As a Life Coach I speak with many women and I am noticing an overwhelming pattern regarding the topic of marriage, so I would like to offer some "food for thought."

History tells us that for most of Western history, marriage was a private contract between two families. Until the 16th-century, Christian churches accepted the validity of a marriage on the basis of a couple's declarations. If two people claimed that they had exchanged marital vows-even without witnesses-the Catholic Church accepted that they were validly married. In lieu of the fact that a "piece of paper" or marriage certificate in fact, really doesn't constitute "marriage", let's imagine that perhaps marriage is a thing of the heart, or in other words, should come from the heart center , and not be driven by age and social standing.

To validate that marriage has not come from the heart center, let's review the statistics. About 40 to 50 percent of married couples in the United States end in divorce. The divorce rate for subsequent marriages is even higher.

Marriage is a "learned behavior and learned belief system." It appears that just as we are conditioned to go to school by a certain age, we are also conditioned to be married, by a certain age, with children. This conditioning is social. Spoken and unspoken. The problem with this conditioning is that there is not a support system in place for those who do not find themselves married, with children. Therefore, the woman is left feeling alone, ashamed of her "unmarried" social status, and feeling as if she has either done something wrong, or is some kind of outcast.

I have taught my own daughter that the most important person in her life is her; To think her own thoughts and question those things that may not be right for her. I seek to bring to light anything which may cause a person to devalue themselves in the face of a belief system, tradition, or learned behavior process.

It is because of those things that have been spoon-fed to us since we were born; Those things that we may not have had the opportunity to even question, that can cause harm as we try to live up to the expectations that we place upon ourselves, and the expectation that others place upon us.

What do YOU ​​believe? What do YOU ​​think? What do YOU ​​know for sure as YOUR truth? Whatever it is, it is right for YOU.

Welcome to the Path of Self Awareness.

There is more to life than planning for retirement. It’s really about making good choices and living life to the fullest. It’s about making a promise to yourself to discover the joyous secrets that will change the rest of your life. Here are some steps to follow that will make the process easier:

1. Review your overall attitude by examining your thoughts. Do you express your limitations, fears, inhibitions and self-defeating thoughts often and find yourself affirming the worst that can happen? Notice when bad things happen and what you say during the course of the scenario. For instance, if you get into a car accident, is the first thing you say, “It’s only a car and I can get it fixed. As long as everyone is OK” or do you say, “Why does this always happen to me? That other driver was such an idiot. This is something else I have to deal with.”

Question or challenge this thought process to understand that your negative style of thinking was taught to you at an early age and that you can unlearn it. Your thoughts are reflecting your belief system, which is probably holding you back and keeping you from fulfilling your dreams.

2. Review how flexible you are in terms of being open and receptive to new ideas. Think of this as stepping out of your comfort zone. You are probably so used to doing things and thinking things a certain way that it is hard to act differently. But I suggest you try being, acting, thinking and even speaking differently and see how that feels.

Everyone wants a quick fix to their problems, but there is really no such thing. However, if you are open and receptive to new ideas and ways of thinking, maybe the new idea will be just what you need to turn your life around.

3. Review your coping skills. These are the skills you use to help you deal with stress. How effective are they? If you drown out your sorrows with a gallon of ice cream, instead of just a scoop, then your skills are not working for you. After all, putting on thirty pounds is self-defeating and unproductive, as you probably already know.

Change your perspective and your world will instantly change. With a new, fresh vision for the future, you may be completely overwhelmed by your good fortune, but enjoy it, because you have mastered the secret to a successful life.

The Convergence

Science is a belief system. It is a highly successful one, but a belief system nonetheless. Yet, the direction of physics, psychology and metaphysics all seem to be converging upon one understanding of what is described variously in these disparate disciplines as a unified field, the collective consciousness (or collective unconscious), Unity, Wholeness, Ground of Being, the Absolute or 'God.' Just pick your term.

The question that this points to is why a belief system steeped in the rigors of the scientific method – with the incumbent necessity to have its "laws" and "theories" produce verifiable predictions that will produce 'objective' and repeatable results – should be pointing towards essentially the same conclusion, albeit in different terms, as the far 'mushier' social sciences and metaphysics do: that the all (or 'All') is One, and in it "we live and move and have our being." (Acts 17:28)

Two conclusions seem apparent: First, that we just have a basic affinity, despite our egoic and inherently dualistic self-consciousness, with the numeral 'one' as the most basic unit of calculation (the concept of "nil" or "zero" came along much later); or, that we really are integral parts of an undivided 'wholeness' or universal field. So, therefore, let us move quickly to examine the latter for an explanation of why scientists, psychologists and philosophers all seem to be scratching the surface of the same thing.

