Our unresolved history

Our unresolved history goes with us everywhere, nagging for resolution.

And resolution is possible. There are many ways of looking at human behavior just as there are a multitude of ways of perceiving and interpreting reality. In our paper, we present a manner of viewing repetitive patterns of behavior, thought, and feeling as valuable hints of a subterranean process that we construct in early childhood to provide a sense of predictability.


 I have yet to find an issue that cannot be subsumed under the headings of abandonment, abuse, and need to control.

These three themes, with all their varied representations, can be resolved without undue pain, change of personal history, or confrontation with parents, siblings, teachers, or any others significant in our past. Ours is an optimistic approach that has proven most effective over the last decade.

Human beings of all ages, nationalities, sexes, colours, and creeds share a deep need to feel safe. This encompasses both the need for emotional and physical safety. When we, as human beings, feel threatened (regardless of whether that threat is real, misperceived
 or imagined) we respond strongly. Our response may be fear, panic or terror; it may be anger, aggressiveness or paranoia; it may be withdrawal, paralysis or catatonia or any of these in combination. But there will be a response.

From our earliest infant struggles to survive, we have developed a need to respond to any perceived threat with efforts to control--to control ourselves, others, our environment, and even what may happen after our death. This need to control appears to be an integral part of the problems we have with ourselves, others, and our environment. It is the core of the interaction between two-year-olds fighting over a toy; it is the core of the interaction between husband and wife battling over who said what; it is the core of the interaction between the East and West warring over what ideology will be supreme; and it appears as the core of all great literature from Homer's Iliad to the writings of the contemporary Mexican essayist and poet Octavio Paz.

Thus in order to feel safe, we take on, with our mother's milk, a need to control. That need then puts us in situations where we feel threatened by abuse and/or abandonment--physical, mental, or emotional. Our usual response is to threaten others with abuse or abandonment e.g. "If you do that again I'll hit you," "leave you", "never speak to you again", or "I'll tell your mother." And so, a vicious circle is started that seems to have no beginning, no end, and no way out, just short spaces along the arc where a standoff provides some feeling of security and peace.

The Trade Off
There is no way to truly control the future, others, or even ourselves. The attempt to control ourselves tends to result in ulcers, migraines, hyper-tension, and other physical signals without truly keeping us the least bit safer from any true danger. The attempt to control others tends to result in rebellion, divorce, feuds, and wars, without truly keeping us the least bit safer from any true danger. The attempt to control our environment tends to result in devitalized foods, polluted air and water, acid rain, iatrogenic illnesses, and a whole species facing eminent extinction, without truly keeping us the least bit safer from any true danger.

Can the pursuit of an illusion of safety be a true human drive? We do not think so. What is universal is not necessarily inherent, nor essential. Since true safety lies in self-trust and self-respect, it would appear that something happens shortly after birth which causes us to trade off our true safety for the pursuit of an illusion.

We all know that every new born infant has a deep need for survival and an inescapable dependence on others for that survival.

The infant human being has "a birthright of wholeness" that includes self–trust, self–acceptance, self–respect, and self–love.

So, assuming that the infant has what he needs from himself to feel safe; that he also has an overriding need to survive; and that he is, initially, totally dependent on others for that survival, we can see that the stage is set for a trade-off that will result in future problems with self, others, and the environment.

Illusion

This need to control may appear to be an integral part of being human. However, since control is an illusion, the need to control cannot be an integral part of humanness.

Abandonment, Abuse, Control

If the infant is abandoned, either physically or emotionally, he will die. If the infant is abused, either physically or emotionally, his survival is threatened.

The infant cannot truly control but he can tell himself that he can and that he is the controller.

More likely he tells himself that just as soon as he has more data and can do it right he will be in control forever and thus have his survival and safety assured for all time.

Of course he must also assure the safety of those he is dependent upon. Total dependency is a difficult position and the best defence is the illusion of omnipotence.


No human is perfect. No environment is perfect. No infant, regardless of the wisdom and best intentions of his parents can come through childhood unscathed.
We all fear abandonment.
We all fear abuse.
We all have abandoned, either ourselves or others.
We all have abused ourselves or others.
We all have been abandoned or abused in some way. It is inescapable.
Our defense is control—so it can't happen again, so it can't destroy us, so we can feel safe. This may sound terrible. We do not believe it is so.

