Empowering Belief Systems

There are two things you must know about beliefs:

That they are neutral and they are the building blocks of our growth.

This is extremely important these days as we keep hearing about “limiting” beliefs and the many self-development courses and programs that help us eliminate them. To be honest, I find this very concerning as they are part of us. Getting rid of them, without further action, implies creating internal gaps in your structure, with unfilled parts on your being. You must acknowledge that your beliefs served and supported you going through life and reaching the present moment.

For instance, when you teach a child not to open doors to strangers, you are creating an important belief at that stage. Nevertheless, as they grow, as they become adults, you want them to be social and to be able to interact positively with other people. So, somewhere in time, they need to change the belief.

I share this example to convey that beliefs are neutral and that we should always be grateful for what they helped us achieve. When we talk about positive or negative beliefs, it has nothing to do with the belief itself but merely whether it supports or not our current goals.

Going back to the previous example, we find that “you shouldn’t open the door to strangers” is a very useful advice as the child needs a secure environment to grow in. Later on, as we change our goals, we should be grateful for thatbelief and replace it with a new one. These are extremely important ideas:

1. Consciously be grateful for the belief that no longer serves your purpose;

2. Replace it with a new one, one that supports your goal, a goal like “meeting new people will bring me new opportunities in life since I’m now able to identify what I want to achieve”.

Understanding your beliefs

A few years ago I started to become more aware of my “limiting” beliefs. As I realized I was not achieving my goals, I became curious about the process. I started by noticing all the details from the moment I stated the goal to myself.

Back then, stating whatever I was aiming for at that time, somehow allowed me to feel whether I was able to believe it or not. When you affirm and speak something out you can feel if you do it naturally or if there is any interference. It could be your breathing pace, your heartbeat, a voice inflexion or some talking going on inside your head, definitely something that would turn your attention away from the statement.

From my experience, this affirmation mechanism is an extremely useful tool in helping us calibrate our alignment. I often refer to the conscious and unconscious alignment, a process that I call consciousness and that will provide nunreliable feedback when not tuned. It’s not that you cannot set these goals but merely that first you need to be aligned, to believe.

There are several techniques to understand if you are aligned or not. One of them, that I use often, is to write your statements in a blank sheet (A4 size), putting them on the floor and stepping on the sheet and feel whatever comes up. What happens in this process is that, when you read the word, your mind will trigger the experience in your body, providing you with the necessary feedback to take action.

I found this to be very curious and even thought about how could we be experiencing something we hadn’t lived yet? In fact, what you experience is your perception of the word. So, even if you haven’t lived it yet, you have an internalrepresentational experience. This means that everything we can think of, even if merely conceptual, triggers an internal representational experience.

So, for new goals, you first need to perceive your representation of the experience. Then work your belief for it to become positive for your aimed goal in any way possible, as this will simply shut down your defense mechanisms and let you flow towards it.

I read once that we are constantly deciding whether we allow (flow) or resist. You can’t have none or even both at the same time! So if you are not achieving your goals, you are resisting.

Why should you be resisting to something that you aim for?

Well, if you can affirm a goal, a really positive one, why can’t you experience it in the same way? Something is interfering. That something is called belief.

Going back to my own experience, after noticing I was still out of alignment, a new question came up: Which are my beliefs and how can I identify them? Pretty soon, I started realizing that whenever I affirmed a new goal, even a small one, a self-talk was going on inside my head. I was so used to it that I didn’t really pay much attention to this internal dialogue and to what was being said. As soon as I started listening carefully, I noticed a lot of small affirmations and images from previous experiences, all of them telling me why this couldn’t be done, why that was not possible and sometimes which negative effects wouldcome from achieving it. This happened with all types of goals set, be it personal, family, professional and so on. I must tell you that the most complex and tricky to deal with is the last scenario, when negative effects come attachedto the positive ones, that even being small and inoffensive, still stand between myself and my achievement.

Some examples that most of us share from our upbringing are “we can’t have everything in life” or “if you have one thing you’ll lose another”. These are really important examples as they close doors, trim our horizons and take away the possibility to have it all. So changing these is to open new doors, exploring new breakthrough ideas for greater achievements and happiness.

