Beliefs act like customs or cultural norms in our Symbolic Reality; beliefs allow us to accept easily anything that is aligned with them and make it almost impossible to accept or take in information that mismatches them. This is particularly true of deep beliefs which operate below the level of conscious awareness.
In NLP terms we would say a belief acts as a "filter" within the NLP communication model.
Group Beliefs
An interesting belief set is that of group beliefs. We are all part of certain social groups, from our immediate family, to wider family and friends, to social clubs, work colleagues, neighbourhoods, towns, cities, democrat or republican, etc etc.
By associating with "like minded people" we literally support their beliefs as we support theirs. We do this though conversation, books, magazines, television, as well as unconscious communication.
Where we have beliefs that do not support our goals then we must change these beliefs if we really want to achieve those goals. Where we are part of a group, and by necessity indulge in "group think", we should consider what the beliefs common to the group are, and whether and to what extent those beliefs support our goals.
If the group beliefs do not support our goals then we have several options.
- We can leave the group
- We can seek to change the beliefs of the group
- We can install a "canceler" to block out any negative beliefs of the group
- We can take a meta position of simply disavowing any and all beleifs unless they specifically support our life goals
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