It is through our struggles with these issues that we gain our human self-reflective consciousness, our strengths and our values, our character, our abilities, our empathy, and our understandings.

The Things We Forget
We take on beliefs to order our infantile universe and give us the feeling of safety necessary for life and sanity. The problem is that these beliefs are soon relegated to the unconscious where they continue to actively order our reality, attitudes, and behaviors long after our true dependency is gone; long after abandonment ceases to be a life–threatening issue; long after abuse needs to be accepted.

Filters
These beliefs act as screens or filters which limit and order incoming stimuli and information. Such filters would be necessary under any condition. The data a human needs to collect about his external world reality comes in such quantity that it must somehow be filtered. Data must be limited, constellated, and focused in some way in order to be useful. So the filtering process is natural and necessary.

However, if the information that is incoming has emotional or physical life–threatening potential, the infant develops filters to block the threat—a distorted world view that will support sanity and the feeling of safety and, of course, the feeling of being in control. The infant must protect the parents' world view.

Example
Let us say a baby is born to parents who wanted him and planned for him; parents who are intelligent, conscientious, and loving. These parents have read all the books on child-rearing and have listened to their doctor well.

The consensus, as they have been able to parse it out, is that the baby should be fed whenever it appears to be hungry (to take care of its emotional needs) but no more often than every three hours (to take care of its physical needs) and no longer than 15 minutes at a time (to avoid colic and gas).

Making Sense Out of Nonsense
Well, this baby happens to be a slow eater (at first) and truly feels abandoned, abused and threatened when the milk supply is removed, before he is satisfied, by a cooing mother who wants to be sure that her baby does not suffer the pains of colic. So the baby cries, kicks, screams and otherwise expresses his need.

He is then held, rocked, cuddled, walked, and bounced while he feels his mother's tension, fear and resentment heighten. Somehow, he feels he is doing something wrong. His environment is not supportive. Finally, two hours and forty-seven minutes later, he has another chance.

Humans are very adaptable; infants are almost infinitely adaptable. This baby learns to eat as quickly as possible. This baby learns that satisfying his need causes pain (he is, of course, colicky). This baby learns that his environment becomes tense and uncomfortable when he makes his needs known.

This baby may take on two beliefs from this truly loving interchange. He may take on the belief that "I must grab what I need as quickly and completely as possible even if it causes pain or I will be abandoned, abused, hungry, in worse pain, and I will die." He may take on the belief that "I must see others' needs as more important than mine and make them comfortable, even if it hurts me or I will displease them. They will become frightened and tense and I will be abandoned and die." (Whether they die first or not, the outcome is the same.)

So Hard to Please

We may also encounter an adult who says to us:
"I am miserable. No matter what I do, my husband gets angry. I try so hard to please him. He says he loves me but he is always discounting me and putting me down. I just can't do anything right."

As we explore we discover:

1. She never tells him how she truly feels or what she truly thinks or needs or wants. She tells him what she assumes he wants to hear;

2. When he fails to respond to what she truly wants, she feels hurt and gets revenge in a passive-aggressive manner;

3. When he gets angry at this, she tells herself she doesn't understand what happened.

She tries so hard to please him and he doesn't understand her. They repeat this and repeat this and repeat this. If we suggest that she try telling him what she really feels and wants, she says, "Oh, I couldn't. If he really loved me he would know."

If we approach this from a belief standpoint, we may discover that she has a whole set of beliefs acting in this area.

They may well be:

·I Must please others OR they will dislike me and leave me.

·I Must avoid being disliked, or left, OR I will be all alone forever and terribly lonely.

·I Must avoid being alone or lonely OR I will prove I am unloveable and deserve to be abandoned.

·I Must avoid abandonment OR I will die.

·I Must stay in control and avoid being seen as I truly am OR I will see I was truly abandoned and experience my rage.

·I Must avoid expressing anger or rage OR those I care about will abandon me by dying, it will be all my fault, and I will deserve to die.

A Lack of Choice
Since she probably picked a mate with complementary beliefs, the odds are they will work hard at keeping the interactions along a similar theme. In this way they are miserable, frantic, hurt, and angry; but, any other way will leave them threatened and unsafe. That must be avoided at all costs. As long as she has these beliefs her behavior cannot change with internal congruency.

