The thing that most helped me to grasp the idea of belief and believing is that by its very nature, any belief is self-fulfilling and self-perpetuating. Therefore, any belief you hold will, automatically, make it seem as though your belief is true and you will see evidence in your life to confirm this.

Look around you. The world you have personally created (chosen) is representative of the beliefs you hold most strongly. You have created that world through the filters of your beliefs. If you’re not happy with it in any way, simply change your beliefs and then, over time, your world must change because that is how it works.

In answer to 1) above: A belief is simply a thought that you keep thinking, until you eventually convince yourself of its truth. Then it will BE your truth.

In answer to 2) above: Can you really separate belief from thought? Can there be a belief without thought first? All world beliefs are still beliefs. The conclusions of scientific inquiry are basically scientific agreements, which are the collective consensus beliefs of scientists.

I’m not familiar with Lisa Nicol’s work, but from that paragraph your wrote, it seems as though she’s referring to the idea of self-love, by believing in yourself you are loving yourself. Self-love is a huge catalyst for positive change.

Is ‘believing’ merely a decision or a built up skill?

Is there a particular reason that it must be one thing or the other? The question itself seems divisive to me as opposed to integrative. Can you not integrate these ideas to serve you in some way?

You have the ability to change any belief you hold right now. For instance, if you say something like:

I know I have this belief and I know that changing it will benefit me in some way,
but it is hard to change my belief!

Recognize here that you have uncovered another belief, i.e., It is hard to change my belief.

And then realize that it is only hard to change any belief because you say it is. In other words, it is not empirically true that it is hard to change a belief, it is only your own estimation that it is hard.

So in a sense, getting to grips with and understanding the nature of beliefs and how they can control you if you’re unaware of them, is a skill that you can teach yourself and in that process, learn more about yourself and how your mind works.

I totally agree with Wade when he says that the examination of your personal beliefs is where awakening is happening, because there is where the limitations are being held that control your life.

Here is my take on Beliefs.

Beliefs are mind-sets that we harbor in our Subconscious mind. By that I mean that they are the filters that our mind is running at any given time.

These filters color our experience of life, and therefore are the key to creating a more fulfilling life.

An example of this is our experience in driving on the freeway; If we believe that "BMW drivers always drive aggressively", what we experience on the freeway will be exactly that... If we change that belief, and say that we always fine that BMW drivers are the most polite, then that is what we will experience. (Its not as easy as just saying it though!)

Here's the tricky part; we can have life-changing moments that instill beliefs in our mind instantly, (Wade's World Lessons) and we can build beliefs up over time by noticing things that happen in our experience repeatedly. Or, we can build beliefs by using our imagination and consciously creating a scenario in our inner worlds and focusing on that repeatedly. (Like when Dr. Wayne Dyer talks about the training of Olympic Athletes by training mentally. If they also saw themselves winning their event it would build the belief that they would win...)

So, beliefs are scripts, running in our Subconscious, that run our lives. You believe you need a certain amount of sleep; you feel tired if you don't get it.. If you change that belief, you find you don't need so much sleep. Or visa versa....

The not so obvious aspect of beliefs is that they are there in your Subconscious, and your Subconscious is very protective of your beliefs, because the bulk of them have helped you stay alive, and the Subconscious doesn't judge your beliefs, it just preserves them and acts on them, making sure that you survive by following the beliefs...

If you should become aware of a limiting belief that you would like to change, it may be so strong as to continue even after we decide that it is no longer useful. This is where we have to get busy using positive affirmations,EFT, or Hypnosis, or some other method of neutralizing the belief and installing another, more useful one.

Avatar says we have two beliefs there is the indoctrinated word lessons and and the are world lessons.

The following is quoted from Harry Palmer

by Harry Palmer

“There are word lessons and there are world lessons. A word lesson is an effort to convey an experience via spoken or written symbols. A word lesson can be informative or enjoyable or inspiring. A word lesson is an expression of someone’s belief. A word lesson can be a very nice thing, but it should not be confused with a world lesson.

“A world lesson is something that you live through. It’s something you encounter and deal with in life, and from the world lesson you emerge changed, more experienced, wiser. A world lesson is an experience. It does not require translation into symbols or sounds for you to remember it. It becomes part of what you know, of how you define yourself to yourself. A word lesson seldom has this impact.” From ReSurfacing®

It is from these lessons we learn beliefs, but the beliefs are influenced by these lessons. It is in the examination of these beliefs that we awaken.

We develop our beliefs two ways- by teaching (and learning) and by experience.

For example, I was taught in High School that snakes were an important part of our ecosystem, and that they are one of the primary protectors of our crops from rodents and insects. I saw snakes in my biology room, and discovered that they were not mean or slimy or evil.

Now, in 2008, I was bitten by a Cottonmouth. I developed a huge, festering wound and spent a long time in the ER, waiting to see if I needed any anti-venom. It was a painful experience, and cost me in terms of permanent damage to my left arm. But am I now afraid of snakes? No! Why? Because I startled the snake by dropping my keys through my steps. I was then stupid enough to reach down and go for my keys and did not think that a snake might be there.

I know a woman who is terrified of snakes. She has developed this belief despite the fact that she has never held a snake as I have, nor was even bitten by one. Somehow,my beliefs about snakes ended up being very different than hers. Why? I was educated about them, exposed to them at a young age, and knew that they were not as dreadful as they seemed. But this woman maintains that snakes are very, very bad creatures, and I do not, despite being bitten by a poisonous snake.

This story demonstrates how beliefs can form in a human in different ways, and that it is very hard to change those beliefs once they are set in a person's mind.

But it can be done, provided that enough evidence and experience and education happen to that person.

Our primary weapon to fight wrong beliefs is education. Another weapon is exposure and experience.

But, you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink.

So, I contend that beliefs are both built-up skills, and also decisions to believe. When we get evidence that our beliefs are wrong, we have a choice to change. That choice to change is up to us.

Blessings,

Jai

beliefs may be of those we recognized
as important of them by whom we grew,
might it also be intuition nudging
around mind for will recognition