How did you become the self you described in Adventure 1?  Did you create that person?  Is your now self the real you?  The answers to these questions will surprise you.

Most likely, the person you described in Adventure 1 was largely shaped by the influential people from your childhood.  In other words, your now self was probably created by others, not by your self.

Who created your now self?  Here’s a partial list:  Parents.  Grandparents.  Guardians.  Siblings.  Teachers.  Clergy.  Friends.  Neighbors.  Government.  Society.  The Arts and advertising.

How did others create the person you know as your self?  They convinced you to accept their beliefs about your self, others, and the world.  They defined reality for you, and you accepted their definition.  They accomplished this in both subtle and not-so-subtle ways.  By example.  By repeated suggestion.  By lecturing and preaching.  With rewards and punishments.  By censoring and shaping your experiences.  By using fear and guilt to mold you into the person they wanted you to become.  And even the most rebellious among you were not immune.

Why did they force their beliefs on you?  It wasn’t because they are bad people.  Chances are, for better or worse, they were convinced that their personal beliefs about how life “works” were facts of life.  They considered it their responsibility to pass these “facts” on to you.  If they were guilty of anything, it was ignorance: an ignorance passed on from one generation to another.

Simply stated, most people don’t know the difference between their personal beliefs about life and the incontestable facts of life.

Because you’re interested in Re-Creating Your Self, many of the beliefs you have accepted are not contributing to your health, happiness, and well-being.  Some of the people to whom you turned for the facts of life were incapable of successfully charting their own lives, much less yours.

Making matters worse, you were born into a world that values “sameness,” when it should be encouraging individuality.  Standardization stunts personal growth and creativity, trying to fit “the norm” is abnormal.  It can cause frustration, depression, and self-alienation.  Sameness is unnatural because nature doesn’t permit standardization:  No two trees are exactly alike; no two blades of grass are the same.  Even “identical” twins are not truly identical.

Unfortunately, most people fear originality (when it is “sameness” that should scare them).  That’s why many of the people who helped to shape your now self discouraged individuality and encouraged conformity.

And so you became an other-created person: someone who lives according to the ideas and beliefs, the standards and values, accepted from others.  You accepted the false belief that if you do what you’re told to do, if you don’t rock the boat, happiness and success will be your rewards.  But it didn’t work out that way did it?

Living according to the beliefs of others – becoming the person other people want you to be – doesn’t create a happy, healthy self.

During childhood, accepting beliefs from others was sometimes necessary for survival.  For example, you were wise as a child to accept your mother’s belief that it was dangerous to cross the street alone.  Adopting the beliefs of others also gave you a basic orientation to life, your family, and society.  It served as a direction for personal growth.

That was childhood.  As an adult, still living according to the unexamined beliefs of others is no longer beneficial.  As you matured, and your ability to reason developed, you needed to start defining the nature of reality for your self.    You needed to examine the beliefs that you had already accepted from others, identifying those that created positive feelings and experiences, and those that did not.  Beliefs that didn’t contribute to your health, happiness, and well-being should have been discarded.  In other words, as you matured, you should have transitioned from an other-created person into a self-created one.  You may not have done this.  Re-Creating Your Self will help you do so.

ADVENTURE 2

MY PERSONAL BELIEFS,

PART ONE

Adventure 2 serves two purposes: It gives you the opportunity to discover some of the personal beliefs that are shaping your life (you will identify other areas of beliefs in subsequent lessons); and it provides the chance to prove for your self the validity of this lesson’s theme: that your now self was created largely by beliefs you accepted from others.

STEP 1:  Search your mind, then list all of your beliefs in each of these four general categories:

God

Country

Love

Marriage

My students frequently ask, “Exactly what is a belief?”  In Re-Creating Your Self, a belief is any idea that you accept as being true.  So any idea that you accept as being factual about God, country, love, and marriage should be included in your lists.  For example, if you believe God doesn’t exist, then that is one of your beliefs about God.  Leave spaces after each belief and after each category of beliefs.  You will need the space for a later Adventure.

STEP 2; Carefully read the lists you’ve just made.  Remember, you want to include every idea you accept as being true about God, country, love, and marriage.  Have you left out any beliefs?  If so, please add them now.

STEP 3:  Go back, and consider each belief that you’ve listed, one at a time.  Ask your self, “From whom did I first learn this truth?”  Did this belief originate with me, or did I first accept it from someone else?Did it come to me from family, friends, or a teacher?  Did I originally accept this idea from religion, science, or government?  Did I first hear it in a song, movie, or on a television show?  Did I read it in a book or magazine?  Following each belief on your lists, write the original source of your belief?

YOUR GUIDE FOR ADVENTURE 2

MARK, 35-YEARS OLD

The following represents Mark’s Adventure after completing the Adventure’s three steps.

GOD

1. Belief: God is all-powerful and perfect.  Source of belief: my minister.
2. Belief: Jesus is God.  Source of belief: my parents.
3. Belief: I’m a sinner.  Source of belief: the Bible.
4. Belief:  God punishes sinners.  Source of belief: the Bible.
5. Belief:  In life, you only get what God wants you to have.  Source of belief: my mother.
6. Belief:  Our religions are far more concerned about controlling their adherents than they are about enlightening them about God.   Source of belief: a metaphysical author I’ve studied.

COUNTRY

1. Belief:  The United States is the best country in the world.  Source of belief: my father.
2. Belief:  If asked, I should be willing to give my life for my country.  Source of belief:  grammar school teacher.
3. Belief:  The terrorists hate us for our freedom.  Source of belief:  President George W. Bush.
4. Belief: Most politicians are more concerned about their careers than they are about their constituents.  Source of belief: my self.

LOVE

1. Belief:  Love must be earned.  Source of belief: my mother.
2. Belief: Some people are unlovable.  Source of belief: Grandma Mary.
3. Belief: Love can end.  Source of belief:  My parents told me this when they divorced.
4. Belief:  The sexier you are, the more likely you are to be loved.  Source of belief: ads, radio and television commercials, movies and TV shows.

MARRIAGE

1. Belief: Marriage was a better idea when people died at 40.  Source of belief: myself.
2. Belief:  Most marriages fail.  Source of belief: Almanac.
3. Belief:  Many married people cheat on their spouses.  Source of belief: my parents.
4. Belief:  Marriage means the end of freedom.  Source of belief: my sociology teacher.
5. Belief:  Marriage leads to boredom.  Source of belief: my father.
6. Belief:  Marriage is an outdated institution.  Source of belief: most of the married people I know.

Mark had accepted eighteen of the twenty beliefs on his list from other people.  By his own admission, he had done so without examining or evaluating these ideas for himself.  That made Mark almost entirely other created in the four belief categories identified.  Most of my students discover that they are at least 50% other created.  What percentage of the beliefs you’ve listed were first accepted from others?