Going Beyond Beliefs
Every one of us has a perception made up of what we believe in—our beliefs and convictions. We are aware of some of them, and unaware of others, but most are inherited from our parents, relatives, or acquired when we become part of society and social institutions. We might have seen something somewhere or heard something else. Ultimately, all of this forms the matrix of our views. The more fortunate and happier individuals eventually realize which beliefs govern their behavior and shape their perception. They begin to change them, redefine them, and create anew, gradually becoming the creators of their own lives and the creators of themselves.
Inner Alchemy
This process is very complex. It is complex because, firstly, many beliefs—especially those inherited from childhood—are deeply rooted in our consciousness. They are deeply rooted also because they are emotionally charged; they contain a large amount of energy, and without working with this energy, changing them is very difficult. Therefore, one of the main ways to change beliefs is to work with the energy that surrounds them and resides within them. It involves fully experiencing your feelings, letting this energy pass through you, and transforming it. This is true alchemy—the process of transmuting one energetic substance into another. This is what allows my worldview to change. After all, under the influence of different energies, my perspective can be very different. And I can be not just a product of these waves of energy that rise from the deep layers of my psyche and form a specific impulse for me to act according to a given pattern, but I can also influence and change them myself—by being an alchemist.
Attention and Awareness as the Main Step to Change
How does this change happen? It all depends on what I look at. Or what I don’t look at. If my attention follows the same route, gets hooked every time, and plays the same scenario of thoughts, feelings, and behavior like a broken record, and there is no awareness in it, then nothing will change. But as soon as I begin to look closely at this and realize what is happening, what I feel and think—this is already the first change. This is the first change because, for the first time, I am not identified with what is happening; I, in a sense, become larger than it and begin to be aware of it. You cannot be aware of something while being fully immersed in it. You can only become aware of something by stepping back, becoming larger than what you are observing. Thus, by being aware of it, I become larger, and when I become larger, a new space appears for something new, beyond what is already there, beyond those energies, beliefs, thoughts, and behaviors that are already present in me.
Next, I keep my attention directed at what is happening. If I continue to do this while remaining in the position of an observer, I will discover that something is changing. I will discover that something is changing because absolutely everything changes; nothing is static. This includes things that I think are permanent for me, things that I believe always happen the same way. As soon as I stop identifying with it and simply observe it within myself, I stop feeding it with energy. Without my energy, it cannot stay for long or reproduce itself in the exact same way, because I am no longer participating in this reproduction; I am just observing. And then it changes. What does it change into? Into anything, depending on what is already in my consciousness, but the process definitely happens.
I see how it changes, and I acknowledge these changes for myself. I acknowledge them not in the sense of writing them down or explaining them somehow, but I just mentally note them and sometimes say them out loud. Verbalizing helps because it prevents forgetting; it provides a sense of accountability to myself that something is changing. And then I notice it more clearly.
Healing the Suffering
I continue to observe, and the changes continue. Perhaps what was once so scary and frightening, or unpleasant, intense, unbearable, and terrible inside me is no longer so. Maybe the intensity has dropped to a level where it is now acceptable. It may not be completely comfortable, but it becomes something I can coexist with while continuing to function. And now I find it easier to live, easier to breathe; I feel more room to maneuver, more space to choose something else.
And if I want to work through these things even further, I just continue to observe even more, I continue to fully experience them. But now I have reached a point where I can simply accept what is. What is there no longer seems destructive to me, because it no longer seems to be what runs my life. Of course, I understand that my life is something much greater than what I was once obsessed with, which used to seem like my only reality.
And if I manage to become the one who accepts what is happening, if I manage to feel complete acceptance of what is happening inside me—my experience, thoughts, feelings, perhaps even bodily reactions—I gain even more freedom. I feel even more peaceful. I feel lightness. After all, if I accept everything that happens, everything I feel, and everything I think, then there is no internal conflict. There is no internal conflict that creates tension, that creates inner discord, that tears me apart. I stop tearing myself apart, and I find an inner peace that is present even during a storm.