How many of you have ever run across the belief, either in yourselves or in others, no matter how well disguised, that "If someone truly loves me, I either have them fooled and they will quit loving me when they get to know the real me or they are so dumb that I can't trust their love?"

This belief is almost pandemic because in order to socialize us, our parents and authority figures make us earn love by acting in ways they want. If we have to earn love, then it comes by what we do — not by what and who we are. So, what and who we are isn't good enough. How many of us really loved sitting up straight at the dinner table, not fidgeting, sharing our toys, being polite to all our family members, chewing with our mouths closed, keeping our elbows at our side, eating our liver, not talking too loudly, and using the little fork first? Very few of us, I think.

But the wisest and most adaptable learned to pretend we did and we were approved of, bragged about, accepted and loved—necessary, useful, supportive but insidiously self–destructive. We're never quite good enough.

Definition
We share this with our clients, our patients, our mates, our parents, our children, and our peers. We can also let go of it and reclaim our birthright of self–love, self–acceptance, self–respect, self–trust, and move on to true safety—letting go of the illusions and giving to others from our own wholeness and fullness without strings attached and without our self–worth depending on the response of others.

We have all encountered themes of Abandonment, Abuse and the Need–to–Control. we are defining abandonment as the life–death issue created by the felt or real removal of a life or emotional support; abuse as any disrespectful intrusion, whether physical, emotional or intellectual; and the need–to–control as the NEED to constrict or contain ourselves, others, or our environment to create the illusion of a predictable outcome to assure imagined safety.

Need To Control
The operative word in Need–to–Control is "need" which presupposes lack of choice and absence of option. It is usually an inescapable push that occurs outside of awareness. This is very different from exercising an option to control, which is viable, useful, and often necessary. The option to control promotes wise planning for the future, supportive structures, decisions, actions, and true self-responsibility. Feedback is noted and planning is fine tuned.

When control is exerted because of need it is the control itself that is foreground—repercussions are disregarded. When the result is contrary to what was desired, increased levels of control are applied almost compulsively with no awareness that it is the pursuit of illusion—the pursuit of omnipotence and omniscience.

The themes of abandonment, abuse, and the need–to–control are often the most difficult issues that we encounter as therapists. They arise during the therapy of a patient or client with overt psychosis, or psychotic potential; they arise during the resolution of the resistances of neurosis; and they appear during the depth therapy of a "normally neurotic" individual; and they insidiously elude us as we proceed on the quest for our own growth—the same themes of Abandonment, Abuse, and Need–to–Control.

Every psychological theory, every philosophical school, and every theological construct addresses in some manner these universal human issues. They have been basic to all the struggles of our human history. They have been basic to the underpinning of any theoretical approach.

Jung and his modern follower, Michael Fordham speak of Abandonment issues in the growth process. Fordham goes further to note that "...infant and child mentality...is a permanent feature of the development of anyone alive and growing." Alice Miller, of the Freudian lineage, speaks of the reality of Abuse and how it is covered with denial through a conspiracy between culture and the psychoanalyst's need to shield parents.

Other theoretical constructs, including the Existentialists, referred to Control issues and their impact on authentic intimacy and generative mental health. Yet, most, if not all of us, have elements of denial in these three germane areas. Freud contended that the incestuous memories of patients were evidence of the Oedipal wish and assumed to be fantasy wish–fulfillment. Alice Miller speaks of the need of many analysts to actively use the defense of denial when confronted with abuse issues.

Who?— Me? You?
Everybody!
These themes— Abandonment, Abuse, and the Need–to–Control are pandemic to the personality development of most, if not all, human beings regardless of personal, family, national, or professional history or culture. These themes occur in varying degrees in the acculturation process whether overt or covert, subtle or open, conscious or unconscious, intentional or accidental to the reality of the living process.
These themes are immediately confronted by the infant during the birthing process itself and immediately thereafter. Fordham also states, "...:An infant is primarily an integrated whole, and the primary self and its integrity are essential elements in development. The self preserves continuity of being and the infant's individuality....if this were so, then the self, being a closed system, must have another characteristic: it must deintegrate to bring the baby into relation with the mother. There could also follow a rhythm of integration, deintegration, integration."

With this in mind, we propose that the infant has his instinctual patterns, his genetic physical predisposition, his budding personality predisposition, his genetic intelligence,and a level of awareness intrinsic to his own beingness as his tools for survival. In addition, the infant possesses an archaic perceptual structure that tends toward collecting and primitively processing environmental/emotional—object relationship data—in an "Either/Or," black or white manner. In other words, we are simply saying that the infant's primary push or instinct is for survival which includes the meeting of base line physical and emotional needs.

