Home > Spirituality > Experiencing Faith and Spirit in Daily Life

Don't Miss These Features on Our Sister Website SUPPORT4CHANGE WATCH Getting Through the Gate to Change VISIT RESOURCES4Change Store SUBSCRIBE Support4Change Newsletter Email Address (be sure it's correct): Name:

Thirty-six Core Beliefs Influence How She Lives

By Barbara Levine, reprinted with permission

Page One of Four

PLEASE NOTE: Your Body Believes Every Word You Say is written by Barbara Levine, owner of Aslan Publishing, whose "fifteen-year struggle with a then-inoperable brain tumor led her to discover 'seedthoughts' and 'core beliefs' that link one's mind and body." As both personal experience and clinical research indicates, there is a strong mind-body (and spirit) connection.

However, as I write in Evidence of a Mind-Body Connection and Just How Much Control Does the Mind Have?, too often our thoughts are given greater credence than they deserve. That is why, when I read Barbara's book, I wished she had called it "Watch What You Say—Your Body MAY Be Listening." I know too many people who have said—and believed from the bottom of their hearts—that they wouldn't get a certain disease and yet died of that very thing. Also, I am reluctant to ascribe a particular seedthought to a particular health outcome, as Barbara does, sometimes equating common phrases like "that breaks my heart" to heart problems.

Nevertheless, using my words as caveat, I do believe Barbara's book offers several techniques you can use to create a more healthful life. It gives you many excellent self-help exercises and demonstrates that words have power to influence how you act. How you act, in turn, can influence how your body reacts. If your words express the belief that you are a victim in life, you may very likely walk as victims often walk, hunched over with shoulders curved forward. Such a position wouldn't give you lungs a great deal of space to breathe. Without good breathing all kinds of physical ills can arise. Thus it can be said that your attitude created your body's poor health.

In the appendix of her book is a list of "36 Core Beliefs" that are listed here and on the following three pages. The reason we've chosen them for this section is to demonstrate how a person's beliefs and life experience (such as survival of an inoperable tumor) influence what one believes. Further, you will notice in the brief explanation following each belief that she clearly attempts to live her beliefs, making this list a good example of how beliefs, put into practice, guide the many decisions one makes every day.

— Arlene F. Harder, MA, MFT, Learning Place Online Editor-in-Chief

I believe there is a Supreme Being, a God who guides and watches over me. I feel divinely protected. I have a personal relationship with that creative God force in the universe. That force is neither male nor female, but both, or all. I say "Mother/Father/God" when I pray. I believe God created each of us for companionship with each other and to receive God's blessings and love. A belief in a Supreme Being is often rejected by people until they reach a crisis and discover the power of prayer and faith. Faith activates healing.

I believe I am responsible for myself and say this often. I have a team of doctors who advise and treat me. As the captain of my team I make the final decision based on expert advice. I trusted Dr. Dogali, my neurosurgeon, and during surgery he was in charge. I believed he could help me and had faith in his treatment. During my post-surgical hospital stay, if I thought I needed something, I asked for it, sometimes quite forcefully. I fought for what I believed in. At least once, I was wrong. I admitted it.

I believe I am special and have a mission to accomplish. In 1985 I wrote a newsletter about my brain surgery. I shared it with hundreds of people. Sometimes I felt embarrassed when giving the letter to someone I barely knew. But if I thought I should share it, I did. The response from many people was favorable. I think they were inspired by me, as I was inspired by them. The personal stories these people told me often helped me to feel better about myself and encouraged me to "keep on keeping on."

I believe that I give meaning to the events in my life. I chose to survive in order to fulfill my purpose and complete my mission, part of which is to spread the information in this book.

I believe I can sometimes choose what to experience and sometimes I must take what I get. Some things are unavoidable, predestined, written in stone-my brain tumor probably was. But we do have some real choice.

I believe that we attract the experiences we need in order to learn. Since we have illness to learn something, I believe my growth and successful recovery from the tumor depended on choosing to learn from it.

I believe also that there is a randomness to the events in the universe. We can be in the right place at the right time, or the wrong place at the wrong time. I believe we are not to blame. Responsibility means accepting what happens without self-reproach, guilt, self-hate, or negativity.

I believe that we are not bad or wrong when we suffer pain or illness. Remember that!

I believe the main purpose of life is to learn. Life on Earth is like being in college. There are courses we take by attracting people and/or circumstances to learn from. We might not always like it. Perhaps we don't always choose the courses, but we do choose our receptivity to learning when the lesson appears. As part of the process, I use my body as a guide to uncover my emotions, thus learning from my body. Disease is sometimes a life-long learning process, rather than a distinctive one-time event.

I believe each illness teaches me something for my self-knowledge and is also part of my research for my books. During the early stages of my recovery I felt that I was proving myself and the message in this book. "Practice what you preach, Barbara, to learn what you teach" was a frequent seedthought of mine.

I believe illness or any crisis situation is a time of heightened potential. We may be more vulnerable, but then we have the chance to grow. As we say good-bye to the old ways, some part of us dies. You leave something you need to leave, in order to grow and move on. What we refer to as healing may just be us growing up. Perhaps a message of the great spiritual teachers from Moses to Buddha to Jesus to Mohammed is that there's no life without suffering and no joy without sorrow. The Bible teaches us that there is no promised land without an exodus, no resurrection without a crucifixion, no life without death; each element is a part of human reality related to our spiritual journey.

I believe in the probability of reincarnation. I live as if reincarnation is true. It helps me to be a better person, because I know if I am not virtuous I will reap the consequences—even in a future life. It makes sense to me that a loving God would allow us another chance to do it right, to make up for past mistakes. But I can't prove reincarnation. I don't believe that I am going to come back in this same body. But rather, the witness in me, the eye (I) watching me, experiencing my life and learning from it, will choose a new human form to return in, and learn some new lessons. Hopefully, it will be easier for me next time.

CONTINUED on Page Two

© Copyright 2001, Barbara Levine, owner of Aslan Publishing