The Resistance

Perhaps the most influential book of the past one hundred years discussing just what modern science 'is' and how the process (and progress) of modern science 'works' is Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions."

Kuhn's basic thesis is that science comes to accept a 'paradigm' that explains and accounts for the observations that scientists have made to that point in time and the experiments they have run to verify their theories about just "what" is "what." A paradigm is thus essentially the prevailing "belief system" within the larger "belief system" of science.

Kuhn asserts that a dominant paradigm will remain rigid until someone notices an "anomaly," or 'result' which the paradigmatic theory does not and cannot explain, even hypothetically. At that point – and quite often it is the same person who first spots the anomaly – some theorist comes along with a new theory or belief system that can and does explain the 'results' which the prior paradigm could not.

The "ordinary scientists" in lab coats – those charged with 'fleshing out' the older scientific paradigm and determining its intricacies, rather than sweeping it away with a theoretical flourish – are most typically opposed to and suspicious of the new paradigm at first. Yet, in time as the new paradigm is understood and tested, and its predictions are proven to be correct experimentally, both leading and mainstream scientists will eventually come to a consensus in favor of it. The new 'theory' or 'belief system' is gradually adopted and the old theory falls by the scientific wayside as a 'new paradigm' is born. A good example of this process (and one used, not surprisingly, by Kuhn himself) is how Einstein's theory of relativity superseded Newton's "classical" theories of optics, motion and gravity.

Lord Kelvin famously mispredicted that there were only a few clouds left on the horizon of physics at the dawning of the 20th-century. Five years later, a young Swiss patent clerk named Albert Einstein would rewrite physics textbooks when, in his annus mirabulus of 1905, he published three 'major papers (and two' minor 'papers) that fundamentally changed the direction of physics and laid the groundwork for both Einstein's own relativity theory and the quantum theory.

One problem on Lord Kelvin's horizon was that Newton's 'classical' theory couldn't explain the strange anomaly of Mercury's orbit. Along came Einstein with a wholly new paradigm of how we might understand the physics of motion that would explain the Martian orbit anomaly and a number of other problematic difficulties. Einstein didn't figure out the relativity theory in order to explain Mercury's orbit, but it did.

Relativity theory did, however, predict that during a solar eclipse it could be shown that the great mass of the sun actually bends the light from stars whose positions fall within a degree of arc from the edge of the eclipsed sun. Most scientists were, as Kuhn notes, skeptics. However, English physicist, Arthur Eddington – one of the few scientists that could and did grasp the full import of relativity – thought Einstein was correct, and in 1919 he set up an expedition to photograph a full solar eclipse and thus verify Einstein's prediction. (It was no small professional risk for an Englishman to be seen as 'collaborating' with a German in the month's proceeding and after the end of 'the Great War.')

Eddington's observations, nonetheless, put relativity theory to the proof and established it as the new paradigm for physics (together with Quantum theory, which Einstein also played a hand in developing); however this did not occur for a full fifteen years after Einstein published his "Special Theory of Relativity," and three years after he published the "General Theory of Relativity."

The Emergence

The problem is that 'science' will not accept any evidence for its theories that is not "objective" and "empirical" (ie, backed by data expressible in mathematical terms). Since virtually all spiritual and / or religious experience is inherently "subjective" and "non-empirical" in the current view of what science is about, this conveniently precludes scientists, psychologists and philosophers from speaking a common language about at least the surface of the unitive field, consciousness or Absolute which all disciplines are scratching. And, until this overarching 'paradigm' is successfully challenged, by definition all the observations of thousands of years of Eastern psychological, physical and metaphysical experience cannot challenge science's paradigms.

This is true even where, as in quantum mechanics (which cannot explain why an "observation" is needed to give 'reality' to and 'determine' a quantum event, or how seemingly 'separate' particles remain 'entangled' with each other even at monumental distances), theoretical research calls out for the explanations that Eastern "inner scientists" discovered millennia ago. Thus, (as Einstein noted) "Science without religion [remains] blind, while religion without science [remains] lame."

It does seem, however, that the "Chinese Wall between the objective and subjective, between the empirical and intuitive, between the East and West, is slowly giving way and that the campaign to at last get the Western mind sciences to look at the invaluable The cooperative work of Western scientists with meditation practitioners from Eastern wisdom traditions, using evermore increasingly sophisticated instruments (both the highly trained Eastern 'brain,' and the powerful Western technical 'brawn'), promises to do for the study of consciousness and the understanding of our 'inner' landscape what Galileo's telescope did for the study of physics and our understanding of our 'outer reality,' despite the time it may take for a truly East-West, physical and metaphysical 'paradigm 'to emerge.

