With inner beliefs we refer to deeply held convictions that influence one’s perception, thinking, decisions and behaviour. They are personal assumptions or thought patterns about oneself, about how the world works, how people are, or how to assess a particular situation.
Inner Beliefs are an accumulated mix coming from experience, upbringing, interpretations and cultural influences throughout our lives. Not all of them are helpful and often we are not aware of them.
What are examples of supportive and hindering inner beliefs?
Here are a few examples of limiting, hindering beliefs:
- I’m not good enough.
- It’s hard to make money in my profession.
- Other people are unreliable.
Here are a few examples of supportive beliefs
- I am a darling of fortune
- If I set my mind to something seriously, I can do it.
- I am valuable.
You can think of inner beliefs like an imaginary map based on thoughts and feelings that helps you navigate through life. It shows where dangers supposedly lurk and where it is likely to be worthwhile to wander. It includes personal preferences and indicates how flat and easy or steep and stony a path is to get to the points of interest such as dreams and goals.
How can we work with Supportive Inner Beliefs?
Working with Supportive inner beliefs is a practice to review and redesign this inner map in order to pave ways to the promising destinations and to keep from going to places that are not beneficial. It is about looking at single sentences in order to understand one’s thought patterns and aligning them with goals and dreams.
Unconditional Forgiveness
This is a method for empowerment through increased awareness and through a release of energy. The release happens when letting go of anger and blame.
(a) It can be taught, to an individual or group, using a ‘small’ issue for practice, and for later use with bigger issues; either old or fresh.
(b) If the person is ready, they can be immediately coached through an issue that they perceive as a direct obstacle or problem.
(c) It can also be used for self-forgiveness; the presence of a coach or friend is recommended.
The purpose of Setting Your Intention is to clarify, both within oneself and within the group, what each person’s aim is.
This exercise is used to uncover underlying problems, and to create tension between ‘what is’ and ‘what could be’ – or between hopes and fears. Normally each participant defines her/his focus and is then coached by one or two other participants. The main role of the coaches is to listen carefully to the replies to their questions, and to adapt subsequent questions accordingly.
Learning from one’s own experience is often viewed as very difficult, and learning from others’ experience as more or less impossible. Instead, as repositories for experience, we build databases of best practice, which, paradoxically, tend to keep us where we are by focussing mostly on the superficial, successful specifics of particular projects. The generalised or generic learnings, usable for others, are seldom extracted, neither from the ongoing process nor from the final results.
Learning for Change was developed to take up the challenge of making learning from experience easily accessible to both individuals and groups, initially within the arena of sustainable development. The ‘Internal’ format is designed for a group of people who are or will be working together with a common focus.
An approach to discussing potentially contentious topics, developed by Mathis Wackernagel, to ‘create an appetite’ for change.