“Changing Our Beliefs Changes Our Lives” from The Doctor's Farmacy
“Changing Our Beliefs Changes Our Lives”
Source: The Doctor’s Farmacy | Shelly Lefkoe (Watch or Listen: 1 hr 3 min)
Contributor: Selena Garcia
“Beliefs are the foundation underneath every single pattern that you have” - Shelly Lefkoe
“I’m not good enough, I’m not loveable, I’m not ok.” These are common beliefs, and they are sneaky!
Description: “A belief is a statement about reality that we believe to be absolutely true—but that doesn’t mean that it is. A belief may be holding us back from reaching our goals and feeling truly content, and we may not even be conscious that we have it.”
Shelly Lefkoe and Dr. Mark Hyman break things down to help you understand what a belief is and how to explore them in your own life. They touch on the difference between meaning and belief while stating the obvious—you can’t get rid of your beliefs if you can’t identify them.
There are ways you can reframe a belief to create a different connotation to another’s behavior, and you can have beliefs on top of beliefs! It’s layered.
Shelly and Mark share personal stories of their own, demonstrating how to get to the source of a belief. Beliefs for which we build most of our patterns.
At the very end, Shelly offers a link to where you can eliminate a common belief of your own, for free. If you’re feeling so inclined, check it out!
“Anything you can see has a color, shape, and location. You cannot see a belief. That’s the difference between a belief and a pattern. You can see a pattern; you can’t see a belief.” - Shelly Lefkoe
(15:15) SHELLY: "Nobody cares about eliminating beliefs. We care about eliminating patterns. Things that we do that don't work. So, a pattern is observable. You can see somebody procrastinating. You can see somebody not speaking up for themselves. You can see somebody getting sick all the time. You can see somebody not taking care of themselves, not exercising, not eating well. Those are patterns, and that's what we want to change… I worked with five Harvard PhDs who had the belief, 'I am stupid.' They knew they weren't stupid. And I'm going to explain why our beliefs stay with us through 30 years of therapy. And that doesn't mean good therapy isn't good, and it doesn't teach you how to cope with life and be more effective in life; it can. What we do is very different. When you cope with things, you're building a building called 'Mark' or 'Shelly' or whoever is listening (Editor’s note: insert your name here!), on a shaky foundation, on shaky ground. And the beliefs are the foundation underneath every single pattern that you have. And here is why they stay with us even though we know better…"
(17:11) SHELLY: "We think that we see our beliefs in the world… anything you can see has a color, shape, and location. You cannot see a belief. That's the difference between a belief and a pattern. You can see a pattern; you can't see a belief."
(19:50) SHELLY: "The way most people try to change behavior is with information and motivation…. I'm gonna read up, I'm gonna learn everything about it and I'm gonna figure out how to be different. I'm gonna get motivated. If you want to stop smoking, you'll read a book about how to stop smoking, and then you get motivated. We're all motivated to live, and yet we don't wear seatbelts, we don't eat healthily… "We know better. Because we have beliefs that keep us from doing, being, and having all that we want to be, do, and have, particularly in the area of health. And I'm gonna give you some really good examples of beliefs that keep us from being healthy. But I want to complete this point about seeing. So, if you saw, if you think you saw, 'I'm not good enough. Shelly, if you were there, you would have seen that I'm not good enough.' And I go back, and we look, and we look at alternative interpretations, and we loosen up the beliefs, and then we get to this place where you get, 'I never saw that I wasn't good enough, all I saw was my father criticize me every day.'"
(21:54) SHELLY: "And the only place that 'I'm not good enough.' lived was in your mind. You made that up."
(1:00:14) SHELLY: "Remember, anything you can see has a color, shape, and location. You cannot see a belief. That's the difference between a belief and a pattern. You can see a pattern; you can't see a belief."
FOR THE FULL TALK, WATCH OR LISTEN HERE. (1 hr, 3 min)
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