How do I work my beliefs?

Once I started paying attention to them, things started to change. I must say that in the beginning my attitude was to silence them and fight them back. Once more, the results were not improving and the resistance was even greater. As human beings we are intelligent creatures, and we must know when to change our way in order to reach other destinations. I started to be kind with these thoughts, listening carefully to them and, as a structure of building blocks, I started to visualize myself taking pieces, looking at them and being grateful for what they helped me achieve. At the same time I was filling in those gaps with new pieces, my new beliefs that would now support my current goals.

This attitude brought me more peace, more consciousness and a feeling of control over my future, myself, who I am becoming and what I aim for.

You can do it as a fun game to play, as I often do. In fact, it needs to be fun, enjoyable, in order to have results. Because the more you like this game, the more fun you have playing it, the more you’ll play and the faster you’ll get your results.

And, as you play along, you can go back and repeat the “blank sheet” experience and check out how much more familiar your affirmation feels. Or even go for other goals!

Do you master failure or success?

In my coaching sessions I often use a very simple, pragmatic approach to show my clients their perception on a goal. I will share it with you based on two basic scenarios. Let’s assume you are working on achieving something that’s planned to be completed on a specific date.

Now, I will place a paper in front of you with that date. While doing this I will ask you to place yourself in that date and run a lessons learned session about your goal, starting by questioning why you didn’t achieve you goal. Why everything went so poorly?

While you provide the reasons, I am writing them down. When completed, we make a pause, withdrawing the paper.

Let’s start again, doing a lessons learned session to understand why everything went so well and you achieved your goal with success! And will do until exhaust all the arguments.

At this point, I will count all the reasons for both positive and negative scenarios. How many do you have from each? Let’s assume you come with more unhappy faces. This means that today you are better positioned to have success or to fail? I would say you master failure and know exactly everything that can go wrong. If it’s so, start working to understand and identify all possible reasons why it could be a success!!

The Golden Circle and the Power of Intentions!

The Golden Circle, from Simon Sinek, is a powerful model for inspirational leadership all starting with a golden circle and the question "Why?”. This structure boosts effective communication by stating first our emotional state (Why), which is the reason behind our actions or intentions, followed by the “How” (the way to achieve it) and finally the result you want to accomplish.

In my opinion is so powerful that we should use it to lead ourselves, supporting our intentions, actions and achievements.

The Golden Circle can also be interpreted as a Vortex, defined as a specific creation pattern that is tuned in a precise vibration frequency. This means that for each intention you want to manifest in your life you need to find a specific Vortex or emotional state aligned with your intention – that is why you are usually advised to feel and accept as if you already achieved it.

Once you connect to it, you step in and the “How” (your pathway) is activated. So now you are the spiral that will lead you to whatever you want to accomplish and need to complete all the way until the center of the Vortex.

So first you need to clearly declare your intentions and to do that you need to consider the following: you will only succeed if you are intending something you can match to vibrational emotional state (something you can feel as yours and accept it). This means that is a lot easier manifesting what you’re more familiarized with.

Let’s say you want to manifest annually $1.000.000 and you earn currently $10.000 for a same period of time. Would you be honestly able to feel you are earning $1.000.000? And accept it? It is possible but unlikely to happen.
Nevertheless you can do it and will start moving towards it. Your life will slightly begin to change and new resources will appear in your life, asking you to allow them enter in your life. But keep in mind that is not enough to have the resources available if you are not aware of them, if you can’t see them.

From my experience in this process you’ll have also some resources (or opportunities) that you won't relate to your intention and this will lead you to resist. Once you resist, you’ll be tested. These experiences are not bad things to prevent you to have or achieve, but an intermediate step that will provide the skills to use the resources made available to you. Once more, you only will be receptive to learn the lesson if you are really committed to your intention.

Intention moves Forward, Manifestation move Backwards

The process to accomplish any wish or want is merely an alignment between an Intention and a Manifestation. The process to match both is your Acceptance and that is where all necessary changes occur until you get your results. To accept is not only to trust it is yours but, and most important, to believe you deserve it.