If his physical needs are not met, the infant dies. If his emotional needs are not met, the infant dies. Therefore, shortly after birth, if not before, the infant begins to collect data and information about his external world reality. The potential information available is overwhelming in its quantity. We propose that soon in life the infant develops beginning internal structures to process this information for survival purposes — develops what one might call screens to limit and order the incoming stimuli and information to a limited and digestible level. If the information that is incoming has emotional or physical life threatening potential, the screens developed alter the perception and interpretation of the threat.

This often results in a distorted world view. Thus, a budding constellation of defenses with an archaic polar structure is being determined early in preverbal life to act as a set of filter—filters to order life–supportive or life non–supportive experiences in a manner that permits survival, physically and emotionally—even if the locus of the threat must be distorted.

I Must—OR—Worse
This budding constellation of defenses is, we propose, the beginning of Unconscious Belief Structures. These beliefs always seem to have an archaic "Either/Or" structure: "I Must behave in a certain manner Or something terrible will happen...disaster...I will die or disappear." The first part (the "I Must" part) of the Belief is often perceived as ego syntonic by self–reflective adults. The "OR" alternative tends to be perceived as ego dystonic and thus threatening even if verbalized abstractly.

Myths hint at archetypal beliefs. They may take the archetypal form that, when put into words sounds like — "I MUST control myself, feel controlled by others or circumstances, and/or control others OR I will be out of control, helpless, overwhelmed by fear, be totally unsafe and die or be destroyed."

Or it may be: "I MUST stay in control by abandoning myself (e.g. cutting off or discounting my own needs, wants, desires, feelings, etc.), by abandoning others (e.g. leaving them first - either physically or emotionally) and/or getting or feeling abandoned by others (e.g. pushing them to leave first, not perceiving their supportive actions and gestures, etc.) OR I will be out of control, see that I felt truly abandoned as a child, be helpless, worthless and die or disappear."

Abuse—too!
The same thing seems to occur with the issue of abuse. Each of the three elements link into the other — "I must abuse myself (call myself dumb or stupid, discount myself, hurt myself, etc.) and since I then do not respect myself, I expect to be abused, and therefore set it up, refusing to take care of myself in the process until I feel justified enough to abuse others." And the Belief will sound like:

"I MUST stay in control by abusing myself, getting myself abused, and /or abusing others OR I will be out of control, see that I was truly abused as a child, be helpless, worthless and die and disappear."

Isn't it odd how much this sounds like the triangular game identified as part of the alcoholic process—victim, rescuer, persecutor? We suspect this is where an almost universal process has been uncovered and seen the most clearly.

Change
If unconscious beliefs that make up the belief structure are to be challenged and reconstructed at all, they must be reconstructed by a new, corrective experience that can touch or be translated to the unconscious on the same level of impact as the experience(s) that gave rise to the original belief. Only an experience that impacts this deeply can possibly challenge, change, replace or reconstruct the unconscious belief structure. Such naturally occurring corrective experiences are usually also crisis experiences that shatter defenses. The belief structure may or may not then be reconstructed in a manner that now provides options supportive of growth and wholeness.

Replacing a belief structure can take the route of traditional therapy which can be long and painful. Or it can be changed in the normal process of living through a fortuitous crisis that shatters the unconscious belief and simultaneously leaves a gap. This gap causes great pain—until the belief is replaced. When the gap is filled with a new belief, that new belief can easily be one that is equally constricting. A belief structure may also be challenged by rituals that are performed outside of their originally supportive cultural context—such as fire walking. Such an experience could replace the old belief with a new, possibly more damaging belief of omnipotence. Or it can be changed by meditation, fasting, or chanting excesses that erupt the unconscious into decompensation. Once again this process does not provide the proper support for a healthier recompensation and tends to produce unnecessary pain and dubious results.

A change process can also be initiated that circumvents crisis and respects the unconscious, emotional, intellectual and cognitive aspects of the individual. The intellect itself can be used to identify patterns of behavior and to hypothesize possible beliefs. The beliefs themselves—relegated to the unconscious—are in fact self–regulating, the basic archtypal belief itself being ego dystonic. The intellect in conjunction with one's creativity and the support of a trained therapist, a therapist without the belief in question, can find a replacement belief that truly increases options moving away from the trap of "Either/Or" and moving toward choicefulness, true responsibility, and the possibility of true wholeness.

