Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of The Crucible.
Yet again, it is Juliana and myself.
We have had so much fun and so many great conversations with you guys and by ourselves that we thought we'd bring another one into the mix.
Today I want to talk about beliefs.
And this cropped up.
when I had a lovely walk in nature a few days ago.
And it got me really thinking about beliefs.
Where do they come from?
Where do we process them?
How do they affect us and things like that?
I think we'll start very simply.
Beliefs for me stemmed from growing up.
Parental beliefs, society's beliefs and things like that.
And I didn't question them.
So I really...
feel that beliefs are in the head.
They're nothing to do with your heart.
They're nothing to do with your body.
They are.
This is your belief.
know, be good, go to school, get an education, believe in God, believe in your God, whatever your God your parents tell you or lack of God that doesn't matter.
But my, my feeling and what really came up when I was going for that walk the other day was beliefs are.
Unconsidered.
things that we are told.
So as I said, we are told to believe in a God, we are told to do this or do that.
And they go straight up to here because we are told them and they go into here.
And until we look at them and then question them and wonder about them, they are our narrative, they are our story, they are simply our program.
And they may not always be actually what
me as a person wants.
You know, I may not want to believe in a God.
I may not want to do this and do that.
I'm not going to waffle on too much longer, but I think what made my life complicated was Hamish did not agree with the beliefs that he was brought up with and that caused a
disparity, that caused a conflict and I didn't know how to deal with that for a very long time.
So that is my thought of what a belief is.
Juliana, I'd love to know what you think.
belief is or how you perceive them, how you comprehend them.
Yeah, hi.
Yes, for me, beliefs is what we do.
What, for example,
Now that you mentioned about religion, my mom take me from a small child to go to church and go there and you have to be there and there is a God and then you need to stay quiet
and then you need to do this and do that.
So I create that belief that there is a man and I need to pray it and I need to, things that we do so many times that it's becoming a habit is like automatically is that what we
do?
is believe like this is how we do it.
Like that there is no question.
So that's that's one of the perspective of how I'm seeing beliefs.
And as you say, I'm agree with you, like, growing up, I have been input in my own beingness some beliefs that my parents believed in.
And they say, this is how it's life and this is how we do it.
there is no questioning because there is nothing to question.
This is the way.
So I agree with you there as well.
It's like beliefs also we're taking from what parents thinks, what their experience was about.
And then through their own experience told us that this is the life and that's how we move in life.
having these beliefs, these
patterns because the beliefs is to some point to some level also there are some patterns that is so rooted in our beingness that we are not aware of it because it's so coming so
Naturally or naturally so in our way that we don't even observe it what we do so beliefs are things input it
from a small child or from our own experiences that has been created a specific understanding.
And then every time when we experience, we get hit in these beliefs that, this it is, I experienced last time and last last time and my mother also, and that's what it was.
So this is how it is to be doing.
Yeah, so that's how it believes how I'm seeing and perceiving at this moment.
Something we do it very often, almost we are not aware of it.
Other things we are being grow up as a child and is so rooted in our own system that it's like, it's impossible to see out of that box because it's formed of actually of who we are
today.
again going back to awareness, being aware and choosing and questioning then we can actually question those beliefs and get out of them dive them, break them, look at them
from another perspective and see is that healthy or is not not healthy.
Yeah.
like that.
It's, it's, yeah, it's unconscious, as you said, is unconscious.
It's, it's what we've been advised.
And it reminds me very much of the conversation we had the other time about lenses.
You know, it is is it is those lenses that I put on or my parents put on and they painted the colors and the scratches and you know, that's what I see through.
Yeah.
And, you know, my my story for those of you who know my story, I
I struggled with addiction because I didn't know how to reconcile certain beliefs.
And I didn't, it doesn't really matter how or why, but I didn't question those beliefs because they were what I was told to do and be.
And, you know, when I started questioning those, it was my identity was being shattered.
was having to challenge everything.
And that is really frightening.
And it was, it was scary.
I was having to challenge everything up here with what Hamish wanted, what was going on in here.
it's just like, well, you know, that isn't serving me and that isn't serving me.
And it was very hard to deprogram those beliefs.
And I think it's not necessarily a case of deprogramming them because sometimes they may be
You know, you may be, yeah, I actually believe in that God and I have chosen that.
