by our culture to believe that one category is better than another. “Those Jews…” “Those Muslims…” “Those gays…” “Those straights…” “Those men…” “Those women…”

Those of us on the spiritual path (another arbitrary category!) know the higher truth intellectually: We are all one. Every human has value. Everyone is whole and precious. We all belong to the human family.

However, our language prevents us from seeing the world holistically. We are so good at labeling aspects of ourselves and others that we slip into judgement as easily as slipping into a warm bath. “Ahhhh…. It feels so good to judge them. I feel much better about myself!”

William Blake wrote, “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite. For man has closed himself up, ‘til he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern."

How do we free ourselves from our cavernous prison? By recognizing that the world is not what I say it is, or how I perceive it. Nor is it what anyone else says it is. People are not objects to be divided up and labeled. Even I am not what I believe myself to be.

This truth has been said in many ways: You are much larger, more beautiful, and more glorious than any belief you have about yourself... or any belief you could have about yourself.

Our spiritual quest is a drive toward this truth: all distinctions are arbitrary, all language is limiting, and all beliefs are not the truth — they are simply tools of language. They are useful at the moment. If we carry them around, they become a burden of limitations.

We suffer when we believe in our own limitations — because believing them makes them so. A person who believes, “I’ll never play the piano,” is right, because they will never study, take lessons, or practice the piano (which would enable them to do so). We remain stuck in our language-world, and that restricts our vision. We see limits and divisions rather than glorious wholes.

Peace will come to us when we can let go of the binds and strictures of language and beliefs. When we cleanse the doors of our own perception, we will see everything as it is: infinite. In that moment, there is no war inside of us, and no need for war in the world.
 

Lion Goodman, PCC, is a pioneer in the field of belief-change. He offers many programs, including a training for coaches and healers, the Clear Beliefs Coach Training, which begins on May 1. Click here for more details.

Lion will be leading a Live Q&A call on how to create powerful, permanent transformation in your clients and yourself on Thursday, April 12, at Noon Pacific.

Please join Lion to hear thoughtful and compelling questions about how to clear beliefs, heal core wounds, eliminate habits of mind, and remove resistance and blocks that interfere with forward progress. Click here to join the LIVE Q&A.