I’ll be honest with you and tell you that, right now, I am overweight. I like to be 140lbs, or ten stone. At present, I am 155lbs – over 11 stone. When you are a vertically challenged person like me, a stone is a big deal. Until a few years ago I always struggled with my weight. I was a regular at a Slimming Club but never lost very much. Nothing I did worked, and I felt I was fated to always be overweight and struggling.

I’ll come back to the weight issue later. We all have beliefs about the world, ourselves and the way we fit into the world. The trouble is, we often behave as if these beliefs are the truth, instead of just concepts in our minds. Not only that, but we don’t realise we have the power to change what we believe. Worst of all, we don’t even realise what those beliefs are; we are entirely oblivious to them. And, because we’re oblivious to them, they wield even greater power over us.

Think about these beliefs:

If X happened, I wouldn’t be able to cope.

I’ve always been this way, and I always will.

Nothing I do ever seems to make any difference.

Sometimes it takes a real challenge to show you just how strong you really are. My divorce, thirty years ago now – years before I met my lovely husband, was a real trial by ordeal for me. At the beginning, I was terrified and convinced I would never be able to cope on my own. But somehow, I did and went on to create a successful life as a single and then find great happiness in my new marriage.

That experience changed the way I thought. I now have the confidence to think, “Whatever happens I will cope somehow.” This is far more empowering.

We can replace other beliefs too: The past is yesterday and today I can be a new person: my past does not dictate my future. My instance for this is that I am an alcoholic who hasn’t drunk for three and a half years. On 2nd February 2021, I became teetotal. On that day, the past stopped having power over my future.

If what I’m doing isn’t working, then I will try something else. About four years ago I adopted a low carbohydrate way of eating, lost weight successfully and kept my weight stable at 139lbs until I was put on steroids and ballooned. I still haven’t lost that steroid weight, but that’s because I haven’t gone back to my low carb way of eating. It was trying something different that worked for me.

When the drugs to control my bipolar condition didn’t work, my psychiatrist kept trying different ones until we got the right cocktail that does seem to work.

I’m sure I have a whole raft of negative beliefs I haven’t discovered yet, but when I do, I’ll try to turn them around into positive beliefs.

What are your experiences around positive and negative beliefs, and have you found consciously changing what you believe to be helpful?

Mary

A Moodscope member