So I've embodied it from here down into my heart, down into my body.
And I've made that belief a lifestyle, a structure rather than just, you know, being told.
But I think, you know, it's, I think it's critical that we question everything, but without a...
without judgment and without any resentment because you know, yesterday that's what I believed because that's what I was told two days earlier.
How do I start questioning my beliefs?
How do I start wondering whether that is true for me?
it, you know, how, how do I begin to deconstruct that programming and check into whether it is actually what I want, desire, or whether it is actually
damaging me.
is from beginning with is that working for you?
Is those things still working for you?
What actually becomes stick in the road and the tire so to say that's stopping you.
Those beliefs are still working out for you.
It's helping you to move forward to create whatever he wants to create.
Because while you're speaking is
coming to me that hey but this identity that we are Hamish, Juliana it creates an unbelief system.
Everything is belief.
Like so the identity also is created on a belief.
That's who I should be.
That's who I am normally.
That's what I am doing regularly.
That's who I hanging out with.
So
When we start to question the beliefs that we hold, I guess is when we find out that the things that have been working out for us are not working out anymore.
The way I behave, the way I was using to do the things.
The way, I don't know, the food that I was eating, now my body is screaming out loud and say, stop eating this crap because I feel so uncomfortable.
And then you start to question like, hey, I eat this, this was my favorite meal.
And now my body is screaming out loud, don't want, I feel sick afterwards.
Like, why?
So it's from there, it's that from this small hints of feeling in the body, what's working out for you and where do want to go?
which direction and if there is a direction that it's not compa...
it's not
and in the direction you want to move.
is not allowing or is not working out anymore the things that you were used to do, to talk, to behave, to think.
That is not working out.
That means it's something you have to let go, detach, question, look in and choose and ask yourself, why do I have this?
Why do believe this?
Why do I'm still holding on this reality?
What's that?
Because
Yeah, from my perspective is this one.
When you feel, sense, experience that the things are not working out anymore the way have been worked out in the past and that starts to, the click is coming in and starts to
question.
Yeah.
Yep.
I got, as you were saying, saying that and the different path, it's like, yeah, I need a new car.
The car I've got isn't working anymore for me.
It's got old tires.
It's got an old engine.
It's out of date.
The seats are uncomfortable.
And if I want to move ahead, I need to, I need to make some changes and you know, buying a new car is often expensive.
Changing your lifestyle is often expensive.
But how do you, mean, looking back at my journey, know, was, was, it was easier to drink.
It was easier to isolate.
It was easier not to confront that belief for a long time than to actually go, I don't like that.
That's not working for me.
You know, I didn't have that awareness.
didn't.
Check in.
didn't see the bumps on the road, realize how bald the tires were, realizing my windscreen was really, really dirty.
You know how?
How can some people suddenly go, this ain't working.
And other people like me are just driving that old car like an absolute loony and it's almost down to that self-destruct.
How do I not repeat that pattern of going into, getting myself into such a mess because certainly in the world of addiction, people are so afraid of change.
They're so attached to that destruction.
And that belief structure and that belief structure may well be, you know, I'm a useless person.
I'm an alcoholic.
I'm an addict.
You know, nobody loves me.
I'm not worthy and all that kind of stuff.
All that narrative, let's say that was, you know, from society, you you can't be a drug dealer.
You can't be a drug addict.
You mustn't be an alcoholic.
No, you can't do prescription drugs.
You mustn't be fat.
You mustn't be slim.
How, how do we challenge those beliefs in a way that is not going to make us go mad?
Because
It nearly made me go mad.
It nearly killed me to be honest, not just going mad.
Hmm.
Yeah.
So one of the things is, are you ready to let go of the identity you think is who you are?
Because what we hold on is like, this is who I am.
I'm drinking, I'm having, I'm playing, gobbling or whatever.
is who I am.
This is what I always did.
So is
It requires a lot of inner strength and power to willing to detach, to let go.
It's like because I feel like we hold on identity and this is what we do and this is how I am.
But are you ready to let go of that belief this is who you are?
Or this identity that is always playing, gambling, drinking, having party, whatever is doing.
For my perspective is to come close and to listen to your body because everything is there.
And we are so disconnected from our body that we are not aware specific foods are actually not healthy and is so uncomfortable for us.
