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conscious mind uses to interpret the events that it perceives. A belief is nothing more than a feeling of certainty about what an event or feeling means to us. Beliefs exist in our conscious and unconscious mind, and their validity is not questioned. |
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When we were children, our beliefs came from the role models in our lives, mainly our parents. As youngsters, we adopted their beliefs about what different events and feelings meant. Beliefs about love, sadness, and humor come primarily to mind. At that point in our lives the only reference points we had were our parents. When we entered school we suddenly had more role models (teachers or our peer group); these expanded references allowed us to come up with additional beliefs. As we began to mature, we experienced new events that caused us either pain or pleasure. These new experiences led our mind to look for a cause, how recent it was, and if we had consistently felt this way in the past. Our mind then evaluated the validity of the event and whether it met our four primary needs, which are: |
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1. The need for a feeling of certainty. |
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2. The need for a feeling of variety. |
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3. The need to feel significant. |
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4. The need to feel that we are loved and connected to others. |
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We then took the new belief, based on the reference (or event), and incorporated it into our conscious and unconscious mind. For example, as we began to date we discovered that kissing was highly enjoyable (mentally and physically). Our mind experienced pleasure, and then began looking for the most recent "event" connected to the pleasure. The most recent connected to pleasure was the physical act of kissing. Our mind concluded that the act of kissing is what caused the pleasure. Our mind then attempted to determine if we consistently got pleasure when we kissed. After determining that we did consistently obtain pleasure by kissing, our mind needed to evaluate the validity that kissing was pleasurable by determining if kissing met our four primary needs. If it did meet these needs, then the mind would conclude that kissing was a pleasurable activity. In other words, the need for certainty would be met if every time a kiss was experienced it was pleasurable; the need of variety would be fulfilled if there were a wide variety of kisses; the need for significance would be fulfilled if kissing made us feel significant to the other person; and the need for love and connection would be met if while kissing the other person the feeling of love and personal connection was experienced. Since all four needs were met, the mind decided to believe that kissing was pleasurable. Our mind also constructed certain rules with our belief. Such a rule might have been that kissing our |
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