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When I first developed the Lefkoe Belief process to eliminate limiting beliefs almost 28 years ago, very few people talked about the importance of beliefs. Today most people in the personal growth field acknowledge that permanent change is really impossible unless you eliminate the beliefs that drive your current behavior and make lasting change almost impossible.
In the past couple of years, however, I’ve discovered that beliefs are not the immediate cause of our behavior and feelings. Our occurrings are. As a result, fundamental change is possible without eliminating beliefs, if you know how to dissolve your occurrings.
Because very few people even discuss occurrings, much less distinguish between them and beliefs, I’m going to devote today’s post to explaining the difference between them in detail. (I discussed aspects of this issue in an earlier post, https://www.mortylefkoe.com/beliefs-dont-behavior/)
This distinction is important for many reasons, especially because each is formed differently and each is eliminated differently. The process required to eliminate beliefs won’t dissolve occurrings and vice versa. If you aren’t clear about the difference between the two and use the wrong process you won’t be successful in your attempts to change.
There are crucial differences between beliefs and occurrings
Despite their similarities, occurrings and beliefs are two very different phenomena.
Beliefs are the meaning we give (usually) to a series of events. Beliefs are broad generalizations, for example, I am …. People are …. Life is …. A belief is a statement about reality that we feel and act is the truth, although it is possible to intellectually disagree with something we believe. Once formed, beliefs continue to exist and affect our behavior, feelings and perceptions forever, unless we are able to eliminate the belief. We view life through the filter of our beliefs.
Our occurrings, on the other hand, are the meaning we give to a specific event, in other words, how reality occurs to us at a given moment. Each occurring is a distinct meaning that usually lasts only a short time and then fades away by itself when we stop thinking about the event. An example of an occurring is your boss asking you a question and it occurring to you as she doesn’t trust me, she doesn’t like me, or I’m going to get fired. That is the meaning you have given to the boss’s question. In reality all that happened is that she asked you a question. Contrast that occurring—the meaning you gave to that specific event—to beliefs that act as a filter through which we view all events, such as No one trusts me. No one likes me. I can’t keep a job.
Why occurrings are so important
Because we don’t distinguish between reality and how reality occurs for us (our occurring), we think the meaning we give reality IS reality. Because we think our occurring IS reality, we interact with our occurring, not reality. In other words, we rarely deal with what is actually in the world; we deal with the meaning we have given what is in the world, a meaning that exists only in our own mind.
For example, losing our job is a fact in reality, seeing it as a disaster or a great opportunity are two possible ways the event can occur for you. You can “see” that you no longer have a job. You can’t “see” that the job loss is a disaster or an opportunity. If your job loss occurred to you as a disaster, you would try to deal with “a disaster,” instead of with a job loss, which probably would have you feel and behave differently.
The simple distinction between beliefs and occurrings
Is it now clear that beliefs are broad generalizations that filter your view of all events, while occurrings are “one time” meanings you give to specific events that do not affect the meaning you give to similar events in the future?
Your long-held beliefs are NOT occurrings. An occurring is how an event occurs for you. Therefore, occurrings require, by definition, a preceding event, either in your mind or in the world. If there is no event, there is no occurring.
Beliefs are the major source of our occurrings
Is it now clear that beliefs and occurrings are two totally different phenomena? There is a crucial relationship between them, however, in that beliefs are the major source of our occurrings. In other words, how a meaningless event occurs for us is determined mainly by our beliefs. (Other determining factors can include our mood, physical condition, and stage of development
Change your beliefs and you can change how events show up for you. For example, if you believe, People are stupid, individuals will occur for you that way. Eliminate that belief and your future occurrings probably will change.
It is important to realize that it is possible to dissolve an occurring without eliminating any beliefs. On the other hand, if you don’t eliminate the beliefs that are causing a occurring, you will continue to have similar occurrings when similar events happen in your life.