But if we'll be and feel our body, we will catch ourselves a piece of, let's say fast food is so heavy for the system.
the same with this, the same with addiction, the same with whatever we are, how we feel in the body.
You see, we are so detached from the body because there's so much going on in our experience.
We go through so much pain that we somehow we are out of the body.
Let's say we are not fully in exactly.
Just in our heads, aren't we?
Yeah.
When I say in the body is like, as you say, yes, in the in the heart, which is the feeling to feel to sense to sense what's going on here.
Because when we are here, we are not here.
When we're not in the mind, we are not in the body.
We are just operate for this matrix.
We need to do this.
We need to follow this.
We need to get this and everybody do this system.
As you said, like what is required, what is asking for us to do this and this and that.
Being in the body, because there is everything.
There is your belief systems, there is your stuck emotions that create that belief system.
There is all the answers that you look outside of yourself, are in your physical body and connecting with your emotional body, so to say.
So to not go mad is to realize from the mental level that this is not who you are.
You're not their mind.
Your mind is creating a reality.
It's helped you to navigate to this three dimension world, to this physical world, to keep you safe as this avatar.
it's not, it's not lead your life.
Don't know to lead the life from a place of, of
let's say foundation this from feeling and unity and love and kindness and to take care of your own emotional system.
The mind is more external, so to say.
So if you comprehend to the mind level that you are not this and this what you have been hurt, rid through all this life till this point moment is not the reality because
everything is here in your body then connecting with your emotional body with your physical body you'll feel this is not working out anymore but this has to happen something
Mm.
to be there a click.
As you said, there was a crisis.
There was like something from the inside come up as in if I will not do stop this, I will end up in a really shitty place.
That's something have coming from routine where you suddenly kind of got this wake up call.
I was like, Whoa, I need to see what pay attention or what I'm doing.
So until that is not happening.
It's like you're still playing out.
But why should we wait that to happen?
Why not we say what?
because we're human because we're stupid because we're frightened because we're scared
Exactly we are afraid afraid of what?
change What is outside of that reality that is not here right now?
What I will do if I will not do X Y Z who am I if I don't do X Y Z does the fear and Why should we wait to come a crisis in our life when we take decisions say?
Okay, I will start question and I start feel be back feel my body.
Yeah
So I think answering to your question is don't wait the cries, connect with your body, with your emotion, feel into your body what's right for you, what's not is the same with
the relationship, with addiction, with behaviors you have, everything and feel how that feels for you.
It's give you good feeling or it's like of irritation or something.
That's your compass to follow.
Yeah, I like that.
And as you were saying that I sort got the sense that, know, this, your brain makes up a reality, very, very much so.
You're living in that from past experiences.
And yet our body in this physical world, our body is touch, taste, smell, see, hear.
You know, that is where we actually interact with the real world.
So there's two worlds.
There's one in here.
And there's one out there that we touch and our body is the interface, isn't it?
understand the world.
And then this thing, our heart and our gut, it's that sort of feel into it and decide what we want to do within there.
So there's a whole pile of realities.
And yeah, I mean, for me, was I was living in my own head, my own head reality, which was very fearful.
And if I do this, that, you know, if I break this belief, then this and yeah, yeah, sadly, took me
until you know it wasn't this ain't working it was like a car crash before i changed or had to change
Yeah, and then, but I mean, I want to touch on, know, some, a lot of the beliefs that we get from our parents and from society are actually healthy, you know, morals for one, be a
good person, treat other people respectfully, you know, I think it's, it's no harm to question those, is it?
And then if, if, if these two things go tick, I like that, then we can embody it and go, yeah, that, that, that works for me.
And think that's, you know, that, that, is a way of doing it and not being curious, being really curious about every single thing you do.
And that's hard because as you said, it's all unconscious.
So, yeah, I mean, how do we, how do we start to observe these, these things?
is how do you want to live?
Okay.
you want to live?
What do you want to experience?
How do you want to feel?
What do want to bring in your life?
So you're saying I can choose how I want to feel.
Yeah.
Okay explain that one.
For example, you are facing a situation and it triggers you, something in you.
And then the mind, that trigger or that feeling is raising in your body.
And then the mind creates a story and then it's rolling.