While the Intention moves forward, or from somewhere in the past until you achieve your results, the Manifestation does it backwards, by allowing you to access the resources you need to move towards your wish or want.

After you make your intention, you start accepting the outcome and that implies changing. Your change! This is why you can’t connect the dots looking forward - because you are changing as you go! - but looking backward, as you make yourself conscious of the path. Once you achieve the manifestation, suddenly becomes obvious! You realize the resources that were at your disposal that you couldn’t “see” previously!

Please read this well. Manifestation and Intention are created at the same time so you just make your way to it and not to do or create it! The Time to achieve your results measures the level of Acceptance. As soon as you Accept, trust and feel you deserve it, the sooner it’ll come to you!

Finding your Action Points from Systemic Constellations

In the last article I explained how you could access your subconscious and, by using your senses, letting your conscious to apprehend the imprinted configuration. When in misalignment, you will feel uncomfortable and moved toward change.

Today I will discuss how you can find your Action Points to move from your “Current Configuration”, or the imprinted configuration in your subconscious, to your “Desired Configuration”, or the conscious configuration to where you want and choose to move on.

You can see everything as a system or part of a system, so you can apply this method to handle personal as well as organizational issues, such as defining or improving organization charts, product portfolio, market strategies, team management and so much more!

It is a 3 easy steps process:

1. Choose a topic and, using the technique explained in my last article, draw your Current Configuration. Do it placing each piece (or part of your System) at a time until your System is fully represented. Keep the number of the pieces short (3 to 7), having one representing yourself. If you feel you would need more parts try to group them in an “Others” piece.

Now that you have placed all of them, start to touch each piece, one at a time (ex. with one finger) and answer to the following questions: Where is this part of the System looking at? What it is feeling? What it is feeling toward the other parts.

→ Great! Let’s move on now to revise your “Current Configuration”.

2. Now you have represented your System, you are going to challenge yourself to find the “Desired Configuration”.

You are going now to repeat the earlier process but not representing the System AS-IS but as it SHOULD-BE, placing again the pieces, each at a time, and afterwards, answering the same questions as you did before.

Once you have completed this, allow you to stand up and look to your NEW Configuration from other perspectives (if you were seated, stand up, go around your set of pieces and check for yourself how different it feels observing the same configuration from other viewpoints. I am sure you will find the process fun and enjoyable). This is the same principle we use when asking from another opinion.

Are you satisfied? Do you want to make any adjustments? If that’s the case, do it!

→ Great! Let’s move on now to find your “Action Points”.

3. At this moment, you have designed the “Current Configuration” and the “Desired Configuration”. The next action is to identify all the steps that will take you from where you are now (“Current Configuration”) to where you want to be (“Desired Configuration)!

To do that, question yourself which pieces you need to move and where to, doing that one by one, until you get a practical list of the changes you need to implement.

Don’t forget that every change comes from the Inside-Out: the most important question is what you do; not what you would like others to change!

I will be happy to help you if you need any assistance!

Systemic Constellations and your subconscious...

This picture presents how I work with Systemic Constellations as a way to bridge our conscious and subconscious mind.

1. The first step is asking someone to think and choose a topic or issue.

2. After, that person is asked to display it as a constellation (with physical pieces) letting the subconscious influencing the result.

3. Projecting your subconscious will let your senses, and trough them your conscious mind, to access your feeling or thoughts about that.

4. If you find yourself uncomfortable, you will be led to change in a way to adjust and align your subconscious and conscious mind.

Measuring Emotions

I've been searching for a while on how we can improve the results in Coaching and Systemic Constellations for those skeptical individuals that have a difficult time when it comes to understand what they are feeling and how to use it for their self-development.

Recently I have found an emerging technology, brought by Affectiva, that hopefully will change this. The Q-Sensor (http://www.affectiva.com/q-sensor/), originally developed at MIT, can bring a lot of new opportunities on this field.

I've ordered a sensor and will let you know soon which results I have achieved!