Ep. 4.15 What Is a Belief? Can (and Should) We Change Them?

On the AU podcast this week, we talk about beliefs. Do you know what they really are? Do you know how they can be beneficial or detrimental to you? Beliefs are something we all hold and use everyday, so they’re pretty important! Tune in to find out why they’re so important and what to do to make sure you hold the right ones.

4:46-5:02 Beliefs are complex

8:15-8:36 Is this true?

9:25-9:39 Rooting out negative beliefs

Want to find out more about Dr. Caroline Leaf and her book “Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess”? Check her, and all of her books, out here: https://drleaf.com

Want to really learn how to go on a prayer date with God? https://joy.pinksaltriot.com/prayer-date

Do you know what you believe? Download our personal beliefs inventory to find out! https://joy.pinksaltriot.com/personal-beliefs-inventory

Want free resources to help you build your Christian identity? https://pinksaltriot.com/pages/free-resource-to-build-your-christian-identity

Want to learn more about why you should be identifying the lies you are believing and building your toolbox to fight them? Take our totally free School of Uprising program in as little as 30 minutes! Sign up here: https://joy.pinksaltriot.com/schoolofuprising

Visit our shop for amazing, intentional reminders of the truths we want to embrace with our lives here: https://pinksaltriot.com

Join us for an amazing, on-demand retreat experience to help you come to trust God from a place of safety! You can sign up right here: https://uprisingacademy.thinkific.com/courses/trust-retreat

You can access all our current Uprising Academy retreats and workshops right here: https://uprisingacademy.thinkific.com/

Get instant access to our library of Christian scripture phone wallpapers: https://joy.pinksaltriot.com/wallpapers

  Follow our audio podcast on your favorite platform by clicking here: https://podfollow.com/the-authentic-uprising-show 

<iframe title="Embed Player" src="https://play.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/26581068/height/192/theme/modern/size/large/thumbnail/yes/custom-color/f2e7e5/time-start/00:00:00/hide-playlist/yes" height="192" width="100%" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen="" webkitallowfullscreen="true" mozallowfullscreen="true" oallowfullscreen="true" msallowfullscreen="true" style="border: none;"></iframe>