And then that story rolling is creating more feeling, more rage, whatever there is.
And that moment, if you catch yourself and think like, okay, I see it, but I will not give into it because I don't want to experience that at this moment.
Yes, it's something we have to go through to feel, if it's triggered, to deal, to realize, but we can choose how to feel.
We can choose to feel in the moment.
If you have a conversation, it's something like, and say, no, I will not give because so much is going from the mind, because the mind hears something and is based on the world's
stories and starts to create something.
And then when the mind creates something, the feeling starts raising.
Instead of saying hey I'm in control and I will not give in to it, I will choose to feel at peace at this moment, instead of buying it into stories that my mind wants to create.
choose your reality, isn't it?
So I'm choosing the reality in my head or, or the one that's around me.
Exactly, because everything is in your hands.
You have a choice and nobody can choose for you is your decision.
I like that.
Choose your reality.
What reality do you want?
What outcome do you want?
Do want a favorable one?
Do want one where you stay friends with somebody even though they were an idiot at you?
Would you want to beat them up because they pissed you off?
Yeah, choose your reality.
wrong.
It's just the experience to have.
Nobody's good or bad.
It's like, okay, I want to this pain in the ass.
Okay, so be that.
I mean, it's your choice.
It's your life to experience on Earth.
Okay.
That's interesting.
And then so I've chosen my reality.
I've looked at one or two beliefs and realized that that doesn't work for me.
That does.
I suppose I'm also shedding my identity, aren't I?
I'm shedding that old belief.
crap.
Yeah.
are recreating something new because you see, we have the foundation, as you say, from parents, we have some specific values.
You can have it with you if that's what you want and that's working out and it's kind of have the foundation.
But then when the other beliefs that are not anymore helping for us is feeding away, when that's going away, they have to be replaced or something else.
By replacing with something else, you create a new identity.
You are not Hamish from one year ago.
That's new identity.
The people that you know for 10 years ago, if you will meet with them, they will not recognize you.
You are not the same.
So you are evolving.
You are shedding your old skin and you're creating a new identity by letting go of beliefs.
questioning what you have been believed to this moment and replace it with something healthy that you think, feel is for you healthy, is about you.
I went to a school reunion a couple of years ago and last time I'd seen these people, I was 15 and this was 25, 35, 45, 35 years later, 36 years later.
And there's Bruce.
I remember Bruce being like that.
I remember Karen being like that.
I remember Simon being like that.
Apart from that all the boys had no hair left and all the girls weren't quite as young and pretty as they were.
The only thing they had in common was their name.
And half the girls had renamed themselves obviously by marriage.
And it was, yeah, it was exactly that.
Just, you know, I cannot, you know, you aren't Bruce from 1985.
You're not Simon from 1985.
Yes.
Who are you?
I had to sort of, I remember sitting there and talking to them and going, right, let's put Hamish.
No, let's put Simon age 15 there.
let's see who he is and almost pushing out the old one, getting rid of that old narrative.
And it was easy to do because it was a big difference.
It's not like a one step difference.
It was 15, I 35 years.
So by that, it's going to be easier to question really old beliefs, but what about things that, you know, new habits that I've created?
you know, we create new habits all the time, new patterns.
How do we spot those?
Because they are, are they easier to get rid of when we spot them because they haven't been ingrained so much?
I mean, I don't know.
What do you think about that?
new habits.
Tell me more about it.
Well, let's say, let's say a new belief.
You know, I, as I said, I went to rehab, I came out, I realized that, you know, they told me that everything was my fault.
I had to take a hundred percent responsibility for everything.
Even though, you know, there was me, there was a partner, there were clients, there was business, there was this, there was that.
My part of that is how I responded to all of those things.
Some of those people were great.
Some of them weren't.
So, you know, those
I was told to take responsibility for everything.
Yeah, it was my fault.
It was my fault.
So I took that on board for a little bit, but that also didn't serve.
one of the things I do dislike about AA and NA is hi, I'm Hamish.
I'm an addict.
Hi, I'm Hamish.
I'm alcoholic when I'm clean and sober, you know, that, that does not work for me.
That belief that you should always carry your
your sins to remind you of how bad you are.
mean, apart from the fact that is essentially Christian dogma, you know, I'm a sinner, therefore I go to hell, you know, that kind of stuff.
so then, you know, we pick up new habits, we make new habits when the old ones, disappear or when we get rid of them, but they're going to change as well.