I don’t want to mislead you. Although you can change your behavior and feelings by dissolving occurrings without eliminating beliefs, in most cases the fastest and easiest method to do that is to eliminate the beliefs causing the behavioral or emotional problem. For example, procrastination for most people is caused by about 16 beliefs and conditionings. Although you could dissolve the occurrings caused by these beliefs whenever you had to do something that you might procrastinate, it would be simpler to eliminate the 16 beliefs and conditionings and never procrastinate (or have to dissolve an occurring) again.
Define a few relevant terms
Let me define a few other terms that are relevant to this discussion. First, reality, by which I mean what actually happens in the world. Events. What you know through your five senses, especially what you can see or hear. What you usually could capture on a video recording. Sometimes “reality” can’t be “seen” because it is inside your mind, such as thoughts, memories, projections of the future, and physical sensations. We can give all of these meaning, so we can have occurrings about all of them.
The next term I want to clarify is “No meaning.” Events in reality have no inherent meaning. In other words, you can’t draw any inferences or make any predictions—for sure—as a result of observing any events, including internal events such as memories or physical sensations. All meaning, therefore, is in your mind.
This idea can be difficult to prove to someone who hasn’t experienced it. I hear all the time: “Of course events have meaning! Doesn’t dying have meaning? Doesn’t it mean something if someone treats you badly?” The best way I know to make this idea real is to experience it when you use the Lefkoe Belief Process (LBP) to eliminate a belief formed in childhood, where you experience clearly that mom’s and dad’s behavior had no inherent meaning, that the way they treated you meant nothing about you or even about them. (You can experience the LBP in a free online interactive program at http://recreateyourlife.com.)
Our occurrings cause most of our feelings
The third idea I want to clarify is: “Reality can’t cause feelings.” Reality/events are unable to make you feel anything because they have no inherent meaning. The primary source of your feelings is the meaning you give to events.
For example: If you don’t get something you want and you give it the meaning: I can’t get what I want and I never will—you probably will get upset. If you give the same event the meaning: I haven’t gotten what I want yet, so what do I have to do to get it?—you probably will feel challenged and excited. The meaning we give events is the primary source of our feelings. Thus, dissolving your occurrings enables you to simultaneously dissolve negative feelings, such as anxiety, anger, and upset.
In other words, beliefs are a primary determinant of our occurrings, and our occurrings cause most of our feelings.
For example, imagine that your boss walks in your room and says to you: “Is the project complete yet?” That is the reality, what actually happened. That might occur to you as she is dissatisfied with me, or my job is in jeopardy, or I never do anything right. That occurring, in turn, might have you feel anxious or possibly even angry.
I needed to eliminate a lot of beliefs (and some conditionings) to get rid of my depression, my neediness, my need for the approval of others, and a bunch of other problems. But I still had some occurrings daily that caused little upsets. I’ve written about these in earlier blog posts. When I stopped giving meaning to events most of the time, these minor upsets stopped.
Because getting rid of beliefs and occurrings are two totally different processes, it is possible for you to dissolve your moment-by-moment occurrings without having to eliminate any beliefs.
This week’s exercise
For the next three days ask yourself what meaning you must have given what just happened for you to be acting the way you just did. If you don’t do something you intended to do, what meaning did you give the event that could have prevented you from acting? An example might be: Not making a call or starting a project and noticing that the meaning you gave was: I can’t do this, I won’t do it well, or I‘ll probably fail. Can you see how those meanings would have inhibited your taking action? If you do this consistently for three days it will become very real to you how your “occurrings” determine your behavior.
At the same time see if you can identify the beliefs that are responsible for the specific meanings you are giving events. Notice the difference between the beliefs and the occurrings.
Please comment on this post and write your results from the exercise.
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Copyright ©2012 Morty Lefkoe
Thanks, Morty, for your brilliant work!
Here’s the results of my practice:
Event: The dog is barking again in the backyard.
My response action: I sigh, get up from my chair and walk out briskly to have the dog shut up. I have to remind myself to be firm, but calm, and not do something in anger.
