Beliefs: The Music of Our Lives?

There is a music, of sorts, that we unconsciously hear. It is the music of our life and it directs the steps – dance steps – that we take as we move through our life/our journey.

I like to think of this “music” as coming from the various ideas and beliefs that we have stored in our minds.  As I have worked with clients this past week, I have really found myself taking a new view of the music of people’s lives; even more so, the music of my life.

There are so many beliefs that we hold and demonstrate in all of our choices and decisions. I have come to realize that some of those beliefs are not so very obvious.  And so a new avenue in my personal journey has become, seeking to be more aware of my beliefs and what they are.

By example, yesterday as I worked with Course in Miracles, I suddenly became aware that I believed that my Soul “evolved”.  As I read my miracles text, I was asked to consider that perhaps my Soul did not have to evolve. The Course suggested that the Soul was “perfect” and with that statement, a realization
ensued within my mind. I realized that I “believed” that my Soul evolved and so that in its logical turn, meant that I did not believe that my Soul was perfect.

Hmmm. How could the Creator create anything that was imperfect? How could my Soul not be perfect, it was a creation of the Creator? I reflected and considered and …  This is what I mean. I became aware of a belief that I held, that very much affected my approach to my life and yet, I was not even aware that I believed this.  It was more that I had heard it and accepted it, I guess.

Not to say that now the Course is right and whatever place or teacher I heard about the evolution of my Soul is now wrong. That is not what I am meaning here. What I am meaning is that as we grow and change, so do our beliefs. But if we are not aware of all of our beliefs, then we can be carrying around – or dancing – to the music of some beliefs that do not even fit us anymore.

How did I decide that now I believe that my Soul Is Perfect? Well, I read it, then I paused and reflected on what I had read, then I felt it out.  Always, my measuring stick is my feeling. There is now a “feeling” of rightness, of truth, a feeling of when something fits with me.  And this idea of my soul being “perfect” already, well it just fit with me.  It did not fit before, but it certainly fits now.

As I reflected on this new Perfect Soul idea, I was led back to some of the work I had done with clients in the past week where they were asked to reflect on their beliefs and to “sort” through them.

This moment with my Course reading, made me realize that the idea of “sorting” through beliefs may not necessarily be an easy one.  It made me so grateful that I am still reading and studying. For the words I read, the questions I discuss with friends and family, the ideas I see when I work with clients, all of these things lead me to clarify and become aware of what I believe and what I do not believe.

In fact, I think that we do not know sometimes, what we believe until we are asked to explain or define it; until we are challenged to believe something else.  What do you think?

Now this sorting of beliefs can be a tricky business because there is that part of our mind – I like to call it the “separated” part of my mind – that wants to make what I believe “right” and what another believes “wrong”. But that is not the case, as I see it.

As I see it, beliefs are not right or wrong! They fit and then they don’t fit.  Like a pair of shorts that fit in the summer, but after the long slow winter, they just don’t seem to fit the next summer.  Well, those shorts are not “wrong”. You have just changed. It is for a whole other discussion, the judgment of whether you are right or wrong because those shorts do not fit but, I digress.

Why is the belief of my Soul evolving not now “wrong”. Because I needed to believe that for a while, and someone else may need to believe that now. Beliefs are like the rungs of a ladder, they take us upwards, to a lighter, brighter place and although one rung of the ladder is higher than another, it is not better.

I find this happens often for me with what I read. I once read "Bringers of the Dawn", and the first time I read it, it had passages that truly frightened me. Then about a year or so later, I chose to read it again and I could not even find the passages that had frightened me. Curious? No, I had changed and so I was not frightened now by what did frighten me earlier. 

Change. Growth. It is what our journey is all about in my view. We need to let it happen, to seek out opportunities to urge it to happen. But even more than “allowing” change to happen, we need to notice when it does.

So, what about beliefs? In my view, we need to be reading, listening and discussing, not to convince anyone or ourselves of anything; but, so we can know what we believe in and how it is directing our lives.

The view from my place – different yet again. It feels refreshing to change, my place in life fits me well. I do so hope, this summer, that those shorts do too. :)