***How the Lefkoe Belief Process Works, Part 2

THIS IS PART 2 OF “HOW THE LEFKOE BELIEF PROCESS WORKS. Read Part 1 first.

For many years we thought that this was all that was necessary to eliminate a belief. A few years ago we realized that it was enough for “visual” people, people who know reality by seeing it, who are about 80% of the population. But a significant number of people are emotionally kinesthetic: they know reality through their feelings.

When they are asked the question in the Lefkoe Belief Process (LBP): Imagine being a child and observing the events that led you to form your belief; didn’t it seem as if you could see the belief?—such people answer: I didn’t see it; I felt it.

So a couple of years ago we added a new step to the LBP specifically for such people. We ask: Didn’t it seem as if the events that led you to form the belief made you feel (your belief)? The answer is always, yes. We then point out that they had just acknowledged that the events had no meaning, and that meaningless events can’t possibly make you feel anything.

So we ask: What really caused the feeling? We get the client to realize that the feeling was caused by the meaning she gave the events, and had she given the events a different meaning, she would have had a different feeling. She gets that reality didn’t cause the feeling; the meaning she created did. At which point, the belief is gone for kinesthetic people.

Beliefs Literally Disappear

When we recognize that something we have held as a belief (the truth) is, in fact, only one of several alternative meanings of what actually occurred (a truth), when we realize that we never saw the belief in the world, and when we realize the events had no meaning until we gave them one, the belief literally disappears. Remember, a belief is a statement about reality that we think is the truth. When it gets transformed into only a truth, it is no longer a belief and no longer runs our lives.

When the belief disappears, there is usually an observable change in clients' bodies and demeanor. They look (and usually report that they feel) lighter, as if they had been relieved of a heavy burden. When they are asked to repeat the words of the belief, they say that they no longer believe it, that the words of the belief sound empty and meaningless to them. There is a clear difference between the experience of saying the belief at this point compared to when it was first identified.

Distinguish Between the Creator and the Creation

At this point I ask the client to notice that his life has been consistent with his belief—even though it never really was the truth. He grasps that his life hasn’t been consistent with the truth about him; his life has been consistent with his beliefs, with whatever meaning he “made up” to understand the earlier events. The client comes to realize that if someone had helped him when he was forming the belief to see the additional interpretations he has just named, and he had gone into life with an interpretation other than the one he actually did form, his life would have been consistent with that belief. In other words, the client experiences that he creates his beliefs and his beliefs determine his life—which makes him the creator of his life.

The client discovers that he ultimately is not the sum total of his beliefs—along with the behavior and feelings that accompany those beliefs—he is the creator of those beliefs. He is not merely a “creation,” he also is the “creator” of the creation.

Here is how to facilitate that realization: Assist the client to realize that there had to be an "interpreter" before there could be an "interpretation"; a belief creator before there could be a belief. In other words, who you really are is not your beliefs; you are that which generated the beliefs.

After the client makes the distinction between himself as a creator and a creation, I ask what his experience is, right now, as the creator of his life. The answer virtually every client gives is some variation of: calm, serene, peaceful, infinite possibilities, no limitations, whole, complete, alive, powerful, and nothing missing. He appears to enter an non-ordinary state of consciousness in which he experiences that anything is possible and that he has no limitations.

A Brief Summary of the LBP

As a result of doing the LBP we discover that the events and circumstances of our lives, as such, have virtually no effect later in life on our behavior, our attitudes, and our emotions. The meaning we assign to what happens, on the other hand, has a profound effect. Therefore, by changing our interpretation of what happened, we can radically change the effect of past events on our present and future life.

To sum up what occurs for us when we use the LBP to change our behavior and beliefs: We recognize that the belief that is responsible for the current, undesirable behavioral or emotional pattern is nothing more than one arbitrary, but valid, meaning of what actually occurred earlier in life. When it is clear that we never saw the belief in the world, the belief becomes transformed into just one of many arbitrary meanings, at which point it literally disappears as the truth.

I want to stress that the essence of the LBP is not merely getting rid of beliefs and changing our behavior and feelings. Equally as important is creating ourselves as the creator of our beliefs and—because our beliefs determine our behavior, emotions, and perceptions of reality—as the creator of our lives.

The LBP ultimately is more spiritual than psychotherapeutic. By spiritual I mean a sense of ourselves as beyond or distinct from who we normally think we are, namely, our body, our beliefs, and the behavior and feelings that stem from our beliefs. The LBP appears to be a cognitive gateway to an non-ordinary state of consciousness in which we create and then experience ourselves as alright just the way we are, as whole and complete, as calm and serene, with unlimited possibilities and no restrictions outside of ourselves, and with nothing missing.

If you haven’t yet eliminated at least one of your limiting self-esteem beliefs using the Lefkoe Belief Process, go to http://recreateyourlife.com/a/selfg where you can eliminate one limiting belief free.

copyright ©2001 Morty Lefkoe