First of all. As a member of the human race I can think of no greater science discovery than uncovering the existence of Intelligent life in the solar system. Though, when you actually start thinking about the implications that discovery would provide, it starts to sound like not that fun of a discovery.

Just think about it. Intelligent life being discovered outside of earth would be huge. The biggest discovery of the century, possibly all of human history. World religions and belief systems that tell of humans being the only intelligent life out there would be shattered, there would be a lot of skeptics and conspiracy theorists that would be questioning it just like they do the moon landing. Every last detail that would be released disclosing to the public about our visitors from the stars, would be criticized and analyzed.

Now there is already a lot of information and theories about how it would go but I want to find the realistic data and the true facts about how it would go down. It was a little difficult but I believe I have found it and you probably won't like it.

Let's look at the primary form of communication we believe would be effective in communicating to these other worlds. Radio Waves. Also, for some reason a lot of people think that our super powerful telescopes are capable of looking at the surface of a planet, what people don't realize is that the astrophysicist use these telescopes to look at the atmosphere of a planet. They do this to look for atmospheric signs of life. Like when you look at our planet we have an oxygen and nitrogen rich atmosphere because we have plant life and animal life that breathes it. There would never just be a nitrogen and oxygen rich atmosphere for no reason, this pokes a lot of hole in the original Star Trek, because nature only does something for a reason. So let's say we think there is life on Mars, we get our giant ground satellites in position with Mars and we zap a signal there. We get no response, which is not very surprising but why? Well you have to look at it from the standpoint that we are expecting alien life to have intelligence, technology, innovation and advancement of that technology all at the exact same time and we expect them to be able to decode a message and send one back to earth. That's a pretty big hope that aliens are just as advanced as us. Now let's just go back 200 years in human history and say the aliens find a way to send a radio wave to earth in the earth year of 1800. Now according to our terms of intelligence we were still considered a intelligent species in 1800 but we didn 't have the technology and innovation at the time. So what makes us think aliens do too? The earth has been around for 12.4 Billion years (roughly), and intelligent life has only dominated this planet for the last like couple thousand years, and technology and innovation have been around for maybe a couple hundred years. So you see the extremely small sliver of time that intelligence, innovation, and technology are all prominite in our world or any world for that matter.

Another point is that if you ask any scientist or UFO theorists they will tell you the prominent characteristics that we are looking in alien life is intelligence. Let's take a quick look at the definition of intelligence. Intelligence: the ability to apply knowledge and skills.

Now the word intelligence was created to communicate the concept of applying knowledge and skills and until we find a better way to communicate these concepts we will have to deal with primitive verbal language. The ONLY reason that human beings are considered intelligent is because we made up the word. By our own terms, yes we are intelligent. But we really don't have a way to measure intelligence because it is this weird ambiguous concept. But what makes us think that we are intelligent to an otherworldly being? I would like to add this little quote by my personal hero and astrophysics rockstar Neil Degrasse Tyson that I believe sums this up pretty good "our top scientists work with chimpanzees for years and years, and after all of this work the chimps can stack blocks and make very primitive tools, which is what our toddlers and infants can do very easily.Now what makes you think that alien scientists wouldn't wheel Stephen Hawking forward and say "this human can do quantum mechanic equations in his head, just like our little alien toddlers and infants ". Now what I get from this quote is that perspective is everything and that as a species we need to think about that more.

Now another really interesting little factoid about civilizations is that when you look at a civilization that wants to expand itself to an interplanetary species you run into a lot of problems. Any civilization that wishes to expand itself in that manner is self-defeating and self-limiting. So it begs the question that would an advanced alien civilization even want to explore and become a interplanetary species? Let's look at an example using the human race, we want to colonize Mars. Now if you look at the physical and financial effort needed to completely colonize an entire planet, and we have to look at the reason why we want to colonize another planet. We want to get away from earth cause let's say if earth is destroyed we still have another planet with the species prospering so the species continues. So lets say to do this we send a billion people to mars, but before that we need to become the dominant form of life on Mars, we need to stabilize the atmosphere to support that huge amount of human life, and we need to perfect space travel enough that we are able to move large amounts of the human population to another planet. Which by the way the trip to mars is roughly 9 months. So we need to perfect air supplies, artificial gravity for these spacecrafts transporting the population. Also, you have to take into consideration the human condition. Now looking at all of those factors you have to take into consideration, the idea of ​​traveling and living on another planet gets very cloudy. Now in the self defeating section of things. When you look at the approach we would take to be an interplanetary species you can just look at our countries on earth as an example. Every country wants to be powerful, have influence, and acquire territory. It's a kind of flaw in our thinking, we are greedy and have a pretty bad tract record when it comes to staying in power because at anytime someone stronger can defeat you and then you're wiped from existence. And when you get into the same species on different planets you will run into the problem of competition. Humans have this weird desire to seek out competition and we tend to be destructive in our desire to seek it out. A lot of people argue that competition fuels innovation and new discoveries and yes that can be true, but from a sociological standpoint it can also lead to territorial disputes and if you work together and a species toward a common goal I feel like that would progress faster than competition between the same species. Now any species that understands that competition leads to destruction, and destruction leads to war, this species will be ahead of the curve and might not even feel the need for exploration.

