It Is All About Beliefs: Why Reality Isn’t That Important

I was so hard for so long. I was hard.

“Face the facts.” “Look at the data.” “The evidence doesn’t lie!”

I was college educated; I knew so much; I had so much information. I read the news every day, read sociology and history books, scanned headlines throughout the day. I needed to know everything so I would be armed with facts! Beliefs were bullshit!

Little did I know how very little I knew.

Little did I understand that the way to change reality wasn’t to face it but to see how unimportant reality really is.

Lock Her Up

Not Clinton. Me. Right? Put her in a straightjacket and lock her up, she’s saying reality isn’t important! This bitch is crazy!

Okay. Maybe I am, but hear me out first.

Every single person who has ever changed reality, has done it knowing deep down that there was more, something different, another way. Every single person who changed hearts and minds, did it through convincing millions of people to believe in something they couldn’t see. Sometimes just by convincing themselves to believe something they couldn’t see.

Religious figures like Moses and Jesus, Mohammed and Buddha, Ghandi and Henry David Thoreau, all convinced people to be more than what they were, to walk toward something they had no way of understanding, to have faith in something bigger than themselves.

Scientists like Thomas Edison and Benjamin Franklin, Bacon and Decartes, Davinci and Guttenberg, Einstein and Curie, all believed in something long before they saw it in their hands.

One of my favorite quotes is by Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon. It sits high above a staircase, imprinted on a big, otherwise blank wall, at the Chabot Space and Science Center:

These guys, these science fiction authors, dreamed of something, imagined it, believed it into reality for men to walk on the moon or go twenty thousand leagues under the sea years, decades before it was a reality.

It is always a thought first. Always. We always imagine it before we create it. We always imagine it before we can see it. The truth is not that seeing is believing. The truth is that believing is seeing.

The trouble is that we are so stuck in what we see that we can’t believe our way out of it.

Just Believe

How many times did you clap your hands when you were a kid, believing that Tinkerbell would live? How many times did you hope your kids would believe in Santa Claus for one more year? How many times have you prayed deeply and constantly for something, knowing that you needed to “have faith” before you would see the results.

This is not just talk, not just nice stories or metaphors, not merely religious practice; this is actually how we create all of our reality.

I look at abused kids who grow up to abuse others. I look at victims who continue the cycle of victimhood. Hurt people hurt. Why? Because they believe with everything they’ve got that that is the only way, that this reality is the only reality there is, that people are inherently bad.

And so in this world of alternative facts and fake news, we are fighting a war of beliefs, not of reality. My reality is different from yours not because of money or power or political party but because of beliefs. There are rich people, happy people, violent people, depressed people, on both sides of all coins. It all comes down to belief.

Warren Buffet is a Liberal. The Koch brothers are Libertarians. The Walton Family are Republicans.

It is not luck or chance or destiny. It is belief.

What I realized, after 39 years of working and fighting, and reading and learning and pushing and pulling and finger pointing and blaming was that I was not going to change anything by fighting against reality. If I wanted real change, the loving, open, communicative, collaborative, compassionate world that I dreamed of, I had to let go of all that bullshit that didn’t matter at all, political parties and other divisive categories made up by people trying so hard to control reality, and be the change. Be all those things as often and as much as I could. Phew! That’s quite a shift from fighting all the time!

I had to work every day to live the reality I wanted to see created. I had to be that reality. Live and breathe that reality. I had to believe it was possible, which means I had to practice it over and over again. I had to clap my fucking hands.

So here I am, a little over a year after I began an entirely new phase of my life, clapping my hands.

In creating the life I want to live, in reinventing the person I want to become, I am changing the world, little by little. I put as little anger out into the world as I can. I create ripple effects of kindness and compassionate, I make friends with people from all walks of life, and I clap my fucking hands. Most of the time. Trust me. I still get pissed sometimes. Now I just know what it is and how to deal with it.

Hard Work or Inspired Work?

I have written before on the myth of hard work, and each day I find myself “working so hard” – racing to meet deadlines, taking children to the park, doing laundry, grocery shopping, tutoring, you name it – I remind myself that my work is not “hard work.” I am doing what I love. It is inspired work. I wanted my children for years before I had them, and I choose to show up for them every day. I have hand chosen my clients. I have chosen the life of a stay at home mom, and I am happy to have laundry to do and dishes to clean, money to shop for food and a loving husband to bitch at.

It is all about my beliefs.

I could easily play the put upon, beleaguered wife and mother, writer and coach.

And sure, sometimes I do, with my husband anyway. “Ugh, no. It’s okay, honey. I’ll just do everything. I can handle it. I just want you to be happy.” I say, as I sweep the floor. Yes. I actually do get that Cinderella overdramatic sometimes.

But he knows better. And I know better. And then I head off to jump in a bubble bath with my kids and chase them around the house naked to lotion and pajama their soft little bodies, read them books, and kiss them goodnight.

I could sell myself as busy. So busy!

But no, I make sure I sit down with a good book often. I take time to meditate. I visit with friends and snuggle my kids.

I’m not that busy.

It is all about beliefs.

I could buy into the myth of hard work and take on more clients, make more money, never give myself a break, or give myself far fewer breaks than the many I take. I could.

But that is not the life I want, and if I want good clients who pay well, so I can enjoy leisure time and focus on writing my book, I have to know they will come, and I have to create the space for them to fill.

And every single time I remind myself of that, I find a new wonderful, grateful client who pays well and gives me rewarding work. Like magic.

It Is All About Beliefs

This works with absolutely anything, but remember, it only really works with yourself. You cannot believe someone into being different from who they are, or doing different things from the ones they do.

And sometimes, that personal work is actually hard, the work of undoing a set in stone belief system you have held for years and years on end. It is the work I am doing now to get to my own next level, and it is painful and brutal sometimes, on an emotional level. But it is oh so worth it. (I’ll be writing about this as soon as I have more clarity on it myself.)

You can begin by believing new things about yourself. Work on your own thoughts, take steps to live the life you want to be living, really start to feel your way into it, and watch the people who don’t fit into that life fall away, and watch the new ones come in.

What is really interesting is that the ones who want to stay will see what you are doing, and start doing it for themselves, often without realizing they are doing it.

The power of pure bliss is contagious, and if you are believing yourself into bliss, you better believe people are watching you closely to see what the hell you are doing to get yourself there.

Won’t they be surprised when you tell them it’s all about beliefs?

Now, go live happily ever after.