B is for Beliefs

The ABC Of Imagination Technology

The ABC Of Imagination Technology is series of posts aiming to distill and simplify some pretty convoluted and contested intellectual definitions, ideas and concepts so you can hone your imagination as a purposeful tool of creating.

Photo by Kaleb Nimz on Unsplash

As a child I believed in Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy. As I grew up I learned to let go of the rigid understanding of these innocent beliefs in favour of a more nuanced appreciation of them as mythological archetypes or tropes that add colour to my life and serve me to experience both the pleasure and the poignancy of life. Putting consumerism aside I still enjoy and celebrate Christmas and, well the Tooth Fairy, still calls on my pocket occasionally

What are Beliefs?

At the simplest level a belief is an idea that we accept as true or real.

We have discretionary beliefs that reflect our opinions and allegiances - we may support a particular football team, or political party, we may follow a particular lifestyle or advocate for a certain diets or approaches to life e.g. cold showers, low-cholesterol or high-protein diets, veganism or juicing.

We believe and have opinions about things that may be passed down culturally or that we have come to our own conclusions about. We may adhere to these for a lifetime but we may also change our minds, perhaps when we receive new information or we discover that a particular approach doesn’t work for us.

Foundational Beliefs

The category of belief that I am interested in, as Imagination Technologist, is the category of foundational beliefs. These are beliefs that are formed as a result of our experience from conception to the age of seven when our brains are absorbing huge amounts of information, effortlessly, continuously, and indiscriminately.

It is generally accepted that foundational beliefs emerge based on formative experiences with our mother and father (our origin in life). These beliefs are the stories we make up about why we do not receive 100% love and acknowledgement¹. They are stories are the stories of our wounding and designed to protect our hearts and give us a sense of orientation.

These beliefs form the basis of our Perception - see A is for Awareness. 85% of our core brain structure is developed by the time we are 5 years old and this becomes the invisible foundation for how we experience and engage in life.

Over time what was initially an idea becomes concretised as a belief which then becomes a lens through which we look at the world. A lens that actually limits our ability to see all of what is available to us.

Why are Foundational Beliefs important?

What we may not appreciate is that imagination comes bundled in our Consciousness and as Einstein said “Imagination creates everything” and it is creating all the time. What our imagination creates for us depends on the lens through which we are looking. As a creator our aim is to be looking through a lens of the greatest possibility. For simplicity consider three lens:

1. Self-conscious - what we are aware of and present to.

2. Unconscious - what has been embedded through repeated behaviour over time and has become so automatic that we are not aware of it.

3. Superconscious - our imagination and intuition that draw on possibilities that we do not yet know or comprehend

In the same way as brushing our teeth or driving a car our foundational beliefs become automatic or unconscious; they are not visible to us in our self-conscious lens of awareness.

When our imagination is hooked to our unconscious lens of awareness we can only create and experience more of what we have already created. Perhaps not exactly the same, not a literal Groundhog Day, but when we stand back and look at our lives we can see the same stories with different characters; the relationships that go to west, the Boss that never values us, the best friend who betrays us, the bank balance that can never quite make it into the black.

When our imagination is hooked up to our superconscious - our intuitive lens of awareness then we can create what has never been created before, we can experience the magic of realities and experiences that we didn’t think were possible for us.

If you wish to conjure and create a life, beyond what you have experienced in the past, one of your key skills will be to bring awareness to your beliefs to see when they are being useful and when they are not.

Anatomy Of Foundational Beliefs

The Enneagram (from "ennéa" meaning "nine" and "gramma" meaning "figure") is one of the oldest personality models around. It is based on the idea that there 9 personality types each of which reflect the qualities of a particular belief. Although we predominately show up as one of these types, in my experience, each belief exists as a spectrum and we will have a relationship with some point on the spectrum of each belief to a greater or lesser extent e.g. we may not feel lovable but we might feel powerful or we may not have issues with capacity but we may have issues with permission.

1. Love

2. Achievement

3. Belonging

4. Control

5. Safety

6. Capacity

7. Power

8. Permission

9. Perfection

This is overview that you might initially recognise in others before you recognise in yourself.

A Tip:

Our foundational beliefs are by their very nature limiting, as much as we might perceive that they tell us who we are, the truth is they point to only a one dimensional possibility of who we can be. The trick is to have awareness of how these beliefs get triggered or engaged but like Father Christmas or the Tooth Fairy, living with the idea that what they are informing us of is a subjective reality rather than an absolute truth.

Appreciating your own unique configuration of beliefs as your human orientation system and that this cannot be changed is an important skill for a creator and Imagination Technologist.

Being able to discern individual beliefs and, in particular, the behaviours they compel give us a choice around what actions we take. This discernment allows us to observe ourselves, and choice gives us the facility to neutralise the power of the belief by take different actions than those that may be limiting or restricting our creative momentum.

The guidance is to be curious, no more and no less, about what foundationaly beliefs might be operating in your consciousness. Remember that awareness is a powerful neutralising force that will serve you to understand your consciousness and direct you to harness your imagination to your dreams.

#foundationalbeliefs #imagination #technology #consciousness #perception #growth #dying #evolution #change

1. Chapter 3: Preparing The Fertile Ground For Your Genius To Emerge, Secrets Of Natural Success, William Whitecloud