Now taking all of this is. It makes me think of the Elon Musk quote "We want to go to Mars because a future without Mars is boring". I agree with him on that, a future as a interplanetary species is really exciting. Thinking about it fills my imagination with spacecrafts and the sense of adventure like we as the human race are becoming more. Though it seems like a childish dream. Now another big question is that what if aliens did visit our planet and determined there was no sign of intelligent life? Like the point I made earlier, we are an intelligent species by our definition of the word intelligence. What gives us the right to even speculate that we are an unrelenting force of intelligence seeking to discover other life forms like us? We can't even get past our own man-made dilemmas here on earth, yet we think we are ready to expand our horizons and explore the galaxy? It seems ignorant and naive.

Also you look at Stephen Hawking, which is one of the smartest human alive today, he has even made speculations that if an alien life form discovered our planet. They would either enslave the human race, or simply kill us all like a kid with a magnifying glass to ants. Now what makes him think this? The reason he thinks this way is that he looks at human hostility throughout our thousands of years on this earth and it is riddled with war after war after war. He's not wrong in the sense that he gets from looking at human history he see's war and it is not wrong of him to expect that very same hostility from another form of life but there is literally zero evidence that aliens are hostile like us. Plus, if we do encounter another form of intelligent life then there is a strong predictions that they are not war like, the reason for this hypothesis is that if a species is truly intelligent and truly advanced then they would not see war as a primary form of gaining territory or influence. They would most likely be a very contained as they wouldn't see the scientific gains from things us humans do like missions out of pure curiosity.

This brings me to my final point. What if we just aren't worthy in terms of intelligence or innovation as a species, that these aliens would deem us worthy of contact? I mean think about it, what is the primary drive behind wanting to find alien life? It is curiosity and a feeling of being afraid to be alone in the universe. I am about to pose some big questions, but the only way to find the big answers is to ask the right big questions. Should we strive to be an interplanetary species? Would it benefit our world as a whole? Should we not focus on trying to protect our species only home, or should we continue window shopping for a new one? I believe it would cause our species to be self-defeating in the sense of how many things can go wrong. I mean let's say we successfully colonize Mars, which by the way if we have the capabilities to terraform Mars, then we have the technology to make Earth back to healthy again. My big concern is that people would start bickering and before we all know it. Humans are fighting an interplanetary war with ourselves and in that sense we would be self-defeating. I feel we are entering the space age with the hopes of benefiting our species and I think that we might be successful in that dream in some ways but I just don't see in the long run it being beneficial to the continuation of our species.

As humans we are the planets most successful and destructive species to ever exist. We have to realize as a species that the only way we will all be able to still have a home is to take proper care of the only home we have.

Ps Actually astrophysicists believe in roughly 5 billion years our sun will implode and it will completely vaporize earth and the rest of our solar system will be left a black nothingness, a graveyard to the divine 8 planets. So actually it really makes no difference if humans die out tomorrow or 1,000 years from now. Just sayin.

Are baseball players superstitious? And does it help them when they are on the field? This is a debate that can go back as far as the creation of hot dogs. And thank goodness hot dogs were created and for that matter, apple pie.

First off, let's look at the definition of superstitious as defined by Merriam-Webster dictionary: a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation.

If you look at the one part of the definition, it explains that it is trust in magic or chance. Now, back to the ball field. Do players engage in magic or chance when playing? The ones who try to use magic usually get tossed by the umpire for cheating. But if they trust in chance because they are doing a specific routine, then yes, they do engage in superstition.

In my big league career, I witnessed numerous times players using a specific routine in hopes of the same outcome, which was usually getting a hit or winning a ball game. This often involved wearing the same t-shirt under their uniform if it meant they got a hit that day. And it also meant not washing it sometimes! Smelly but effective.

There was one pitcher who insisted on taking the same path to the mound when he was pitching and hopping over the white line. Always using the same routine. Does this really help the baseball player? Let's look at what it does to some players.

