From my early conditioning of racial, family, cultural, educational and religious identity, my beliefs have broadened out through psychology, astrology and philosophical studies.
But many people I meet are stuck in the mindset of their own belief system and find it difficult to acknowledge that other unfamiliar beliefs may be equally valid, or may reluctantly accept that there can be areas of agreement, but that their beliefs are unassailable... so there!
When I have a client who's stuck in the rut of a negative mindset, I can use EFT with NLP to help install new ways of thinking, but its not always so eay to change entrenched beliefs. One way I help them understand how our mind constructs our beliefs is to talk about our dreams... and explain how the mind constructs a story to make some sense of the emotions coursing through us while we sleep. We might notice how children do this all the time, to make sense of their world, which misguided parents might call lying!
Having worked with many elderly clients with dementia or Altzheimers, I've noticed how they do the same thing. Old people like to tell their 'story'... because it defines who they think they are. Sometimes the 'story' is complete nonsense, but that's how their mind has constructed their memories.
I have to conclude that all the maps we have... whether political, religious, astrological, culural or whatever... are simply that... MAPS that tell us where we are in the scheme of things. They are not necessarily true or false, but simply constructs, guides and signposts throughout life.
