Belief Tune-Up

"The exploration of the highest reaches of human nature and of its ultimate possibilities has involved for me the continuous destruction of cherished axioms, the perpetual coping with seeming paradoxes, contradictions and vagueness. And the occasional collapse around my ears of long established, firmly believed in and seemingly unassailable laws of psychology."

Abraham Maslow, the founder of humanistic psychology, wrote those thoughts. He identified a four-layer hierarchy of basic human needs. The four basic needs are physiological esteem, love, friendship, and security. Higher levels of needs also exist. Those needs are sensual understanding, esthetic appreciation, and spiritual needs. When we become aware of those needs, self-actualization comes to the surface. That means we believe we are the person we think we should be.

We live in a body filled with beliefs. Our ideas and thoughts are more than shadowed images. Thoughts act like invisible cells looking for a belief. Thoughts and beliefs affect our nervous system, and the body responds accordingly. The cells respond to core beliefs because there is so much emotion attached to them. Core beliefs are the deeply embedded emotional thoughts passed to us through our family and early education.

The core belief system includes deep-seated thoughts about relationships, duplicity, sexuality, truth, emotions, perceptions, religion, science, and the physical universe. Within those core beliefs, other beliefs develop through our associations and influences. We build thought fortresses around our body of core thoughts. And we challenge any incoming thoughts that do not conform to our core beliefs.

We also have hidden beliefs that fly in and out of our core belief environment. Examining beliefs enhances our awareness of who we are. We become more aware of the type of energy we project into our physical reality.

When we combine our beliefs with imagination and emotions, we form a mental picture of what we want to experience. We initiate the action of our consciousness through that desire. And it manifests physically in some way. The non-physical energy within us creates what we want to experience. Our beliefs create perceptions. And our physical and non-physical consciousness responds.

As Maslow points out, most of our beliefs need a tune-up because many of us are not aware of the manifesting power within emotionally charged beliefs. www.shortsleeves.net