I believe that it improves your psychological edge because you have a belief system that it is helping you. Therefore, it works. I also believe that it promotes consistency in what you are doing. And since the game is about repeatable actions for success, this is just one of the things players do that helps their game. Same routine, same actions, same belief system and hopefully the same outcome. If for some reason it is not working, then usually the player will adjust his routine or superstitions in hopes of a win or a hit.

Have you ever seen teams do this collectively? Of course you have. Have you ever seen a team reverse their hats in the ninth inning in hopes of a rally? It's called the rally hats. Superstition? You bet. Not all players engage in this type of routine, but there are certainly many that do.

Baseball players are superstitious and do follow routines. It often helps in their psychological thinking and their daily routine when dealing with the everyday actions of a baseball game.I wonder if the Chicago Cubs wished the billy goat never showed up in 1945? Superstition or a curse? What do you think?

If I asked you what inner beliefs you hold deep within your mind will you be able to answer with any accuracy?

If you couldn't, then don't worry, this is a question that many people have difficulty knowing the real answer to.

To find out what are the true inner beliefs you have stored away deep within your mind then you don't have to look very far

In fact you only have to look as far as your external surroundings and your life results.

All this will provide you with the precise answer you're looking for.

The current life your living is an exact reflection of your of deep inner beliefs .

Your thoughts, habits and actions are bi-product of your beliefs.

So whatever you believe about yourself, anyone or anything then you act, think and speak accordingly.

The Ingredient For Success

The essential difference that separates people who live successful and abundant lives from those who don't is predominantly down to being lucky, more talented or gifted, but simply because of the beliefs they hold.

Industrialists' like JD Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, and more recently Oprah Winfrey and Ingvar Krampard (founder of IKEA) are some of the greatest and most inspiring examples of how beliefs and not circumstance can dictate how successful your life can become.

These kind of people turned struggle and adversity on its head and used as a motivator to inspire them to great feats of achievement.

They developed an internal a belief system that transformed the 'impossible' into the possible.

Unfortunately the majority of the people in the world accepts and tolerates things like abusive relationships, working in jobs they hate, poverty and struggle, simply due to the beliefs that they hold.

Our Belief System

We all have an inner belief system that either serves us or hinders us. It either moves us closer to our goals or further away from them.

With all our beliefs, whether negative or positive they all started off as a single thought. This thought was usually a reaction to certain event in your life or to what you were told by your parents, friends or society in general.

Through repeating this thought over and over again, it was then accepted within your subconscious mind as a 'undeniable truth.'

The thing to remember with your subconscious mind is this- whatever information you feed it, it accepts as 'truth'. It does not have the capacity to reject anything and cannot determine the difference between that which is real or what is imagined.

Therefore, it's vital we are aware of the thoughts that we repeatedly feed our subconscious because it will ultimately determine our inner core beliefs.

These beliefs then become our 'road map' that controls the direction and destiny of our life.

Our success, happiness, health and your prosperity are directly influenced by this unconscious roadmap that we've created for ourselves.

The Road Map To Success

Whatever you set out to accomplish, whether it's to start your own business, become fitter and healthier, or master a new skill, your success is determined by one thing- the subconscious beliefs that make up the road map you've created.

If you're struggling through life at the moment then there is a very good chance that this is down to negative inner beliefs.

The problem that most people who struggle through life face is that these ingrained negative beliefs run on auto-pilot through the subconscious mind, meaning that they tend to go through life unconsciously recreating the same results and the same reality.

They may on a conscious level constantly strive to improve their life and achieve better results, but if they hold contradictory beliefs on a subconscious level then more struggle will consistently play out in their lives.

The good news is though that you, me and everyone else can all change our inner beliefs relatively quickly and easily.

Constantly monitoring your thoughts and challenging inner beliefs that don't serve you are vital steps to seize control of your life and your destiny.

The time has surely come for you to take more of an active role in the creating a new belief system for yourself. Simply doing this will result in a whole new exciting world opening up for you.

"You can have anything you want if you will give up the belief that you can't have it." Best-selling author and trainer Dr Robert Anthony

Become the master of your own destiny, by mastering the inner beliefs that control you.

Each of us has already a personal success and money blueprint entrenched in our subconscious mind; this will primarily determine how prosperous, happy, and successful we are. In this article, I will show you how behavior, past and present, can affect your happiness and that through reprogramming your thoughts, you can achieve instant success!

Your thoughts eventually affect your emotion, your emotion affects your action, and your action will determine the results. Your financial and success blueprint is a combination of your action, feelings and thoughts relating to your financial, education, and business affair. This blueprint is basically a result of all those programming or information you have obtained all through your life, particularly when you are still a child.