Yes, yes, it's like shedding the skin like the snake shedding the skin so many times in this life if we see us as that snake so if you hold some belief system that help you to
overcome a specific Period in your life that those beliefs was helping you to overcome whatever great Do they help you after that?
No, so why hold them?
You are not that anymore you maybe were
that experience but you are not anymore so why should you hold them no let them go because you are not that it's helping for a short period of time two years three years but then
let it go because you overcome you learned whatever was there and then you moved on and then create something new it's like constantly we need to surrender to the experience to
let go and let go and let go
Let go of beliefs, let go of identity, we think this is who we are, because in end of the day it's not your fault.
Now you know you need to go to the experience because it's teaching you something and na na, but you are not that.
You have been had an experience, but you are not that.
So again, let it go.
If that belief system is help you to overcome whatever you find yourself in so
Use, you need, it's good.
But then let it go.
Don't carry with you the whole life.
Because...
YIKSAC!
it might be, really like that, I resonate with that, that makes sense.
So I guess it's again, it's discernment, isn't it?
again, it's helping you.
It's feels that is assisting you and it will help you to yes.
So, so have it with you.
It's so much about what's working for you and what's not working for you.
I saw a pendulum.
You it's, it's you, you swing, you make you, change a habit and then you usually go too far, you know, on a spiritual awakening, become love and lies and everything is beautiful
and everything is this.
then the reality is there is hard shit to deal with.
And it's not all love and light and fluff and bunnies and rainbows and unicorn farts and things like that.
There is shit.
People die.
Things happen.
So it's, it is, it's, it is a yo yo.
It is a pendulum, isn't it?
And it's.
Yeah, up and down.
Exactly.
And at the end of the day, not even being attached of your own identity.
You are evolving.
are constantly learning something through the experience that you have in life, constantly is shifting you, is transform you, is shape you in another person with another value, with
another kind of way of being, feeling, experience life.
So why should we hold
Juliana that experienced 10 years ago something.
Why should I hold on that identity of myself?
Which which who I am today is so far away like Let it go.
That's why I take you open your fist and let it go Let it go the identity you create for yourself for one year ago what you have told to yourself I will never do this and you find
yourself to a place where hmm, I think would be clever if actually
I will do that, but you say to yourself you don't do it.
So, but this is working for you today.
Why you hold on?
I said I will never do it.
Because again, we create something from the mind and yeah, let it be and let it go and detached for your own belief system from the way you think who you are and be with the
flow.
and allow to experience, take with you what's helping, the rest let it go.
And like this, you create your new identity, your new life.
You can be someone else every day, can't you, if you want to?
Why not?
That will confuse them.
Immediately I'm thinking of bands, you know, from the 1980s and 90s when there were actually bands rather than just a DJ doing his stuff, climbs back off his soapbox.
But, you know, a band, they would have a style of music and then they would reinvent them and all the fans, hey, we want the old band back.
People don't actually want us to change.
That's what it is.
they want the old, they want the familiar and they want Hamish, the drug addict or the alcoholic to carry on drinking with them and go out and talk shite and spend money on
stuff and talk the same nonsense and you know, all that kind of drive them home drunk and things.
And when I change, when that identity changes, I leave people behind.
You know, it's, it's, it's
It's also lonely when you have to change your identity or choose to change your identity.
It's lonely because people don't like it.
Yeah, and once you speak I was like why they don't like it why because they have to change their own Approaching with you they have to find a new way to connect with you because you
are not that and they know how you were But because you're someone they have to change they have to feel discomfort in some way because they don't know how to take you so it's
again like fears of changing themselves, of course, we have to let them behind because
where they don't accept the way we are, where they try to put in the box that we cannot fit anymore.
And we go to a place where we will dissolve of this identity because the soul has not any identity.
The soul is just is, experience a human experience.
But we are in this avatar that we have to deal with this and that and beliefs and character.
how others see it.
So, let it go and having no identity is actually really surprising and feel liberated to experience life.
And if you're lucky, your friends, your partner will also be changing their identity.
They'll be growing.
They'll be experiencing new things, not just stuck as I'm mum, I'm dad, I'm a lawyer, I'm a this, but I'm experiencing and then growing as well.
