Perhaps the most frequent question I get from readers of this blog is:  You’ve convinced me that the behaviors and emotions I want to change are caused mainly by my beliefs.  But how do I identify the specific beliefs that cause the problems?

For a full answer to that question you are going to have to wait until the second part of the Lefkoe Method Training is complete early next year.  It will take almost 20 hours to teach you everything we know about how to find all the beliefs that cause any given problem.  (For information about the next Lefkoe Method Training, Part 1, where you will learn how to eliminate your own and the beliefs of others, visit http://lefkoeuniversity.com.)

Nonetheless, there is one tip I can give you right now that will be very useful in identifying many of the relevant beliefs.

Our occurrings are the direct cause of our behavior and emotions

A few months ago I realized that, contrary to popular opinion, beliefs don’t affect our behavior and emotions directly.  How events occur to us—in other words, the meaning we unconsciously and automatically give meaningless events—are the immediate cause of our emotions and behavior.  Beliefs affect us indirectly by being the main source of our occurrings.

For example, imagine you are about to start a project and it occurs to you as: I’m going to fail.  People are going to think I’m stupid when I don’t succeed.

Can you get how that meaning would inhibit you from taking action?  On the other hand, if you had given the event the meaning that this project is going to be a total success and people will acknowledge you for the quality of the project, you would not be afraid to take action.  You would move right ahead.

Beliefs cause your occurrings

So why would you give the event (the need to take action on the project) that particular negative meaning rather than any other meaning? The probable source is beliefs such as Mistakes and failure are bad, If I make a mistake or fail I’ll be rejected, I’m stupid, and What makes me good enough or important is having people think well of me.

I said that our occurrings are the source of both behavior and emotions.  If we look further at the event I just mentioned (starting a new project) and if you have the occurring I stated above (I’m going to fail), can you see that you probably would experience fear when you thought about starting the project?  The fear is not caused by the event itself and is not directly caused by the beliefs.  It is caused by the meaning you gave to wanting to start the project, namely, I’m going to fail.

So if you wanted to identify the beliefs that ultimately caused the feeling of fear, first identify your occurrings and then ask yourself: What beliefs would cause these occurrings?

Use your occurrings to find your beliefs

Because our occurrings determine our behavior and feelings and because our beliefs are the major source of our occurrings, the best way to identify the beliefs that ultimately cause our behavior and feelings is to identify the occurrings that immediately precede the action or feeling and then ask yourself: What would I have to believe to give that specific meaning?

Try it and then let my readers and me know what happens.  Your comments increase the value we all receive.  I read all comments and respond to as many as I can.

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copyright ©2012 Morty Lefkoe

28 Comments

  1. Adi September 26, 2012 at 1:49 am - Reply

    Thank you Morty,I love the logic behind your explanations and the comments here
    I’m learning a lot from you guys,thank you

  2. Ana September 25, 2012 at 6:44 pm - Reply

    What happens if your occurrings always seem to turn out a certain way regardless of how you’re feeling about them beforehand? There have been many, many times in my life when I felt a project would be an overwhelming success and it resulted in abject failure. I was always shocked and still am when this happens. And there have been a few times when I was expecting failure but had success. It has made me lose faith that I can ever “think”my way to success. Sorry, but for me it’s always been kind of accidental the way things turn out.

    The pattern in my life always seems to be that I expect success but get failure. It always seems to be the opposite …

    • Morty Lefkoe October 1, 2012 at 10:59 am - Reply

      Hi Ana,

      It could be you expect success and get failure. It also could be that you WANT success and don’t allow yourself to know that you expect failure, that you suppress that feeling. That is the more likely situation.

      Love, Morty

  3. Juan Ignacio Ortiz September 24, 2012 at 9:01 pm - Reply

    Hi Morty,

    I have tried asking that question to my occurrings. For example, I used to almost always have the occurring “I screw up”, “I’m going to screw up”. So after I asked that question I come up with the answer (belief) “I always screw up”, I eliminated the belief and now I don’t get that occurring anymore, so that’s great so far.

    Now I also get the occurring “I made a mistake”, “I’m going to make a mistake” frequently. So I asked the question, but I’m not sure about the answer here. I thought about “I can’t do anything right” or “I always make mistakes”, but I just can’t be sure. What do you think is the belief causing that one?

    Thanks,

    Juan

    • Morty Lefkoe October 1, 2012 at 10:57 am - Reply

      Hi Juan,

      It’s hard to know because there could be so many possibilities. It could be the two you mentioned and it could be others.

      Love,Morty

  4. Nicholas Godwin September 24, 2012 at 6:41 am - Reply

    This is really revealing, I think this particular post ties all I’ve been reading here all these months together in a piece. Making that distinction between my beliefs and my occurings. Thanks Morty

  5. John September 20, 2012 at 6:23 pm - Reply

    I agree with this Marty, I have termed what you are calling “occurring’ as our interpretation. How we interpret an idea or choice through our current related perceptions and beliefs gives us the meaning, thus controlling our behavior and emotions with it.

  6. Al September 20, 2012 at 3:05 pm - Reply

    What is the difference between negative thoughts and occurings? Or maybe a better question would be, “What is an occuring, as you define it?”

    • Morty Lefkoe September 20, 2012 at 3:21 pm - Reply

      Hi Al,

      Please see a recent blog post for more specific details on occurring. https://www.mortylefkoe.com/important-improve-life/#

      Love, Morty

      • Al September 24, 2012 at 1:44 am - Reply

        Morty,

        The blog post link was perfect, now I totally get why “occurrings” are so important =)

        Namaste

  7. Lauren September 20, 2012 at 9:53 am - Reply

    Morty,
    Definitely going to use this and will let you know how it works out.