Your friends, parents, siblings, authority figures, teachers, and even the media have all contributed to what you are now and how you perceive reality. Your previous experiences have programmed your behavior system; telling you your abilities, ambition, lifestyle, and your attitude towards wealth and money. This behavior system creates automatic ways of behaving and thinking that run or control your life.

Generally, there are three principal ways on how your belief system is formed:

• Modeling: The things you saw when you were a child
• Verbal Programming: The things you have heard when you were a child.
• Specific Incidents: Your experiences as a child

There are four stages to reprogram your subconscious mind:

Awareness – To successfully acquire change, you primarily need to be aware of what is needed to be changed. Knowing that it is your subconscious programming, your money and success blueprint that creates your current life will be the key to have total awareness.

Understanding – You need to understand how your mind is programmed by the situation and environment you live in when you were a child. You have to fully realize that what you think doesn’t define the real you, it is just your own perception of the real you.

Reflection – You should reflect on the programming that happened in the previous years of your life. Afterwards, you can make a choice of whether or not you wanted to keep the existing beliefs or to change it for the better.

Reprogramming – Reprogram or condition your mind on the cellular level to make a lasting change through developing new strategies for your money and success blueprint. There are lots of ways to do reprogram your thoughts, you just need to find something that best suits your style.

Just like a computer, every now and then, your mind needs to be re-adjusted or reprogrammed for a certain situation. The people who are rich spend time reading books, through this method, they are reprogramming their thoughts by creating new connections with their neural networks. They are able to solve problems quickly and create new inventions.

Take the time and reflect upon your past and see what you can work on to make a change for the future. Those who follow these points and get into a positive mindset will find instant success and personal happiness.

Afformations is a powerful way to program our subconscious mind and modify our belief system so that we can achieve network marketing success. It is often stated that the most important component of our network marketing success is our belief system or mindset.

To a great extent, our beliefs determine our actions and therefore our life. But what determines our beliefs. It starts with eternal influences, the people around us. From infancy we are told what we are or who we are. We are identified ethnically (we are white or we are black, or brown) educationally (no one in our family ever went to college), behaviorally (don’t be silly, act your age), financially (money doesn’t grow on trees). So we grow up with a set of images and beliefs that determine our actions as an adult.

But wait! Do we have to accept that early programming? How can we change it? The traditional teaching has been affirmations. Repeating a set of statement about what we want to be instead of what we presently think we are. For example, “I am rich” repeated over and over until it is drilled into our subconscious mind. But affirmations don’t work for many people. Our brain chatter keeps saying,” no you’re not” and interferes with the acceptance of our affirmations.

I personally call it “Monkey chatter”. The monkeys between our ears chatter at us, confuse the message and negate the affirmation. The result is many people use affirmations continuously, but see a rather poor result, nothing changes.

Enter afformations! Invented by Noah St. John, afformations turn the statement into a question. So instead of “I am wealthy” we might ask ourselves, “Why am I so wealthy” This bypasses the monkey chatter and sets into motion the problem solving portion of our brain that seeks solution to questions. Why am I so wealthy causes us to focus on what we already have instead of what we lack.

So when I ask, “Why am I so wealthy” my brain can respond with, well, I live in a nice house, I have a car, I walk to the kitchen, turn on the faucet and out comes clean water, I have a refrigerator, it has food in it. I have a car and it has gas. There is food on the shelves of the grocery store. I have my spouse or significant other, my children and so on. You get the picture. We all have ample reason to feel wealthy but sometimes we lose sight of those reasons. Afformations can help.

According to Noah ST. John, there are four steps in the affirmation process. They are:

1. Ask yourself what you want
2. Form a question that assumes what you want is already true
3. Let your mind search for the answer
4. Take new actions based on your new assumptions about life

It all begins with a vision of who we want to become. If we do not know what we want, then we will never get. In his great book, “The Success Principles” Jack Canfield reminds us that the reason many people do not get what they want is they don’t know what it is”. Do you know what you want? Are you sure?

Do you have vision for your life 3 to 5 years from now that is congruent with your core values and your major mission in life. Do you even know what your major mission or purpose in life is? If you have been struggling for years with that question, “Why am I here” I can help!

You might want to consider attending my Vision Workshop. Click on this link to get more information and a 50% off offer today. You will be glad you did

Creating beliefs

Something happens. The human being looks at the situation and interprets it based on previous experiences. Then something similar happens again and the human being interprets it like before. If that kind of situation is repeated enough times, the human being will often confirm the interpretation and end up taking it as “this is the way things are.” The first time the situation happens, the interpretation might be based on something apparently unimportant, a comment, a circumstance, even a movie or a book. But then, once the seed is planted, the belief starts taking root and becoming stronger with each confirmation. That is one way in which beliefs are created.

