How Can We Change a Belief?

We tend to think changing a belief is simple. We see it, we decide something new, and we expect ourselves to move on.

Then a few days later, we’re right back in it when the same reaction shows up, the same thoughts come in, the same story starts running, and it feels frustrating because part of us already knows better.

This is where most people get stuck, because they think something is wrong with them, but nothing is wrong. Changing a belief is not a one-time decision. It’s something we practice. A belief has been repeated over and over again, sometimes for years, so it makes sense that it doesn’t disappear the moment we see it clearly.

In many ways, it behaves like an addiction. The mind returns to what it knows, even when it no longer feels good, even when we’ve already said we don’t want to live from that place anymore, because safety feels more comfortable than being in the unknown. 

We go back to old habits because it’s been practiced for so long, we know them intimately, and it’s comfortable in a strange way. So if we don’t bring awareness to it, and if we don’t have something in place to meet it, we will go back to our old ways of being.

Before anything can change, we have to be willing to see the belief as it is. We see the story we are telling ourselves, and the way it shows up in our life. Where does it appear? What does it make us do? What does it make us avoid? How does it shape the way we speak to ourselves or respond to others?

This part takes honesty, and it also takes a kind of gentleness. If we go straight into judgment, we close ourselves off. Something that I keep repeating is lead with curiosity, and be open to what shows up.

We start to recognize that this belief didn’t come from nowhere. We learned it, we repeated it, and over time it became part of how we see the world. When we can see it clearly, without trying to fix it right away, we create a little space. And in that space, we’re no longer completely inside the pattern, and we become aware of it.

At some point, you notice that the belief is still there, but it doesn’t have the same hold on you. It’s quieter. It doesn’t run the same patterns automatically.

And that’s when you see the change. A sum of small moments that have been building over time, through awareness, through practice, and through the choices you made every day.

Karla. 🧡