Belief System
Hello, lovely Positivity and Gratitude Community! 
Belief is a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing and the system is a regularly interacting or interdependent group of items forming a unified whole. So together, a belief system is a regulated interconnected group of beliefs, the way we think or process things around us, one that makes us who we are. Each belief that we may have is interdependent on our other beliefs. If we may feel that one of our core beliefs (the ones which essentially make us, us) is in question and we doubt its validity, our whole belief system may be affected. To bring back stability in our belief system, it may require us to restructure the way we think and perceive. The different set of beliefs that we have, grant us security and clarity in different areas of our life. Your affinity towards certain careers may be due to your perceived notion of that particular field offering you the job and financial security you need. Your beliefs about relationships are formed due to adaptive behaviour that you have developed over the years to protect yourself as a social being. These beliefs aren’t necessarily the truth because beliefs at the fundamental level are subjective and hence, cannot be universally true. It’s also important to note that a belief system is not necessarily the same thing as following a religion. While belief systems are based on the personal view of various things in life, religion is a set of cultural notions that a community follows.
What does a belief system include? A belief system has three components: values, beliefs and rationality. These three fundamentally give rise to various beliefs, views or perception you may have and directly impacts your belief system as a whole.
1. Values. Values are certain beliefs and truths that are important to you. These can be qualities you want to have or the principles you want to live by. To relate to others lovingly is a value and so is wanting to remain truthful and loyal to your friends.
2. Beliefs. Beliefs are things you perceive to be personally true for you and it usually accounts for things that haven’t been proved to be universally true. This includes having beliefs about yourself, “I am not capable of doing xyz”, or having beliefs about other people or things, “Sarah is a wonderful girl” or “this book will change people’s life.” Beliefs can be of two types - enabling and limiting. Enabling beliefs are the ones which help you to grow positively and limiting beliefs are the ones which may hold you back from doing or trying out certain things.
3. Rationality. In its true essence, rationality basically means having rational thoughts which have a solid reason and can be proven on some level. These can include making slow but logical decisions or being aware of some of the cognitive biases that you may have. Questioning the validity of thought and if it is productively impacting you.
These components of the belief system help us make sense of the world. All of these together form our belief system. You hugely make decisions which are in alignment with your belief system (or may sometimes feel uneasy if you're asked to do something as opposed to your beliefs), and it’s a good thing too. You need some morals, guides, or principles to live by, we all have a reason (whether it is scientifically proven or if we have any evidence to prove ‘why’ we did something) for doing things even if we may not know them on the surface level. Any belief system is constantly evolving and changing as we get to experience new things, and as we get to learn new information. This doesn’t mean it brings instability, instead, it helps us to form an even stronger belief system because it has been refined so many times.
Now the most essential question for our discussion is what is the importance of having or more accurately being aware of your belief system? As we have already discussed, all of us have certain beliefs, values and rationale that makes us who we are. The main thing over here is, they’re all interconnected. Your beliefs, values govern the action you take, the result you get from that action is how your belief either becomes strong (if the outcome was favourable) or you realize the belief is not productively working for you. With the results you get, you also get a strong sense of reason, you begin to question why is the particular thing working for you or seems right to you. Thus, these beliefs that you have seen as the result have become so ingrained in your belief system that you start acting accordingly, making it more refined. The importance of having a strong belief system is just to be an open-minded individual, to understand yourself and others better. To make a note and some intellectual observations of why some things happen, whether it is on a personal level, a community level or a global level. You start to realize that you’re a part of a vast world and how living a certain way, thinking in a certain way impacts you as well as your immediate surrounding. It’s needed to really understand human behaviour and most importantly, your behaviour. When you learn new information or have an experience that gives you an idea of the usefulness of your belief system, you start working on them, you eliminate the ones that don’t work or do more of the ones that do. You feel satisfied and more in touch with your true self. That’s the meaning when people say, “just be yourself” because these values, beliefs and rationale that you have and continuously grow with makes you who you are at the core.
Question. Are you aware or in touch with your belief system and do you think awareness about it helps you with being open-minded or just helps you be satisfied? Let us know by replying to this thread!
Read more about the power of belief system from here: https://www.happeemindz.com/the-power-of-your-belief-system
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@lumieremilkyway
Dear Lumie:
Congratulations on such a deep and interesting article, very well balanced and carefully phrased to meet the challenge of a very touchy topic, as it is people's beliefs.
Answering your questions:
I am extremely aware of my belief system.
This awareness is one of the greatest accomplishments in my life. It allowed me to criticize, reconsider, analyze and build over the years, with a lot of effort, an increasingly solid and complete belief system, based on (what I see as) the most reliable (but never perfect) human efforts in hard sciences and philosophy.
There is a controversy about whether you should believe what makes you happy, or just the truth, even if it makes you sad. In my country, most people would say: "My belief system is good because it makes me happy". So most choose to live in delusion, as long as it makes them feel good.