Hello, and welcome to today's episode
of the Authentic Uprising podcast.
I'm your host Jill Simons, and I'm
so excited to grow in the radical
art of standing in what God
says about you with you today.
The show is a place where we
pour into the sense of who God
is, who we are, and how we can
live more in the freedom that he
has for us every
single day.
Welcome to today's episode of
the Authentic Uprising podcast.
I am your host Jill Simons, and I am
happy to be here with you today.
Today we're going to be talking
about a really interesting
question that I think doesn't get
reflected on very frequently.
But it's really helpful. It
really helps us to clarify a lot
of things about our lives. And so
that question is what is a belief
and can or should
we change them?
I think that this is something
that might seem like a scary
question to talk
about within,
like a Christian circle because
we don't necessarily want
people going around and changing
their belief if they believe
in God or if they believe
in their Christian faith.
We want that to be something
that stays. Right?
We want to support people in
continuing on in their life of faith.
But I think once we get into
the conversation a little bit,
we'll see how belief applies to
more than just our faith as an,
you know, entity and how this can
be a helpful conversation to have.
So as always, definition
of terms super helpful,
a belief is something sounds
really you know, basic,
but something that we
believe to be true.
And so when we look at that definition,
a belief is not tied to reality.
Right? A belief is not based on what is
true. It's based on what we believe.
And so because of that, there
are beliefs that we choose that
we have really cooperated with
intentionally throughout our lives,
but there's also beliefs that
we just kind of fall into.
And and it's very helpful to
cultivate the level of self
awareness to address and
assess which is which,
which are the beliefs that we
have chosen, that we invest in,
that we want to further and
which are the beliefs that are
just kind of defaults that have
developed throughout our life
without really our conscious
cooperation with those beliefs.
And so for a lot of people,
it's it's not unheard of that
there's someone who just of
persists in Christian faith from
childhood to adulthood with no
kind of variation or questioning
or anything like that. I guess it is
possible, but it's sort of unlikely.
Every person that I know and myself, there
was really a point at which we were like,
okay, are we gonna do this for
real or is this just something
that's hold over from childhood?
Maybe that is kind of a default.
If somebody hasn't
really questioned it.
The majority of adults that I
know at least in my circle,
had a point where they may be
consciously left the Church,
stopped being active in their
faith, went through an active
period of questioning their
faith where they really looked
for answers for all of the specific
questions that they have.
That was kind of my story. I
didn't ever leave the Church or
anything like that.
But in college,
I basically literally had a list
of questions and I was like,
okay. I need to be convinced about this.
I need to be convinced about this.
Need to be convinced
about this.
And so I specifically chose
a college based on them having
the theology personnel for me to be
able to go to them and be like okay,
best one of the best minds in our
Church, explained this to me,
explain this to me,
explain this to me.
And I was very intentional
about the fact that if that was
unsatisfactory I
was gonna leave.
But I was willing to give my
faith the benefit of the doubt
and actually find the best of
the answers. And that's what does vary.
You have some people who don't
really give their faith the benefit
of the doubt and might
just abandon it quickly.
And that's where we see it's not
really a belief that they had chosen.
It's a belief that was a default
that they wanted to get rid
of because it didn't feel like
it was serving them anymore.
Not because it doesn't
serve them in reality,
but because that was
their perception.
And so clearly, beliefs are more
complex than just, you know,
I want to believe this, you know,
my faith tells me that etcetera.
And so this is where a personal inventory
of belief is really really helpful.
There is like a template pdf that
you can download in the show
notes that's just for you to do a belief
inventory. What do you believe?
There's no benefit to, like, lying on
this or to being duplicitous with yourself.
The only person who's going
to suffer from that is you.
So it benefits you immensely to
be extremely honest when you
are looking at the scope
of all of your beliefs,
and looking at what is it that
I truly believe is true.
Not just about God, not just about
faith, but just about everything.
Do I believe what do I believe about
myself? What do I believe about my work?
What do I believe
about money?
What do I believe
about my family?
What do I believe about where
I live, the time I live?
Our culture at at large,
all of these things.
I get too excited and I
hit them mike. Sorry.
We couldn't question all of
these beliefs and really drill
down on what it is that we
believe about these things.
And the best way to do
this is through writing.
It's really really helpful to
take some time to actually write
out and that's why we have this
inventory available for you
where it has lots of different
prompts for all of these different
areas of life. Spaces for you to
write what you believe about,
you know, fill in the blank on
a variety of topics so that
it's not you just kind of trying
to think of things as you
sit there taking
this inventory.
And when you have that, then you want
to look at this list of beliefs.
And then you want to assess what
using kind of your rational
mind versus your maybe irrational mind that
developed some of these default beliefs.
And I don't say that in a derogatory
way at all. All of this...
All of us do this. This is just like
a function of be having a human life.
And an example of that might be something
like as a child in dance production.
