With the constant bombardment of terrible news, hateful people, and fear mongering, it’s hard to resist the belonging that belief provides. It feels like we are fundamentally off-balance and careening toward a dark place. Suffering motivates people to look for answers and the certainty of belief is comforting.
When I was a girl, I had two parents, a safe school, a community church that was like an extended family, and lots of time to think, wonder and dream. I was a proud American who trusted doctors, the government and the food pyramid: I believed.
It has been very painful to lose trust, hope, belief, and certainty over the last 45 years but I’m more free than I’ve ever been. I’ve learned to focus on values and the pursuit of truth rather than on being “right” or adopting “correct” beliefs.
Something I’ve learned about belief that might be helpful to consider as you navigate is this: belief is not the same as truth.
Ironically, attachment to belief is one of the greatest barriers to seeing the truth. When it comes to our own sacred cows it’s not obvious, but when we consider the beliefs of someone on the opposite end of the spectrum, it makes sense.
I see all kind of people with many different beliefs in my therapy practice. As a professional, I respect each client and their set of beliefs as a rule, but increasingly, I feel a lot of pressure to be careful with my words so I don’t offend.
If I want to share a bit of wisdom with a non-religious person (that pertains to their situation) that I learned from the Bible such as, “Be wise as a serpent and gentle as a dove,” they may not be able to receive it if I reveal the source.
On the other side, if I am talking to a religious person and use the term “Universe” or “Source” instead of God in conversation, it might create a barrier that, even if what I’m saying is absolutely true, they will be unable to hear it.
If their defense system is triggered, I can instantly became an illegitimate source for wisdom and information when I misspeak. In each case, the risk is that the client gets activated, stops receiving, and becomes defended against a perceived threat to their personal belief system. Currently we see this dynamic throughout society and especially on social media.
At most, beliefs are the best we have so far. Picture belief as a bucket of precious things we carry around with us. Ideally each precious thing is regularly scrutinized to determine it’s worthiness to remain in the bucket. Ideally we learn, listen, experience, and question, with a willingness to swap things out or add and remove things as our understanding develops.
Instead, we look for people with the same precious things in their bucket so we can confirm the worthiness of the stuff in our own. We seek to make reality, science, behavior, laws, and people conform to our beliefs. If someone questions the content of our bucket, they risk being labeled “wrong” or some version of evil—some ist or ism—and are warned that if they refuse to switch out the contents of their bucket to match ours, they deserve the punishment they will ultimately receive.
Again, it’s easy to see on the other side and in other people.
Belief is our working knowledge in the pursuit of truth. This pursuit leads to wisdom and it lasts a lifetime. The people at the extremes of belief—woke, religious, pro, anti, deranged, or conspiratorial—create a barrier which prevents us from progressing beyond division toward truth, wisdom and love.
The question for everyone to ask is, “How am I contributing to this?”
In order to meet in the middle for a Love Revolution, we must be willing to come to the table and have conversations. If you are curious about how to loosen your grip on belief, pursue truth, and build community based on shared values, stay tuned. The key is renewing the mind and I’ll say more about that next week.
THIS IS SO SO SO SPOT ON!!!! Bravo!