Meeting the Inner Truth
And this acceptance works in such a way that suddenly a positive change occurs. If the reaction or feelings are not fueled by some immediate trigger—like indigestion, cold weather when I am underdressed, or a partner yelling at me—then these states begin to change. They shift towards something that I not only accept but actually prefer, something that now seems comfortable and pleasant to me. Perhaps it is a feeling of warmth or peace, or maybe a feeling of compassion for all the pain I have experienced for so long.
Or maybe I see a new truth behind what was inside me: “So that’s what this thought was about!”, “That’s why I believed in it!”, “I was covering up my vulnerability…” Or I clung to this belief because it allowed me to avoid seeing a new perspective of myself that I didn’t want to see. But what can I do, I don’t want to keep lying, because by continuing to lie, I continue to build the old reality. I will never be able to change a belief if I lie. So this honesty, this acceptance creates this space, and now I begin to see the new.
My internal landscape changes so much that I become comfortable with myself. Yes, the truth is revealed; yes, I might feel a new pain, but this pain is real, it reflects my inner truth. For the first time, perhaps for the first time in a long time, I am truly meeting myself. And from this core of my truth, I can make new decisions; I can make a new decision about myself, a new decision about other people, and about life in general.
The Birth of the Author of One’s Life
By making this new decision, it’s as if I am truly creating myself for the first time. I am no longer a product of my life; I am its creator. I am not the effect, but the cause of my life and of myself. This is the first birth of the Author, the first birth, the sensation and understanding of myself as the one who creates and chooses my own experience. And there can no longer be any victims here, because I understand that everything I feel, think, say, and do comes from within.
Whatever this “within” might be, it is mine, it is completely mine. After all, this is the result of acceptance. If I fully accept everything that happens within me, and accept myself entirely, I begin to own it. And when I begin to own it, I become a master; I become the master of myself and my own life. And how can one say that I am a victim of circumstances if I own everything in my life? This cannot be; it is impossible. Of course, the circumstances and events that happen to me can be the result of not only my mastery but also the mastery of other people, even if they don’t admit it (few are ready to admit that they create their own lives). And although Life as a whole is created collectively, my inner experience is exclusively mine; it is born exclusively within me.
Therefore, even if events like a bad job, bad neighbors, or bad weather remain, my attitude can change so much that the word “bad” will no longer be in my vocabulary. I will use other words that reflect my new experience: a cheerful neighbor, picturesque weather, and a promising job where I can develop many new skills and build character. And this is not about toxic positivity, this is not about gaslighting, where I try to convince myself of something I don’t actually feel. No, it goes deeper; it comes from a deep realization that I myself determine my experience, because I determine myself.
When I determine myself, I determine my experience, I determine my life. And then I make a choice in favor of those beliefs, views, and that attitude which create the experience that reflects my highest choice. I can give exactly those assessments, epithets, and names to things that will reflect and create the desired experience. And in order not to return to what creates an unpreferred experience for me (an experience I do not choose), I can declare that the beliefs and ideas that formed it have been left in the past.
Finding Freedom in the “Now”
After all, truly, all ideas, all beliefs—they live in the past, just like all thoughts. Everything that happens in the present happens here and now, prior to any thought, prior to any belief. Beliefs and thoughts reproduce experience from what we already knew, from our memories, our recollection, from the matrix of consciousness that we already had. Consciousness in the present moment, however, is free from all beliefs and thoughts. It is the consciousness through which we can produce and create everything new in our lives from a blank slate: any new experiences, any new visions, any new ideas.
Therefore, by reminding ourselves of this fact, of this truth that any ideas are our past, we create an experience in which we find freedom. We create an experience in which we gain the ability to recreate ourselves every single moment of time, in every existing “now”. To create ourselves the way we want in this moment of the present. To believe in what we want to believe now. And to behave as we want in this here-and-now—unconditionally, freely, creatively, spontaneously… In accordance with who we are in our highest vision of ourselves.