Someone made a comment about
your size relative to the other
children maybe in
the production,
and that formed the basis for
a belief that you you know,
something about yourself,
something about weight in general,
something about performance,
could be a variety of things.
And so that is something that
just kind of organically bubbled up
inside of you based on a situation
and it's never probably
unless you're a very
reflective person go you.
I'm that is very good habit it to
have to be very self reflective.
It's probably not something
that you have specifically kind
of brought to light, embodied, held
up, looked at, and interacted with.
You have probably just
always let that be.
And that's typically what happens
unless you go through kind
of an aggressive self
reflection time.
And so when we bring all these
beliefs up and to the forefront,
then we can at this list
of beliefs and say, okay,
which which of these
is actually true?
And you might say, well, how
do we know what is true?
As Christians were always
gonna go back to God's Word,
where I was gonna look
at God's Word and say,
is this true based
on what God says?
Is this true based on the teachings
of my Faith as a whole?
And is this true based on
what I know about God?
When we do that, then we have
the opportunity to kind of
highlight beliefs that aren't
helpful. They don't serve us.
They don't build us up. They don't
build up the kingdom of God.
There may be are places where
there's actually tension with
God in us because we're holding onto
something that's contrary to what he says.
And so when we have
places like this,
I think it's self evident that it is
beneficial to change these beliefs.
We want to go through a process
of actually rooting these
things up and implanting,
intentionally picking better beliefs.
And this is what Doctor Caroline
Leaf neuro scientific research
has shown extensively is that
we have the ability to root up
negative beliefs in our mind
and plant better ones through
intentional use of our brain.
And so there's an excellent book
that she has written. She's
written many and you could really
start with any of them
and be very successful.
But I really like "Cleaning
Up Your Mental Mess".
She's also got several other ones
that a link in the show notes
that are very helpful for this
idea of how do we alter our
long standing beliefs. And we
wanna alter these beliefs not
because we decide
what's true,
we want to come into alignment
with what is already true.
Because if you
think about, like,
being in a river as long as you're
swimming against the current,
you're gonna be working so much
harder than you have to.
And so in this example, that current
and how it's moving is the Truth.
We want to be moving with the Truth and
you think about how effortless that is,
if you're like on a float
trip on a river,
you're in an inner tube and
the the current is just moving you
along rapidly, seamlessly, effortlessly
because it's going the direction
that is naturally occurring.
But if we're trying to swim
upstream if we're trying to
get that same inner tube to go
the opposite direction, we are
going to be constantly working,
constantly fighting, rowing, doing
everything, and the progress
we're gonna make is
gonna be so incremental
If there is any
progress, it...
It's a lot of work to just stay
in one place if you're trying
to go against the current.
That's what happens when we are
holding on to beliefs that are
out of keeping with reality.
And so I really recommend
Dr. Leaf book.
I also really recommend using
what we talked about last week
in our episode here on the podcast
asked about declarations.
If you haven't listened
to that episode yet,
I encourage you to go back and
listen to it when you're done
with that one because declarations are
a great tool for changing your beliefs,
bringing your beliefs into greater
alignment with what is already true.
And like I mentioned
last week,
this is a huge tenant upon
which our company is built.
Pink Salt Riot makes all kinds of
things based based on this idea
that we can actually cooperate
in how our brain is wired based
on the things that we see, the things
that we repeat, the messages
that permeate our lives. And so
that's why we create so many
different products that
have messages on them.
We use words extensively
throughout all of our pieces.
And the purpose for that is because
we want to be always moving
our brain into greater
alignment with the truth.
And that doesn't
happen by accident.
We don't just fall into great
alignment with the truth.
That is I think maybe the number
one effect besides the existence
of sin itself, the number one
effect of the Fall is that it takes
conscious awareness and effort
to go with the current.
We're we're not just
natively like, oh,
we get in the river and we all
just float down the river.
We have this instinct to fight
and go the other direction and
it obviously is just a self defeating
cycle where we end up worn out,
frustrated, confused,
but unaware of why.
With no idea why we are so so
tapped out because we are not
even aware that we are protecting and
holding so tightly to these
beliefs that are making it so
challenging for us to move forward.
And to move forward easily and
effortlessly when we get into
that flow of truth. Doesn't mean
that there's not challenges
in life and bumps in the road
and all those things.
But if you think about your life,
if you lived with total trust God,
total trust in
His Providence,
total trust in His provision,
and total trust that He will
really and truly work all
things together for your good,
pretty much regardless of
the situation and obviously,
there's gonna be varying
difficulty levels.
But regardless of
the situation,
you could really be living that
going with the flow of the river.
You could really be in peace. In the midst
of kind of whatever is going on.
Because if you're not worried
about your physical needs,
if you're not worried about
things working out according to
God's plan, if you're not worried about
your own physical safety and life,
you are truly free. And that's
the other thing that we talk
