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What is belief?

Belief means different things to different people. Religion tells us that belief is faith in the power of God, that if we have faith and believe, all will be ok in Gods great plan. Spiritualists say that an unwavering belief actually attracts those same vibrations to you, and manifests in the form of what you were thinking about....whether it is good or bad.

Modern psychology, along with spiritualism says that belief is simply habitual positive thinking, and that it is vital to our mental well being, and doctors and psychologists are now only just starting to realise the link between positive thinking/belief and PHYSICAL well being. Although many are still reluctant to see this.
The unfortunate thing about the religious view of belief is that it seems to take the power away from us. In reality it doesn’t, but to these people the power is totally with God, and not within ourselves, therefore out of our control. They believe that everything that happens is Gods will and we shouldn’t question it. Prayer is a form of positive thinking in reality, and the people who practise this ritual believe in it fully and that all prayer will be answered, and become reality. If what they ask for during prayer doesn't happen, then that's God's will. I will go into this idea in more detail in another article.

The actual dynamics of belief are quite simple. A belief is simply a thought that is held in our minds for long enough to become habit. It matters not to our subconscious minds whether that thought is a negative thought or a positive one. It is a thought about one’s self, someone else or situation that is believed without question. If a person has thought for most of their life that they are unworthy, then that is their dominant belief about themselves and consequently their behaviour will reflect this, and unfortunately most people will react to them in the same way. If a person has held a thought in their minds that things will always go wrong for them, this is their belief about the world, and again their mind and body will conform to this thought, and they begin to behave in ways which causes things to go wrong. The subconscious mind can’t distinguish between past and future, real or imagined...so whenever we see, feel, and hear something in our minds, it is as though it’s actually happening. This fact is very important when it comes to changing the way we think.

In my article entitled “Multiple Personality Disorder and the Power of the Mind To Heal”, I explain how the physical and psychological traits of a person suffering from multiple personality disorder can change almost instantly as a different personality takes over. This change is so dramatic that it has led previous sceptical people to really begin to explore the power of the mind, and its link to the physical body. So it’s no wonder then that a long held belief can have such positive or negative effects.

In hypnotherapy, and other therapies of a similar nature, we use the minds natural ability to conform to any thought held for long enough as part of the healing process. A person under hypnosis is far more suggestible than normal, and can integrate new positive beliefs more easily. If you imagine for example a person who is scared of public speaking, they will constantly visualise themselves in front of an audience, stuttering, hyperventilating, sweating, and they will even imagine vividly how they expect to feel. If their mind believes anything that they hold in it for long enough, then this is how they behave. So one way we help them to change that image is to have them visualise the talk exactly the way they want it to be, to really get into the mental image, to see, hear and feel it all vividly, if this is carried out regularly this convinces the mind that this is how it will be...or should I say, how it IS! Don’t forget that the mind only thinks in terms of the present, and cannot distinguish between imagined scenarios and real ones. So anything that is imagined for long enough is taken as reality by the subconscious. The way you think can be utterly disastrous for yourself in many ways, or it can be extremely beneficial and life giving. Which way do YOU want to think?
You may be asking why our subconscious minds hold onto something that is harmful to us, so I will answer this question in a separate article. Please look out for it.

There are many other techniques we can use to help the subconscious change long held non-beneficial beliefs, and I will go through these in other articles I will post on here.

Also In another article, I will be explaining how belief can influence outside events that come into your life.