Yeah.
Or not.
or not exactly because the most fearful things for a human being is to change the reality that has been created from a human perspective.
And I say like when we go to the spiritual awakening, we have to lose our minds to awaken our soul.
That means we have to forget or to crumble everything that has been created from the mind.
So there will be a place where the soul can find its way.
And that's fearful.
That's the most fearful thing for a human to experience.
yeah, comfort zone.
So beliefs are something we create in our head or get created in our head.
is starting to be creating from a place of head, like let's say let's go to church every Sunday and then that it's transforming in our habits and then it's creating our emotions
and then it's going through our body that it's creating identity.
I go to church every Sunday and that's who I am.
For me, it's like a belief system is not only that we need to look in my mind and find out what it is, it's in our body, as our energy, as our emotions, that it's here in our
physical body.
So to...
can I just jump in?
if it feels nice in my body, as in wholesome nice, not as in sensual or addictive or that kind of thing, if it's appeared as a thought, go to church, I'm a Christian, I'm a father,
I'm a mother, if the body feels it and it's really empowering, then that's a healthy belief, yeah?
And one you can keep for now rather than dismiss.
Whereas if it makes you feel angry, agitated, dirty, it's probably something you need to question.
Okay.
Yeah.
put it perfectly.
Because we have to choose that's what is empowered and feeling free from the inside instead of kind of looking down and make ourselves small.
So those, if you feel empowered and it's feeling like, I'm like on the top of the world, just me being that I'm feeling this, then yes, it's something that you can choose for
yourself.
Okay, that makes that makes a lot of sense.
And then so that belief becomes, yeah, as you said, it becomes embodied, it becomes aligned with your, it becomes a value, I suppose, doesn't it?
It becomes what's important to you.
You know, and for some people, it is going to church, some people it is becoming a shamanic practitioner, becoming a healer becoming this
Yes.
I don't want to go into is that your identity because it's not really about that, it's a belief.
Yeah.
So the belief basically you question and then if it, if it feels right, then you take it on and if it feels wrong, let it go.
It's, it's about as complicated as that.
Yes, exactly.
Exactly.
And I have to be aware that some beliefs keep us stuck to move forward.
And we don't know why.
Because we have it in the back of our head.
That means there's a feeling in the body and we are not aware.
Like, I want to step forward.
I want to do this, but I feel fearful or I feel like, is in the body the emotions?
whatever you have been experienced five years old or 10 years old or so it's like creating this emotion in the body.
So one, you are again to experience, to overcome that you feel like you meet a fence, a wall is because is that what's holding you, which is from within.
Yeah.
That's that's beliefs in my experience.
Feeling the emotions.
the body but also is creating first from what we perceive with our eyes.
Yeah so they are something to question and...
with curiosity and just with, yeah, yeah, it's just like that.
An open mind.
Really, free in just questioning and don't judge it and just open yourself to see another perspective to that and you will get the answer.
For you, whatever that is, for you.
I really like that.
think this has been a quick conversation.
But I think we've really just sort of looked at something from a really interesting perspective.
yeah, don't hang on to your beliefs if they don't serve you, if they make you feel grubby, if they limit you.
Fab, my friend.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for that.
Anything else you want to add before we wrap up for now?
I just can add like this, just some things.
Choose what's empowering you, what's make you feel free from the inside, liberated from the inside.
And look at everything with curiosity and open mind.
And a bit like that child discovering a new world because the world within is a new fascinating world.
So don't wait a crisis.
Don't wait the life to hit you in a place where you feel in the corner, but get curious now and dive deep into your inner world to find what beliefs you hold, what story you tell
to yourself that holds some beliefs that make you
you are and you feel stuck when in reality is a choice.
So you know you are free being.
Everything is within and what you want to experience and how you want to experience life is there in you with you in your decision.
Fabulous.
Thank you very, very much.
That is brilliant.
Thank you.
Thank you for listening to another episode where Juliana and I can talk about things important to us, experiences, understanding, questions, things that we have experienced in
life recently or not so recently and just had a chance to talk about.
It's always fun to share what comes up and we have lots of fun doing it and we really enjoy it.
If you've got any questions, please message myself or Juliana and we will do our best to get them included in another episode of the conversation.