I’ve been sharing with my congregation at Unity Center of Peace the concepts found in David Owen Ritz’ Keys to the Kingdom course which we are offering as a class on Thursday evenings. (This is a powerfully transformational course.  If you belong to a New Thought community, ask your minister to find out how he or she can bring it to your center.)  Last week, I shared about how to create a new vision for your life – an expansive vision that includes living your highest potential in all areas:  Finances, Relationships, Health, Career or creative self-expression, and personal or spiritual growth.

This week we will explore how powerful our vision can be in creating our experience of life – and what might be standing in the way of realizing that vision of our highest potential – namely, our deeply held core beliefs.  Here is Part 1 of the summary of that talk…

We all have deep core beliefs that color our perception of life – and not only our perception of life, but that actually create our experience of life.  For most people these beliefs are unconscious – they don’t even seem like beliefs – it just seems like our reality – what’s true for us.   But let’s explore the anatomy of a belief and see if we can see how our beliefs just may be limiting our good and getting in the way of our vision manifesting.

Our beliefs are like colored glasses with which we look at the world. To us, it’s not a belief – it’s just a fact of life – it’s your everyday experience.  And it keeps repeating, so it must be true.  (I put on yellow-tinted glasses.) If I didn’t know I was wearing yellow glasses, I would think that the sky really is yellow.  That would be my “fact.”  If other people say, no the sky is really blue.  I would think…we’ll maybe that’s your experience, but it’s not my life.  In my life the sky is yellow.”  So, for instance a correlating possible false belief might be: “The good things in life are not available to me.  Lucky people, famous people, people born in privilege – they have all the good. But that doesn’t happen to me.”

Owen Ritz says,“With your unconscious acceptance of this belief as a truth, your thoughts constantly reinforce and confirm your limiting belief as you observe and reflect upon the limited experience your belief has created.  These thoughts are like variations on a theme.  Each is a slightly different way you tell yourself that your limiting belief is really true.”  Thoughts such as…

“Nothing ever seems to work out for me.”

“Spiritual people shouldn’t want material things.”

“There’s never enough to go around”

“I must not deserve the good things others have.”

Ritz says “Your feelings and emotions often follow your thoughts, giving them power and further reinforcing them.  With these feelings, your false belief becomes fully energized.  You don’t just see your limitations; you feel their reality.  The intensity of your feelings may make it even more difficult to recognize the thoughts and beliefs behind them.   You might experience these feeling as:

Fear & worry
Frustration & Anger
Feelings of Unworthiness
Jealousy and Envy
Hopelessness or Helplessness”

We don’t always realize that our feeling and emotions come from our thoughts – often we think it’s the other way around. Actually our thoughts and feelings are a wonderful clue to finding deeply held false beliefs.  When you notice you are feeling some strong emotion,  stop a moment and see if you can trace it back to a thought – to a belief.  Also, you can listen to what you’re saying. For instance…

If you find yourself saying things like. “I knew this would happen.” Or “Some people have all the luck.” Or “I won’t even consider that because I can’t afford it.” Or, “It’s all who you know.” Or, “I can’t seem to catch a break.” Listen to what you’re saying.  You are affirming aloud your limiting beliefs.  AND you’re reinforcing them.

Finally your behavior naturally follows all the above and ensures that you continue to unconsciously create these limitations.  Some examples might be:
Performing below your true work ability.
Withholding your love or your abundance.
Poor financial planning
Not bothering to show up for something where an wonderful opportunity might be waiting for you.

When we look at the anatomy of a belief – we can see that beliefs are powerful indeed.   So, how do we uproot these limiting beliefs which are choking off our good, so that our vision can be realized?   We’ll explore that tomorrow in Part 2 of Building a New Awareness.