World View
All incoming information is processed through that belief structure. In this way the world view of the family is maintained and the child is protected. That world view will continue to pervade the growing child's (and later adult's) perceptions. As long as the underlying belief structure is intact—as long as it is unchallenged and not replaced—that world view will endure.

Support
Therapeutic intervention can gently support the identification, verbalization, and definition of a replacement belief. It is necessary to watch carefully for loopholes which the client's unconscious may provide to retain the familiar status quo.

Reverse Dream
We assume that the dreaming process is a communication— a communication from the UNCONSCIOUS which stores repressed and as yet unexpressed information in the form of "coded energy." When communicating to the conscious mind, the unconscious presents its information to what we would call the DREAM CONSCIOUSNESS.

We define dream consciousness as the consciousness that transforms this energetic communication into sensual symbolic representations that can be recalled by the CONSCIOUS mind. These representations then are often called DREAMS, symbolic scenarios that spontaneously occur during a variety of states of altered consciousness—symbolic scenarios that can be recalled and interpreted by the conscious mind and translated into awarenesses and intellectual concepts.

Using this model, one could assume that communication can be established with the unconscious in both directions. It is then possible to go from awareness to intellectual understanding and verbal descriptions. One can then take the next step to associative symbolism which the dream consciousness could translate back to energetic forms for the unconscious, as if in a reverse dream.

In this manner a therapist could support a client to replace an old maladaptive and constricting belief with a new supportive and enlivening one. The new belief would then be relegated to the unconscious and automatically support more constructive congruent behaviour and more accurate perceptions of the environment.

Once this is accomplished, other non-supportive beliefs will surface evidenced by inappropriate patterns of behaviour or perception and the process can be continued in a layering fashion going ever deeper until the archetypal belief itself can be approached.

These Unconscious Beliefs are not what we tend to think we believe, say we believe, or even what our deep internal knowing says is true.

In this context, belief structures are well constellated highly specific unconscious defensive structures or complexes that are supported by the family world view, the culture and often by therapeutic complicity. Often the therapist sharing a particular unconscious belief with his client will be as blind to it as is the client himself. As adults, these beliefs are unavailable to conscious awareness of the client, patient, or therapist. They are only evidenced by patterned behaviour and more subtly by patterned perceptions. Like wind, they cannot be seen. Yet, their effects are often obvious and persistent.

Like the Wind
They can only be extrapolated by an exploration with the client of what type of belief would support such a patterned behaviour, thought pattern, or perceptual distortion. Such extrapolation could explain and define the roots of patterns whether in an individual, family, identified group, community, nation, or the human race itself.

Considering the beliefs' "Either/Or" structure they are indeed self–perpetuating; the "Or" alternatives promote overwhelming fear that can be translated to damnation, psychosis, death, and destruction on a deep psychic/existential level.
Such beliefs can and do promote true self– and other– destruction in an insidious manner. Although, realistically, the adult has other options, he is in fact responding from the viewpoint of an infant with severely limited options.

For example, an adult cannot really be abandoned in a manner that is truly life threatening—unless his arms and legs are broken, and he is dragged deep into the wilderness in inclement weather and there left to his own devices.

An adult can be easily left—with all the accompanying sadness and mourning—but that kind of being left is vastly different from the abandonment that is a survival issue. Often, however, humans respond to being left as if it were in fact Abandonment, that is, a life and death issue.

Birthright
We propose that the infant human being has a birth right of self–trust, self–acceptance, self–respect, and self–love.

*To support a belief of self–abandonment one would have to trade off the birthrights of self–acceptance and self–love.

*To support a belief of self– and other– abuse, he/she would have to trade off self–respect and self–love.

*To support a need to control, he/she would have to trade off self–trust and self–love.

All the above trades would be done only to maintain an illusion of safety, that in truth, is self–deceptive, to maintain physical existence and homeostasis. A trade that most of us would agree is worth the cost until the child reaches an age of maturation wherein his options and resources are expanded.