My emotions: I feel annoyed, a bit angry, frustrated and victimized (something is disturbing me, happening to me again.) Emotions are rather subtle.
My occurings: It’s my job again to do something about this. Someone else (my husband) wanted the dog and the consequences are for me again. Other people (and the dog) do whatever they want and invade my space. I always have to react to other people (and the dog) and situations outside me as if they have a right to take up my space and I haven’t.
Some days ago, I already worked on the limiting belief, “I’m not important.” I can see now, that this is one of the underlying beliefs, that caused my occurring in this situation. Based also on my responses to other events, I think I can identify some other beliefs now too: I am powerless, I don’t have the right to be, I am invisible (people seem to act as if I am not there?).
I think it is very useful to start with this exercise on events and occurings, because this way you can discover unconscious beliefs, that you don’t agree with having with your intellectual mind. For instance, consciously, you believe yourself to be smart and you go out of your way to do smart things (high grades, no mistakes, etc.) But the underlying belief that propels you is that you feel you are stupid. Why else would you try to prove to yourself and the world, that you are not stupid?
One question, Morty: in this article you mention the belief, “People are stupid.” Can you work directly on the beliefs, People are … and Life is? How do you do that? Or do you have to find an underlying statement that is about “I” ?
Great! Very useful, IF we practice it on daily basis. Intellectual understanding do nothing.
Morty, could you please write a post about feelings. What actually are feelings on your opinion? Not what do they do or what do they create or…, but what are this phenomena?
Wow! This is one of your best posts ever! I am going to monitor my beliefs and occurrings for the next three days. I am sure that it will be an eye-opening experience. Thanks for your insight.
. . . . you have served more than the 29000 or so by your methodology than may have OCCURRED to you and I personally BELIEVE you could throw two or three zeroes on that! Your explanations and examples are non-pretentious and easy to comprehend.
The techniques you offer allow and promote self reliance and a real path to living a truly more conscious and awake existence.
My sincere thanks on behalf of all, Chris.
Love it….It has Occured to me too that if these ideas were taught in Elementary school, we’d all be doing a lot better.
Reminds me of some lines from a Rush song called Far Cry…
“One day I feel I’m ahead of the wheel, And the next it’s rolling over me”.
This informs me that you can twist perceptions but reality will not budge… the wheel is in the same place it was the day previous but you have given a different value based on your emotional state and whatever else might be lurking in the shadows.
I will gladly take three day challenge.
I do get it Morty, but out of everyone I’ve studied in this industry there is still one crucial component missing, that would more than likely put most of them out of business. Their thinking is flawed, and the results of that are a case of the blind leading the blind.
The emotions should be recognized as flags as to which way you are headed in the creation of any event, subject or circumstance.
The thought produces the emotion , never the other way round. It is just that through LOA the speed in which we think is almost impossible to discern.
Most everyone believe in many emotions but in REALITY there are two.
One feels better, one feels worse! Its to what degree that we name many more.
The more pleasing it feels, the more you are expanding and evolving. Anything less, the more you resist, the more you contract and inhibit.
But know that the way you perceive anything is only your perception and no one else! And it is absolutely valid according to your belief about it.
Trouble with beliefs is that they turn into facts, an IS. An unchangeable IS according to your own definitions.
The Lefkoe Method offers a way in which you can STOP and FEEL if a it serves you.
best regards, Chris
Thank you Morty!
Great distinction between our belief that cause the meanings we place on our occurings.
If people only became aware of how they are placing meaning on events that hurt them and others, our world would be a better place.
I am taking what you have taught me and teaching others. Know that your message is spreading through others!
In fact we just had a little spat between two of my female employees. It was exactly this. One lady had been feeling down on herself and began to have a bunch of self-defeating occurings to events and things blew up.
An interesting post would be how occurings lead to more of the same occurings and how a person can have an “occuring attack” where almost every event causes a similiar negative occuring because the person thinks each recent occuring is more proof of the validity of their current occurring!
On your team!
-Dave
Great meaningful post. How true it is.