The other way has to do with emotions. When something causes a very strong emotion in us, be it positive or negative, that emotion can be strong enough to establish a new interpretation in our minds. Let’s take the example of a near-death experience, an accident or a serious illness. How many people change their beliefs because of something like that?

Sometimes the interpretation confirms an already existing belief, which is then strengthened and reaffirmed, like a building block being placed on top of an earlier one, making the structure more solid and sturdier.

Let’s now imagine a bullying situation, or any other kind of abuse for that matter. Everyone involved has their own beliefs growing stronger day after day. The bully harasses the victim and the witnesses watch. All the characters in this plot have their own beliefs guiding their actions.

Common Victim Beliefs

Most victims believe that they somehow deserve what’s happening to them. When an abuser abuses them, they justify it in their minds, thinking things like… ‘Yeah, I shouldn’t have done that.’ ‘I don’t deserve any better.’ ‘If only I could do things that way.’ ‘There’s no way out; I am the weird one.’ As a result of their previous experiences, they end up believing that they are at fault or that the situation is their fate. Which is why they can rarely defend themselves from their abusers: they think it’s the way things are.

Abuse often starts in childhood. Many of those abused later already started developing this victim mentality in their early years by interpreting situations at home or at school. Abusers and victims were normal roles played by those in their surroundings. When they finally encounter their first abuser, their belief system is ripe to accept that view of themselves. Thus, children raised in environments in which abuse is common, are more likely to become victims or abusers than other children who grow up in environments without that kind of behavior.

Victims grow into victimhood. At the beginning, when the abuse is still mild, they start questioning their original beliefs… ‘Could it be true that I am what this person is saying? Could I truly be like that?’ When those original beliefs are shaken, the abuser increases the intensity of the attacks and the victim thus confirms the new interpretation. That is the reason why most abuse usually starts with verbal or psychological attacks; so that the victim’s original beliefs, which act as defence mechanisms, are weakened and the abuser can move on to harder techniques.

Victimhood is also a self-fulfilling prophecy. Victims, when already believing their role, will indadvertedly attract abusers. For example, victims immediately change their physical posture upon meeting their abusers or other possible ones, adopting a victim attitude they might not be even aware of. A bullied child, for example, might cringe or try and hide while looking down whenever a bully or other possible bullies enter the child’s space. The abuser will immediately perceive those invisible signs and identify and use that child as a possible victim if needed. Thus, the underlying beliefs of the victim end up confirming themselves over and over again.

Common Abuser Beliefs

‘I need to be stronger and more popular to show the world that I am the best.’ ‘They’re all going to see that I am in charge.’ ‘I will show the world that I am important.‘

Most abusers crave respect and admiration. They believe that only by having them will others like them. Their actions are often focused on helping them shine or on helping them feel bigger, stronger, more powerful or mightier. They believe that others are there to serve them and support their growth. They don’t even see their victims. Those other human beings are nothing but stepping stones on their way to glory.

Many abusers come from abusive environments and have abusive role models while growing up. The most important message they get is that being stronger and louder than others results in rewards. That is how beliefs such as, ‘fortune favors the bold,’ ‘when the going gets tough, the tough gets going,’ or ‘if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself,’ and other similar ones become their guiding principles.

Some others become abusers just for the opposite reason; because they don’t want to be like the victims they see around them. To prevent being abused, they abuse others themselves. In this case, the underlying beliefs can be something like, ‘weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character,’ ‘it’s a sign of weakness just to let things happen’ or ‘big fish eat the small ones.’ By believing this, they need to be stronger than others or else, they will fail. There is no other way in their minds.

Common Witness Beliefs

Something happens. Witnesses look and do nothing. What are they thinking? Many of them will be telling themselves, ‘better them than me,’ ‘I don’t want to attract anybody’s attention,’ or ‘it’s none of my business.‘ Some could even think something like, ‘that person probably deserves it.‘ They justify their actions or lack of that way, so they can keep their peace of mind. Their beliefs offer them an excuse to do nothing about the situation. Fear, worry, self-righteousness or even a certain moral superiority are like this justified in the minds of the onlookers.

How should bullying and abuse be tackled, then?

All kinds of abuse need to be tackled from every perspective to effectively disappear. If abusers are only punished, they will abuse again. If victims are sent away, they will encounter new abusers. If witnesses are not considered, they will react the same way in the future.

