How to get rid of junk beliefs that are not yours

Another author who I love has dedicated most of her work about changing your thoughts in your mind to create positive changes in your life.

Louise Hay is probably the most well known author about that topic in the world.

Through her book “Love yourself, heal your life” (the workbook) you get to realize how much values and beliefs system are actually not yours.

Through education and childhood, you have been hearing things and lived through the beliefs and the values of your parents.

For example, I grew up in a family where both my parents were government workers, my Mom was a Maths teacher in a public high school and my father was working for the phone company which at that time in France was a public company.

All my childhood, I grew up in a family where my parents had no fear of losing their job.

Any discussions regarding career were about finding security because that is a value that was very important in my family (after all, this is the second basic needs on the pyramid of Maslow after physiological needs, so it must be an important value for a lot of other families too).

I remember when I was in high school and it was time to figure out which path I wanted to take in my studies. In France, it is either literature, science or economy.

I had an interest in all three and could have literally go to each of them. The choice was made on the question which would bring me the most security later, in finding a job.

Science is called the Royal path (whether it is because your Mom is a math teacher might have to do with it).

And so here I go to Science, making choices based on what percentage of people find a job in this or that career. Security was more important than passion.

When I was younger, I would have loved being a psychologist but this was not a path that had a high success rate.

Millions of kids and parents make their choices based on that. You just need to look at a journal talking about career and development at school to realize that.

Every single one of them as the main criteria being: percentage of a chance you will have that job at the end of your studies. In other words: the percentage of a chance you will get that job that might not be your dream job.

If you had 10% chance to realize your dream life, would you give it a shot? Yes. So why don’t we let our kids give a shot to their dreams and to be what they really wanna be or do what they really wanna do in their life? Is that to protect them from failure? Sure it is easier to reach average.

But the average is also pretty dull.

Your frame of reference, belief system, and values are the base for you to make pretty important decisions into your life, don’t you think? That is why it is so important you become crystal clear about which values do YOU really believe in and which ones are not yours to keep.

Louise Hay does review all areas in your life. How you view men, women, love, sex, work, money, success, failure, and God.

She also investigates what is your belief system regarding what you think or feels you are deserving.

The book aims at having a different perspective on life, one that empowers you to change.

The philosophy is that every thought we think is creating our future and therefore we are responsible for our experiences.

Luckily for us, thoughts can be changed. She also makes a point in being in the present moment and the Now.

As a matter of fact, it is true that the past cannot be changed and that the future did not happen yet so worrying about them both is only creating useless bad thoughts.

Then for each topic, she goes in-depth about what new positive affirmation you can nurture to kick out a belief that doesn’t serve you.

What it does to your body and your mind

I really like to combine Louise Hay’s work with Dr. Lissa Rankin’s research.

In a nutshell, using extraordinary cases of spontaneous healing, Dr. Rankin shows how thoughts, feelings, and beliefs can alter the body’s physiology.

She lays out the scientific data proving that loneliness, pessimism, depression, fear, and anxiety damage the body, while intimate relationships, gratitude, meditation, sex, and authentic self-expression flip on the body’s self-healing processes.

This is really a critical piece of information and the reason why clearing the garbage in your mind is so important: It doesn’t only limit you from achieving success, it actually creates chemical and hormonal imbalance in your body that block any self-repairing process and can cause disease in the body.

Do you know that 90% of diseases are caused or complicated by stress? Forget junk foods! Stress is caused by negative thinking that keep repeating themselves.

I personally experienced the power of positive affirmations when I bought the small deck of cards “Power thoughts” from Louise Hay.

Every day, I would pick up a new card and repeat its affirmations for 5 minutes before I start my regular meditation. I did that for a couple of months in early 2014 when I had made the decision to myself that I would quit my job and redesign my life to live by the beach.

In the beginning, I didn’t feel any different but with the weeks passing by, I felt a subtle change in the way I was seeing life. I felt happier, lighter.

While I was getting ready to do the scariest thing and the biggest change of my life, I actually got more and more trustful in the process and the Universe, and I noticed many more opportunities in my life.

A concrete example is that I would regularly pick the card that was saying: “I am open and receptive to new avenues of income: I now receive my good from expected and unexpected sources.

I am an unlimited being, accepting from an unlimited source, in an unlimited way. I am blessed beyond my fondest dreams”.

Well one day I was hiking with my friend Sarah who suddenly popped up the idea that we maybe could be roommates together.

I can guarantee you that as independent as I am, there would have been no room for that thought in my brain prior to starting the positive affirmations. I liked my freedom and comfort too much to find any value in a roommate situation.

But that day, as I was walking in the woods with her, my brain stopped for a few seconds to think about what she had said.

I intuitively recognized this could be an unexpected source of income.

Instead of rejecting the idea straight away, I decided to talk more about it and explore it.

At the end, we didn’t end up being roommates but that day hiking in the forest, I realized the power of the affirmations.

It does bring to your awareness new ways of thinking and being, it’s like having a different frame of reference.

And as the power is now, it also constantly brings you back into the present moment.

Any thoughts about the future is about trust. Any thoughts about the past are about forgiveness and letting go. That’s why the more you practice, the lighter you become.

By starting your day with affirmations you are not over worried or concerned.

Fear is the garbage that is paralyzing you from making a move.

You cannot feel love and fear at the same moment.

While some fears are very well-founded (yes, if you stay on a train track your fear of getting run over by a train is quite well founded), many are really imaginary scenarios playing in our heads of the worst things that could happen.

It often doesn’t take into consideration that we can be quite resourceful when needed.

We often fear uncertainty, situations that are new but this blog will explain how to domesticate that fear so that it fuels but doesn’t paralyze you.