Belief systems

We all have a belief system, but everyone has differing beliefs. In Chapter 3 we’ll be looking at where our beliefs come from, but for now we’ll look at how they affect our actions.

Examples

If you were brought up in a family that had several members who regularly committed crimes – such as burglary or car theft – you might know on a conscious level that this is wrong, but your attitude is quite likely to be accommodating to this sort of activity. If someone asked you to do something dishonest you might find it easy to agree.

If you were brought up in a family where servants were always there to look after you, you might not realize that it is not acceptable to leave clothes out for someone else to put away in other people’s homes. If you visit friends who do not have servants, it might not occur to you to tidy up your clothes.

When there is an outbreak of flu in an office, people catch it one after another. You will hear people saying ‘I think I’m getting the flu,’ and, sure enough, a day or two later they are off sick.

But if a family has several members sick with flu, how often is the mother struck down? Think back to your childhood; look at large families that you know. It seems to go through the family but Mum doesn’t usually get it – or, if she does, she gets a mild dose after everyone else is better and back at work and school. This is not because mothers have a different immune system to the rest of us. It’s because they cannot afford to be ill. A subconscious trigger will tell them ‘I cannot become sick, or nobody would be there to look after the family’. They believe they must remain healthy and, mostly, they do.

The mind is powerful – you just need to know how to program in the messages that get this kind of result.