How Beliefs POSSESS Us!

📌 The Optimist believes in the best for the future. Therefore their mind likes to focus on hope and faith.

📌 The Pessimist believes in the worst for the future. Therefore their mind likes to focus on what’s wrong with the world.

📌 The Realist believes in seeing things as they are, not better or worse. Therefore their mind likes to focus on facts, not the emotional stories about the facts.

📌 The Cynic believes in the selfishness of others. Therefore their mind likes to focus on distrusting other people’s “good” or “virtuous” intentions.

What do all these categories have in common? 🤔

𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐚𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞. They aren’t “right” or “wrong” necessarily, just ways of seeing the world around you. 👀

𝐄𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐞 𝐚 𝐝𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞. 🙌

🌟 Our beliefs constantly color and shape how we see life. 🌟

Take an example of people who get into a car accident…

📌 The Optimist expects most of the people in the accident will be okay.

📌 The Pessimist expects most, if not every person in the accident will die.

📌 The Realist measures the probability the people in the accident will live or die based on the facts.

📌 The Cynic assumes the people in the accident were careless and intentionally caused it to collect insurance money.

🌟 𝐖𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐬𝐞𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐬. 𝐖𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐫𝐞𝐟𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐰𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞. 🌟

Carl Jung talked about how ideas can possess people, rather than people possessing ideas. And when a belief possesses a person, the person is no longer in control. The belief speaks through the person. 🗣️

I must add: beliefs aren’t intrinsically bad. We all have them and need them in order to function. 𝐈𝐭’𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐞 𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟-𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐥 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐟𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐚 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐦. 👍

So how can we check if our beliefs possess us?

📍 Acknowledge most of our beliefs are not even our own. We didn’t carry them from birth. We’ve picked them up over time and embraced them as our own.

📍 Challenge our beliefs. Question how they could be flawed or wrong. Question our ego’s need to hold onto them.

📍 Seek other points of view that challenge our beliefs. Don’t surround ourselves in echo chambers. It doesn’t mean we have to agree with those who disagree with us, but to nevertheless keep an open mind to a different perspective.

If we’re unable to do any of these…we may already have our answer. 🙌

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