Friday 11 May 2012

How To Create More Powerful Beliefs

We usually think of the word belief as similar to thought, so if you ask me what I believe, I can tell you. However, we actually believe things in two different ways. We believe them intellectually or rationally, and we believe them subconsciously or emotionally. When the two types of belief are in alignment, it’s easy to take action and move towards our goals. However, when there is disagreement between the two types of belief, we feel stuck and unmotivated, we procrastinate, and feel uncomfortable and stressed.

For example, suppose that you’d like to make more money, but you have a conscious belief that making over $200,000 is wrong, and that no one needs that much money. In order to change that, you’d first go to work on the intellectual belief ‘It’s wrong to make over $200,000.’ Many transformational books and workshops are designed to help you shift your intellectual beliefs by giving you new perspectives. Once you shift your intellectual belief, your emotional beliefs may shift as well, but often they do not.

A more likely scenario is that you believe intellectually that it’s fine to make over $200,000, but you have a subconscious or emotional belief that it’s wrong to do so. This might be because early childhood lessons included messages about wealthy people being mean, greedy, or evil. It might be the result of religious teachings. Or what if it was because you didn’t believe that you could ever be worthy of that much money, even if another person might deserve it? The thought of receiving that much money would cause you to feel like you would be getting something you didn’t deserve, and you may feel guilty or nervous about earning that much.

Unfortunately, emotional beliefs like this often sabotage us in ways that aren’t clear. All you may see is that your efforts to enhance your business or career just aren’t going anywhere. When given an opportunity to pursue a potentially profitable avenue, you may find excuses why it’s not a good idea or take half-hearted action.

You’ll need to use techniques that enable you to change the emotional reaction you have to a thought; in essence, you’ll need to change your emotional belief. Science has shown that the conscious mind only controls about 5% of what we do on a daily basis, whereas the subconscious mind – the home of the emotional response – controls 95% of what we do. If your emotions aren’t supporting your conscious goals, you’re proceeding with very little power.

One technique that can help with this is tapping, sometimes known as EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques.) Simply tapping on electrically sensitive spots on the face and body, called acupoints, has been shown to calm the amygdala, which is the fear center of the brain. Tapping even reduces the levels of cortisol, the stress hormone.

The theory is simple: when you think about something that causes you emotional upset, and tap, you’re re-programming your brain not to have that emotional reaction. This means that when you tap, fears at taking risks, fear of failure and rejection, irritation with colleagues, co-workers, or vendors, and a host of other potentially success-threatening reactions just aren’t triggered any more.

It may seem strange that simply tapping on oneself can bring out emotional change and greater success, and it’s not quite that simple. You also need to have an empowering belief that you’re working to incorporate into your emotional belief structure, or know how to create that type of empowering belief once the fear, upset, or other negative emotion has been reduced. But if you’re tired of feeling like your fighting that critical little inner voice all the time, or constantly struggling to overcome fears and upsets in order to move forward, learning to use tapping can skyrocket your results.

Pamela Bruner is the co-author (with Jack Canfield) of ‘Tapping into Ultimate Success – Overcome Any Obstacle and Skyrocket Your Results’ available from major book retailers. For a free ‘Ultimate Success Tapping Kit’, please visit www.TappingintoUltimateSuccess.com.

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