This is because our beliefs are hooked up to our deepest selves. They are wired right into our amygdala and bypass our rational brain centers.
On the other hand, a person holding an opinion can shift that opinion relatively easily if presented with new data.
Suppose you’re shopping for a new vacuum cleaner. You’ve gathered the product specs, read the reviews and have formed an opinion about which one is best for your needs. Then along comes a friend who has new firsthand information with that model that causes you to change your mind. Does this shift in opinion get you riled up? No, of course not. It’s just an opinion.
Not so with beliefs. Shifting those takes emotional energy, sometimes a lot of it. It takes time and courage to consciously examine and alter our deeply-held beliefs. Not very many people do this or are even willing to try.
In her research into the grieving process which we touched on in the previous chapter, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross talked about this exact dynamic when we are confronted by the most belief-challenging experience of them all: our own death. When our own mortality finally breathes down on us, we tend to go through a very predictable set of emotional responses: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
These five stages of grief play out virtually every time a belief system is challenged. The more entrenched the belief, the stronger the emotional resistance to changing it. But regardless of whether the belief is tiny or large, confronting our beliefs is always an emotional process.
We might feel that we have to give up something cherished, which feels like a loss to us. Perhaps it’s faith in authority that we may have to relinquish, or the hope that our children will have as many opportunities as we did, or that technology will ride to the rescue in time.
The main reason people avoid developing resilience is because doing so usually asks them to confront one or more closely held-beliefs and is therefore an invitation to a certain amount of emotional stress.
Another thing about beliefs is that they are incredibly good at harvesting data that supports their continuation and solidification, and are amazingly good at either rejecting or completely overlooking data that would undermine them. This is obviously at play with climate change, where various camps cherry pick their data to support their case while ignoring mountains of evidence that would refute their positions.
So let’s look at some of the common excuses again and see if we can identify the beliefs at play:
Social Shame – My family and friends will think I’m ‘crazy.’
Our social conditioning has led us to believe that bad things will befall us if we are seen in a poor light by the people around us, as illustrated by Chris’ bulk food shopping adventure.
The belief in play is that it’s wrong somehow to deviate from social convention. The repercussions can hurt: a loss of social standing, shunning, and damaged relationships, which then translate into the loss of love and connection. So being seen as crazy or nuts is really a threat to our ability to feel loved and be connected, which means it’s wired right into one of the most emotionally-charged areas of our psyches.
When we find ourselves disguising our actions it indicates that shame is the emotion in charge. Shame is a very powerful method of social control, used in the socialization process, which gets internalized at an early age.
It keeps us in line, but does it really serve us? What if we could reduce or eliminate unnecessary shame? Would our social lives and connections improve or degrade? It’s interesting to note that culturally we admire and idolize the rebels and (seemingly) shameless celebrities. The wilder and more confident the better.
What would happen if we simply openly acted in accordance with our inner guidance and accumulated wisdom? Honestly, it’s more probable that people would admire and follow us than ridicule and shun us.
Lack of Awareness – If I’m not familiar with these risks and if they’re not immediately apparent when I look out my front door, then maybe they’re not real.
This one is denial, plain and simple. It’s the most common stage we encounter. It plays an important role as the gatekeeper that actively prevents the rest of the emotional sequence from being triggered. Denial is a self-defense mechanism that allows us to avoid looking at things so that we don’t have to open an entire can of worms.
Sometimes this is actually a legitimate and useful strategy. For the person who is otherwise unable to cope with more emotional stimulation at the time, perhaps a struggling single parent at the end of their reserves, or someone battling a serious health crisis, choosing battles carefully is a wise move.
But for most others, denial is a poor strategy because it makes us more vulnerable to the risks we close our eyes to.
Too Limited – I don’t have the time/money/etc to focus on this right now.
This belief is a common one, which we run into all the time. At its core is a limiting belief that one does not have the resources to get the job done well. And this regularly leads to nothing getting done, even though everyone has the resources to get something done.
The person holding this belief might have deep-seated fears of failure or losing what they have. The underlying beliefs manifest in feelings of powerlessness and insufficiency.
However, we know people of extremely limited means who have made huge strides in preparedness using practically no money. One, a divorced mother of four, with no savings to speak of, became highly prepared entirely on a shoestring budget. She prioritized her time, was scrappy, made excellent use of online swap and classified sites, and took advantage of the fact that if you live in America, you live around a lot of people with more stuff than they want or know what to do with.
The point here is that everyone has capacity to prioritize toward preparing, but they first have to elevate the priority above other commitments. The statement that I have no time, money or resources is a pure limiting belief. If you hold it, those things may as well be true.
By identifying our limiting beliefs, we can expose them for the frauds they are and begin the process of removing them from our lives and replacing them with enhancing beliefs. As Gandhi said, our beliefs shape our destiny. Rather than being captive to our beliefs, we can consciously choose them!
And finally:
Not a Problem #1 – Humans are clever. Somebody smart will invent a solution in time.
This is faith in technology and it’s a doozy. For all of our lives, technology has only been getting more elaborate and more powerful. And while it’s certainly true that technology will continue to get better at the things it does, we shouldn’t let our faith in it cause us to overlook the things it cannot do.
Technology is only as good as the people using it. For instance, GPS is wonderful. It enables us to easily and safely navigate the trickiest of cities effortlessly. But it also allows gigantic fishing trawlers to drop their massive weighted nets six inches to the left of where they left off last week, ensuring that the ocean bottom is thoroughly scraped. As a result, many of the largest commercial fishing grounds, like the once-massive Northern cod fishery in the Grand Banks, have collapsed. That is, our cultural decision-making has not evolved as fast as the technology. Think ‘monkeys with machine guns’ and you’re on the right track.
Technology also cannot create energy. It can find it, use it more efficiently and help us do far more with less, but it cannot create energy. If our faith in technology causes us to overlook the risks of fossil fuels on and in our lives then that belief system will bite us. Why? Because fossil fuels are the source of energy that provide our food, our warmth, our lights and our fuel. Technology does not create energy, it uses energy. Technology alone cannot create new deposits fossil fuels for us, even if we wanted it to. Instead we should be eyes-wide-open about what technology can and cannot do, and plan our lives accordingly.
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