Challenging our own BS.

We’re handed a lot of BS— Belief Systems— from our past. 

We’re handed BS about who we are. 

We’re handed BS about what we can and can’t do. 

We’re handed BS about whether we’re worthy— and what we have to do and be to BECOME worthy. 

When something is a belief, especially an old belief, we tend not to question it. It just feels “right.” 

Questioning familiar beliefs, even painful beliefs, often provokes anxiety. 

It can feel like we’re challenging or questioning people and institutions from our past who did NOT respond well to being challenged or questioned. 

Lots and LOTS of people walk around every day, afraid to challenge what they were taught growing up. 

What Belief Systems— or BS— from the past are you hanging on to? 

What BS from the past is limiting you now? 

What BS from the past is intruding upon your self esteem, your self confidence, or your relationships? 

When we really look at the BS we’re hanging on to from the past, we often realize that the person we learned those beliefs from may not be worth modeling or listening to. 

We learned a lot of BS from a lot of people who weren’t actually all that happy or functional. 

We learned a lot of BS from institutions that had agendas OTHER than our happiness or functionality. 

We learned a lot of BS from the culture around us— and those beliefs may or may not serve us as individuals who may or may not fit in to the culture at large. 

Changing how we feel and function every day means really looking at our beliefs, and reassessing whether they are true and functional. 

Sometimes we’ll buy into beliefs that we might not have any way to KNOW whether they’re true or not— and which definitely do not serve us in feeling good or functioning well. But the belief is familiar, so we don’t challenge it. We assume it must be “right.” 

If we’re going to challenge old Belief Systems, we need to be willing to sit with some anxiety. 

We need to be willing to give up some familiarity. 

We need to be willing to consider what life might look like if we let go of something someone taught us a long time ago, if that belief isn’t working for us. 

Sometimes we hang on to beliefs because we want to hang onto the memory of those people and institutions. 

We think that by letting certain beliefs go, we’re letting them go…and, in a way, we are. 

The thing is, we’re not designed to hang on to certain people and institutions indefinitely. 

We’re designed to outgrow things. To leave certain things in the past. To move past certain attachments and relationships. 

We can have mixed feelings about it. 

But when it comes to the Belief Systems we carry around with us every day, those Belief Systems that determine what we think, feel, and do every day…we need to be super clear on what’s working and what’s not. 

We need to get real about our BS. 

We need to get very aware of our BS. 

We need to be willing to challenge our BS. 

And we need to get crystal clear on new Belief Systems that WILL actually work for us going forward— Belief Systems we choose.