  8. Tomas September 20, 2012 at 9:10 am - Reply

    Event…JUDGMENT…feeling…reaction…

    • Lishui September 20, 2012 at 6:43 pm - Reply

      I would go so far as to suggest:

      event…CHOICE of judgment …feeling …reaction…

      • Tomas September 20, 2012 at 10:31 pm - Reply

        Very nice! And when we reach a level of fullness where we can Choose Conscious clarity instead of going to judgment Reflexively, as often happens in a post-traumatic type of existence, we really break free from the fears that imprison us.

  9. stephen September 20, 2012 at 8:43 am - Reply

    There are only 2 things in life. thoughts and feelings. Any feeling that is less than love, peace and joy are caused by judgments or occurring.

    Every thought has an emotions behind it. Emotions always come first. The trick is to pay attention to your thoughts and discover the emotions behind them so they can be eliminated.

    • Morty Lefkoe September 20, 2012 at 9:56 am - Reply

      HiStephen,

      My experience is that our thoughts (occurrings) CAUSE our feelings, not the other way around. If we don’t give any meaning to an event, we won’t have any feelings.

      Thanks for taking the time to comment.

      Love, Morty

      • stephen September 20, 2012 at 12:25 pm - Reply

        Hi Morty,
        Thank you for your reply. I find that feelings arise from the subconscious. The subconscious does not think in words, but in feelings, visualizations and even auditory and by taste. The subconscious is what reacts first, then thoughts almost instantly arise that “justify” the feeling. This is very subtle and takes time to learn to notice. This is why in a tug-of-war between between the conscious and subconscious, the winner is almost always the subconscious.

        But the conscious mind is what should be directing the subconscious and learn to realize the feelings are not the event and with training and careful paying attention to our thoughts we can eliminate the thought/feeling/ meaning to an event and the truth shall set us free.

        But the truth is when events no longer have less than ideal feelings associated with events, life is so much better and pleasant and those about us that use emotion to manipulate us are left powerless.

  10. Lishui September 20, 2012 at 4:23 am - Reply

    I recently had an occurring that I haven’t yet been able to shake off, even though I know it’s because of the beliefs and meanings I’m giving the situation. I know this because my friends can quickly come up with good responses for me to make about this situation …while at the same time they can ‘t apply those same actions in their own case!

    For example, each of us has had a struggle with our ex. My fear is that this problem will never go away because I truly am, as my ex suggests, a “vindictive bitch.” (therefore I will keep making trouble for myself, as an excuse to take revenge). But one of my friends is just afraid that nobody will ever love her because she is, herself, and unloving person. Another friend says that all men are jerks, and it’s just a shame that her brain makes her like men.

    I can see how their occurrings are silly and how they are ascribing meaning that isn’t inherently there. But I can’t see how my occurring is silly!

    However, I do see that we are all having similar circumstances and, logically, this is because of our beliefs. That’s how I managed to identify my own belief about my particular situation.

    It sure is hard to dismantle the emotional response from within the emotional response. That’s why we need others so much.

    • Morty Lefkoe September 20, 2012 at 12:33 pm - Reply

      Hi Lishui,

      Can you “see” that you are a “vindictive bitch” ? What color is it? What shape? What does it look like?

      Not what did you do or say, because that could have many meanings and has no inherent meaning. Meaning is always in your mind, never in events.

      Love,Morty

      • Lishui September 20, 2012 at 6:40 pm - Reply

        okay, I get it. it’s that simple: the description of me, despite having been used many times, is inherently meaningless. it’s only the meaning that I GAVE to it that allowed it to have the effect it did …which probably led to this description being used many times!
        haha!!

  11. Juan Ignacio Ortiz September 20, 2012 at 1:27 am - Reply

    Thanks Morty, I will be definitely asking that question you suggest.

  12. Rajagopalan September 19, 2012 at 3:14 am - Reply

    hi Morty,

    You are not assigning meaning to the event unconsciously instead the feeling that you felt Repeatedly has built the event in such a way that it would cause you to feel the same feelings, Event in itself doesn’t have any meaning ,ofcourse it’s happening, But what you feel is important, It is not unconscious mind of yours assigning some meaning, But instead EVENT is constructed TO FEEL THE corresponding FEELINGS(when two person perceive the same situation two might feel differently ) . But you succeed in creating the new reality because you remove the FEELING when you look into the event itself. And also, it is not correct all the time, Because some time Universe try to adjust your reality according to need of Overall expression of it’s own, So you feel some bad feelings, here meaning is much important that you need to do certain adjustment to eliminate this feelings, as soon as you take the corresponding action, feelings stops, since goal is achieved.

    So the conclusion is, Event has no meaning in itself when the feelings needed to be expressed since you repeatedly felt that, this happens according to Law of attraction. But it has the meaning when it comes from Deeper.

    • ravichadran September 20, 2012 at 8:42 pm - Reply

      Dear Rajagopaln, well said.
      R u from India/chennai
      if so iwpuold like to meet you.
      crownravihema atgmail

      • Rajagopalan September 20, 2012 at 10:52 pm - Reply

        Hi, Thank you very much ,
        I am from Srivilliputhur,Right now I am in Bangalore.

        • ravichadran September 25, 2012 at 8:02 pm - Reply

          Dear Rajagopalan,
          can we be in touch pl call 0944477844 or give your no pl
          we can discuss law of attraction and mutually benefit

          • Rajagopalan September 26, 2012 at 1:17 am

            Hi, I tried to call you, But your mobile is not reachable, So could you send your email id?

            Raj.

          • ravichadran September 26, 2012 at 2:06 am

            sorry my no is 09444077844

        • ravichadran September 26, 2012 at 2:09 am - Reply

          crownravihema@gmail and my mobile no is 09444077844 sorry for the error.
          Ravi

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