There are two ways in which this type of violence can be approached, and both need to be done by professionals who are trained in these techniques. When working with each of the persons involved in a violent situation or with all of them in a group, no judgement should be made and no opinion should be criticized. After all, many of our beliefs we are not even aware of and very few people know that they actively believe certain things.:

• One by one: working individually with the victim, the abuser and each of the witnesses, to help them first identify and then question and change their underlying, limiting beliefs. That is easier said than done, as people deeply believe their beliefs and can find many justifications and proof that their opinions are right and fair. Helping a person question beliefs is a slow, complex process than can cause insecurity, uncertainty and pain. But unless the underlying belief is changed, chances are that the same behavior will happen again. Many different tools can be used to help abusers, victims and witnesses; from coaching and mentoring to positive psychology, nlp and others. Some of the techniques that can be used to support those tools are roleplaying, story-telling, absolute forgiveness or mindful feeling, just to mention a few. A good professional will be able to use and apply a big variety of them, so as to choose the best approach with each individual.
• As a group: working with all those involved in aggressions or violence is something I only recommend when the professional in charge has a very wide experience, as the situation will combine the fear and insecurities of all of them. Story-telling, roleplaying, mindful feeling and the victim’s chair are some of the techniques that can be experimented with in combination with personal development methodologies in order for those people to identify, question and change the beliefs that lead them to their specific behaviors.

If violent behavior is to be erased from our societies, a joint, common effort needs to be made to help all those involved change their beliefs. If a teacher observes that a child acts in an abusive way or displays victim attitudes, the whole group of peers should be considered, and not just the kids involved. Likewise, if there is a case of violence at home, not only should the perpetrator and the direct victim be worked with, but also any other members in the household.

No human being is born an abuser. No human being is born a victim. We learn to behave the way we do because we adopt certain beliefs that lead us into behaving that way. Every human being has the capacity to learn throughout life. If the beliefs we learned to have before serve us no more, new ones can be learned.

Enjoy life… ALL of it,

Beliefs are just beliefs and not realities. As there is a time gap between the processing of information received in our brain through any or all of our five sensory organs and our perceiving, the reality is that we will never be able to experience reality. Moreover, what mind perceives is perception and not reality in any case. Beliefs stem out from perceptions, often conditioned by external factors like the process of childhood nurturing, coaching, mentoring etc. In other words, beliefs are conditioned perceptions.

Brains of all living beings have too many limitations in perceiving anything even remotely close to its reality because of the inescapable disconnection brain has in processing information that is made available to it. When nature or nurture conditions our mind to believe something as real, we often take the easy path of unquestioned acceptance of the same. Not many of us venture out questioning the belief systems like that about God. The question here is not whether God really exists or not. The question actually is that are we, as conditioned living beings, willing to go beyond our beliefs? On our planet, there are people who kill in the name of God, take away legitimate freedoms of people and even persecute others, mostly to be in the good books of God. Religious fundamentalism and related terrorism are examples of these.

We have no clue about the way we came into being and the way we would cease to exist. Mind often seeks explanations even in anything unexplainable. It faces discomfiture when a palpable explanation is not available for something. This might have led our predecessors to introduce a concept called God, which was adequate to quell the discomfiture of inexplicability of our existence. Then that concept might have been given various hues and shapes by people who tried to explain it to others. Thus we have many Gods being followed by people world over, despite the claims of the oneness of God by almost all.

Being a person trained in and practicing counseling psychology, I often guide my believing clients to go to their religious places and pray to / worship God, especially because it can give those in emotional / mental distress the "strength" to tide over the problems ( which again are the outcomes of perceptions, under normal circumstances). God is excellent in such and similar situations. But when God becomes the tool for hatred, betrayal, persecution, violence, greed, killing etc., there is a major problem.

Delusions are unfounded, unreasonable beliefs. Many people, tired after traveling on logical paths to find out the "realities" behind living and dying, and also to find out the mysteries of day-to-day life, tend to stop the exploration and retreat onto patches of beliefs and cling onto them almost endlessly. These patches are often dominated by people who seek supremacy over the others by playing the God-card or anointing of people as god-men. They spread their delusions among the gullible "followers" who then turn to be the carriers of distorted gods in them. Many from this section of people end up disturbing peace and prosperity of their fellow beings, again in the name of God.

Considering the huge limitations of human mind and the fact that reasoning out our existence and related struggle is essential to keep our common sense working well in the social living environment, the concept of God in its original form is logical and beautiful. But when one's god becomes another one's demon, people gun for each other.

A day will come soon when some people who can influence others will be able to show the courage to travel intellectually a bit beyond the distorted images of God and help people in overcoming the adverse effects of delusions such images spread in the minds of people. This may finally be able to prevent many a human tragedies, at personal, familial, organizational or social levels.