about so much here at Pink Salt
Riot is that we want to help
you do these things, because we wanna
give you freedom. We want you to...
And let me rephrase. I want.
We want you to access,
the freedom that
you already have.
This is not generating freedom
out of out of nowhere.
You know, we're not creating anything
on that front as a company.
We're trying to be, like, your sherpa.
Your freedom sherpa. Our new tag line.
We're trying to walk you
from where we all start.
In to the freedom that God ultimately
has for you. And I really like that.
I think that freedom sherpa
gonna be like my new, like,
Instagram bio tagline
because that is very accurate.
Like, the... And if you don't what
a sherpa is, sherpas are...
I believe it's like an ethnic
term for the race of people that
live towards the base
of Mount Everest.
I could be wrong about the genesis
of that word and it's etymology,
but I believe that it is a term
describing this ethnic group
that lives right by
the base of Mount Everest,
and they are typically the guides that
help climbers go up Mount Everest,
basically. And
so they have...
You know, the term has huge
connotation of being a guide and
a companion for challenging
journeys and really helping people
to reach somewhere that you're
they're capable of reaching
but they need someone
to go with them.
And so that's very much how
I view myself and every...
All the work that we do
here at Pink Salt Riot,
is just helping walk alongside
you as you go on your journey
to stepping into the fullness of
this freedom that God has for you.
There's gonna be so many people in
your lives that speak into this.
There's gonna be other authors
and podcasts and books and
friends and family members and
experiences that all speak into this.
But we wanna be a reliable
place that you can come back to
again and again and really get
fed and get led on this front.
So I'm so thankful that you're
along for the ride with us on
that. I'm also so excited as
we move into the summer.
We're going to be building a lot
more things as my precious
wonderful child moves on graduates to
daycare and my bandwidth opens back up.
We are going to be creating
a lot more resources,
not just for forming
you as an individual,
which we'll always do and
always be passionate about.
We want to create even more
resources for you to understand
how to form the young people that
you speak into in your life.
And that's not
exclusively for parents.
What we're going to create is not
specifically parenting resources.
We wanna create resources for
general mentorship of young people.
How do we lead young
people? By example,
whether you are their parent or
their teacher or their religious
education instructor or
their aunt or their friend,
how do we demonstrate through our
lives a way forward for young people,
because as I have and in the past, truth
is not a hallmark of public discourse.
Right now. There is a huge, huge
lack of truth in our world.
And this affects no one more
acutely than our young people
who don't have experience, who
don't know where else to look.
And they are willing and able
to find so much that is false
quickly and on demand
in our world.
But I will take to my deathbed
the belief that seeing real
human beings in their life that
embody something that they
have never seen before, a kind
of joy, a kind of peace,
a kind of hope that they have
never experienced in their own
lives and they have not seen in
the people speaking into their
lives in the culture. That can
start conversations and start
people down paths that
change the next generation.
We have to offer them
a hopeful way forward.
And that starts with how we live,
that also starts with how we
are empowered to
speak into them.
So we have amazing experts,
wonderful people onboard to work
with us this summer to help
create those resources for you,
and we could not be more
excited to start doing that.
So please stick with us and we
will be bringing that to you
throughout the summer. Share
this podcast or Youtube channel
with someone who is in that
phase of life, who is needing
resources to speak more effectively
into the lives of the young
people in their lives. We would
love to grow this community
and walk with as many people as
possible because every single
individual in the community
speaks life into other people, can
share their experience and just
help us all to do better.
I hope that you have a wonderful
week. I'll talk to you soon.
Thank you so much for joining
me on today's episode of the
Authentic Uprising podcast. It
is always a joy to be with you.
I encourage you to subscribe to our podcast,
subscribe to our Youtube channel,
whichever place you most prefer or do it
all if that is what floats your boat,
we would love to continue to get
to know you better and grown
relationship with you. And so
I encourage you to check out
links in both our show notes and
our Youtube description that
tell you more about where you
can connect with us elsewhere.
The two big things we have going
on beside the podcast is our
shop that is full of reminders
of who you are in God,
helping you to really grow in
that radical art standing of
who you are and giving gifts that
help others to do the same.
The other big thing we have going
on is the Uprising Academy.
This is all of our formation.
Programs, workshops, retreats,
everything is available virtually
and on demand where you can
sign up and continue to learn
more about radically standing
in what God says about you,
especially if you are in a place in
your life where you are not
being fed the way that you long
to be fed whether it's in your community,
whether it's at your church,
whatever it is. There is more
for you and we can absolutely
walk with you into it through
the Uprising Academy.
All those links are
in our show notes.
And if you enjoyed this episode, I
encourage you to leave a review.
Reviews are the number one way that
we help get in front of new faces,
new people that are able to
be touched by the radical art of
standing and why God has about us.
I love you I'm praying for you.
I hope you have
an amazing week.