On the contrary, I avoid delusion like the plague, I enjoy immensely appreciating reality as it is, amazing in all its dimensions. The mere contemplation of all that is, gives me perspective, joy, and meaning to my life.
However, at the same time, our world is imperfect, to say the least, with a lot of injustice and suffering by innocent people. I face this sad reality head-on. I try to do something to alleviate it, but I will never deny it.
So my "belief system" provides me with a lot of sorrow as well as joy. In the terms of your question, paradoxically, it gives me a lot of satisfaction, but it does not make me satisfied at all. Nor do I want to be deluded into a false sense of "everything is fine".
Regarding open-mindedness, I am very cautious about incorporating very novel or scientifically unsubstantiated ideas. As a great physicist said, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", and I follow this rule to open the very skeptical doors of my mind to any new ideas.
Thank you, Lumie, for this opportunity to reflect on a subject so close to my heart and mind !
All the best !
Marcelo.
@WelcomeToChat
I do agree it's a quite sensitive topic for many. it can be touchy in the sense people have different beliefs and may sometimes hold on to them strongly and it may or may not lead to some disparities between people and give rise to confrontations. nevertheless, conversation about this can be very enlightening for all!
I'm glad that you are extremely aware of your belief system. I'd consider it a great accomplishment as well, and I'm happy for you! the thing I appreciate the most about belief systems, mine and others is how personal it is to all and yet how so much of it is indirectly a product of the world around us. to see the path you've walked on for this strong sense of beliefs is remarkable, loved hearing how you broke down so many things that one might have to inevitably go through so that their belief system gets more refined.
what makes you happy vs the truth (even if it makes you sad or less happy) must offer quite a controversy for sure! I often like to think that happiness is never actually a goal but something you get as a byproduct because chasing happiness in my humble opinion is counterproductive. belief system can mean different things to different people. it brings a sense of stability and sets a good precedent for making sure there's some predictibility in your life. however, one might not be benefited being as attached to one's belief system, so much so that they base their happiness on it and try to keep it constant. staying open to how you could expand your beliefs to me seems freeing and something we all would find greater happiness and meaning in.
I love your take on this particular delusion! contemplation of all this helps us in growing and offers a chance to learn more. so it's quite nice to see you be open for it, and constantly choosing to improve. our world is imperfect, I agree. it's a sad reality a lot of us struggle coming in terms with. we all have that 'hero' in is that wants peace above everything, that's something a lot of us resonate with.
I see the paradox now, you explained it really nicely! I like how having a strong belief system means that you can have a sense of satisfaction but also realize how so many things in the present world contradict or go against your beliefs. it can be hard to digest and thus also brings moments where we might not feel satisfied at all despite having the sense of satisfaction of just having a belief system.
hear your concern about open-mindedness. lots of novel scientific discoveries may not be proven to be helpful so it's right to be questioning them. evidence is indeed needed to prove something to be true. I like the quote, you do have to go to extraordinary lengths to prove something to be extraordinary. skeptical doors can be quite helpful as it may bring a sense of control and also ensures that you'd be sure and safe when you do believe something.
thank you so much for always offering me to extend my own thinking and initial discussion that I bring on the table. your insights have always been deeply appreciated and I thoroughly enjoy looking forward to your views. you are extremely wise and I admire how you articulate and word your thoughts. hope things are well on your end! ❤️
Thanks for sharing the article and write up. I've been thinking a lot about my unhelpful beliefs lately, and the insight that they're connected is interesting. I was wondering about why a lot of my unhelpful beliefs are variations of each other, and that might be the key to it.
It's quite interesting for me to peel back the beliefs and try to figure out where it came from - society, people in the past, parents, news/media, etc.
I liked this article https://positivepsychology.com/core-beliefs-worksheets/ as well, where it referenced there are 3 main categories of negative self beliefs: Helplessness, Unlovability, Worthlessness
I find it helpful to tie my unhelpful beliefs back to one of those three to really understand what's underlying the belief.
@purpleWheel873
hey there, Purple! thanks for reading my forum post. indeed, a lot of our beliefs may just be different variations of each other. there's some core beliefs we may have and based on them, we may have other beliefs too. for example, you value truthfulness in people, and in turn it makes you value loyalty as well as honesty. they're often interlinked like this! you've been introspecting about your unhelpful beliefs and I think that's fabulous! the key is to question, see what isn't working and adapt to make it work.
I agree, it's indeed very interesting to think where our beliefs originate from, how did they get so ingrained to your belief system and in what areas of your life you've unconsciously done something or believed something. it's fascinating, how we humans have the ability to rationalize so much of information!
thank you for sharing the link, I'd love to check that out as well! you've done so much work on this, I appreciate you being curious and wanting to understand the root cause of your unhelpful beliefs. helpless, unlovability and worthlessness, I can see those being standard things our unhealthy beliefs can be broken down into. thanks for sharing about your personal experience and how you're thinking of making progress! it was lovely hearing from you ❤️