The primal belief is indeed a choiceless stance even with the "Either/Or" since the alternative threatens physical or existential life. The adult has many more options to move into a growth process rather than maintaining a survival modalilty. A family or national process that is based on abandonment beliefs, abusive and intrusive beliefs, and/or a need to control belief results in a stagnation of development that leads to unsupported growth and self– and other– destruction.

If there is an "Original Sin" universal to mankind, it is the Need–to–Control — the need to constrict ourselves and others and the need to intrude. This Need–to–Control, we propose, is the direct result of ordinary and extraordinary childhood trauma originating at the onset of life in this world — few, if any of us, escape childhood unscathed.

Who of us can, with self–honesty, take a position of total freedom from this dilemma? Without such awareness, our blind spots can taint not only our interactions with our clients and patients but the very lives we live as individuals, friends, lovers, parents, group members, professionals, community members, institutional participants, members of a nation, and co–habitants of a world that can exist superbly without our presence.

Perhaps this could qualify as a good set of alternative beliefs.

Tell this to yourself and see if it doesn't make you feel better.

"My value, worth, identity and purpose are intrinsic to my beingness, having been given to me as a free gift from a source much wiser and more powerful than I or any other being past, present or future. My value, worth and identity are independent of what I or others do, think, feel, say and believe, and independent of all expectations, mine and others, real or imagined, independent of my past history, family, childhood, gender and independent of any or all relationships and independent of any fantasy. They cannot earned or deserved, traded or stolen, lost or given away --- They just are.

I can see myself as I am and show others or not show others any aspect of myself that I choose, realising that I can use a role or fantasy to support me when it fits and release it when it no longer supports me. I am not a role, a player in a fantasy nor am I what I do. I have the right, option, freedom, and true responsibility to take care of myself and take charge of my life and get my needs met and both respect for myself and others.

My primary responsibility is for myself and I can respect everyone else's right to take care of themselves, even if I disagree with their methods. I can respect their right not to take care of themselves. I owe nothing to anyone and no one owes me. I can see and accept that my life is a free gift. I can accept all of me without making any one aspect of me more important than the rest of me including: my intellect, my needs, all my feelings including my joy, anger, sadness, excitement, and fear, my body, my sensuality, my sexuality, and my spirituality. I can trust myself and that self-respect will support my only true safety. I can be with what is, as it is, in any given moment. I can respect the humanity of others.

I can realise that a choice is made in a moment in time depending on available information and awareness. In the next moment, my information and awareness may change providing the basis for a possible new choice. As I grow, I can see more and more choices that are available to me. I can own my right to make mistakes and the option to learn from them -and so does everyone else. I can become aware how others respond to me as an expression of their needs, wants, desires, lusts, unresolved conflicts, and/or choices and, as such tells nothing about me and, of course, vice versa. I can accept true support that is offered and I can, with judgement, request support from others realising that a true request accepts a yes, no or non answer. I can always ask at another time or someone else.

I can realise all my feelings are valid. I can choose to express my feelings or not, without having to bury them or turn them into guilt. With judgement, I can choose to express them overtly or covertly, directly or indirectly, in this moment or at another in time, passively or actively and in any tone that I choose. I am in charge of my feelings and their expression. They are not in charge of me.

I can never truly be abandoned--only left. and I can deal with the sadness that may accompany being left. I can connect with the support of my deeper Self and I can connect with the even deeper support that comes from the Source of my existence.

I can own my wisdom upon which my judgement and dicernment is based. I can own my power and inner authoirty. I can own my freedom and my right to Life. I am unique and ordinary as is every other being in the universe, including every grain of sand, birds, and beasts of land and of sea."



How to do it yourself:

1. Ask yourself what your core beliefs are and write down the answers you receive.

2. Recognize that the intention of each of the beliefs you uncover was to keep you safe. Replace "keep you safe" with your own words.

3. Don't rush the first two steps. Take as many days as needed to really identify your beliefs and begin to understand their intention.

4. Ask yourself which beliefs you want to hold onto for now.

5. Ask yourself which beliefs you want to let go of now.

6. Cross out in your writings the beliefs you are willing to let go of now.

7. Acknowledge and allow the beliefs that you want to hold onto for now.

8. Once you realize that you are ready to release another belief--and it may take some time--bring each belief (one at a time) into your heart and allow it to heal.

9. Ask yourself what new belief you would like to have (to replace the old belief) and listen for your answers.

10. State your new belief out loud. Repeat steps 8 and 9 for each belief.

Now rejoice!