“The Lefkoe Method is very effective at eliminating negative beliefs. But why don’t you replace them with positive beliefs?”
This is a very common question so I decided to devote this week’s post to answering it.
For many years we did attempt to “install” positive beliefs—the opposite of the “negative” belief that was eliminated—for example, I am good enough for I’m not good enough and relationships do work for relationships don’t work.
Although the new belief felt true at the moment for most clients, it usually didn’t feel true when we checked a week or two later. In other words, despite using several different methods to install the new beliefs, it usually didn’t work.
Is it Possible to Consciously Create New Beliefs?
Here’s why I think it is very difficult to have someone consciously create a new belief and then really believe it. A belief is the meaning we have given meaningless events in reality. When we do that it seems (for a visual person) that we can actually see that meaning in the world. It is the truth. You aren’t trying to convince yourself that the meaning is true; it is true for you. For a kinesthetic person, once you give a meaning to events, those events make you feel that meaning every time the events occur. Again, you aren’t trying to feel something; you can’t help but feel it.
This is the automatic process that occurs when you initially create a belief unconsciously. But it is very different when you consciously say the words: I am good enough or relationships do work—and hope that you will really believe the words you’ve uttered. You are saying it more like an affirmation, as something you want to be true, rather than as something you think you can see in the world (which would mean it must be true). Even looking at recent events that could validate the new belief wasn’t consistently effective.
We also tried having clients create the new positive belief after they had gotten into the “creator” space (after using the Who Am I Really? Process). I never kept records, but I’m not sure that this worked much better.
You Don’t Need “Positive” Beliefs
I never looked for additional techniques that might enable people to get the new beliefs to “stick” because I decided early on that it was more important for people to realize they were the creator of their lives, than they were a “healthier or better creation.”
Let me explain. I commonly use the words “negative” and “limiting” as descriptions of certain beliefs. In fact, however, beliefs aren’t negative or positive they are neutral. They result in certain feelings and behavior. If you like what they produce, you could say the beliefs are “positive,” but only because you arbitrarily like their manifestation.
Moreover, all beliefs are limiting by their very nature. You are what you believe you are (for you) and anything else is absolutely not true (not possible). Your beliefs about people and life also create boxes; what’s outside the boxes literally does not exist for you. (If you believe relationships always work or never work, you will interpret all relationships through that filter and no matter what you see couples do or don’t do, you will interpret it consistently with your belief. For you, relationships inconsistent with your beliefs cannot exist.)
Live As The Creator, Not a “Better” Creation
I concluded that it was more important to live as the creator of your life (as the sculptor) rather than as any specific creation (as a specific piece of sculpture). In the altered state of consciousness produced by the Who Am I Really? Process, you have no limitations and anything is possible.
So even if it were possible to install a new belief, I don’t think it would be particularly useful. If you have used the WAIR? Process (which is attached at the end of the free belief-elimination processes and is available in all of our belief-elimination programs), you know that it feels as if anything is possible and that you have no limitations. Next time you get in that space, ask yourself if the opposite of the beliefs you’ve eliminated feels true for you. In that space they will, whether you experience them as true in day-to-day life or not. In that altered state, you feel whole, complete, and okay just the way you are. You feel good enough, important, and loveable.
My advice to those of you who are interested in forming positive beliefs, use the WAIR? Process daily. Get into an altered state every day. And it won’t be long before it gets easy to have that experience of yourself even when you aren’t using the WAIR? Process. Wouldn’t you rather experience yourself as the creator of your life than as a “better” creation?
If you haven’t yet eliminated at least one of your limiting self-esteem beliefs using the Lefkoe Belief Process, go to htp://www.recreateyourlife.com/free where you can eliminate one limiting belief free.
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The purpose of belief installation is: generate desired occurrences. You have to do each step of the process every time you need the occurrence, whether consciously or unconsciously. Practice would make this seem like automatic, but the steps still have to occur!
Morty, it sounds like you suggest that the desired effects occur (pun intended?) without belief installation, provided you do the WAIR process and / or experience yourself as a creator. This would seem to obviate the need for added beliefs.
If you did want to install beliefs, you might study with people like Richard Bandler or other NLP technologists. Even then, many of their technologies only work while you are using them. (Thus don’t quite fit Morty’s definition of belief.)
Hi James,
I would suggest that you don’t want to create positive occurrences; you want NO occurrences. So you don’t need beliefs of any kind.
Also, I’m not clear what you mean when you say you’d have to “do each step of the process every time you need the occurrence, whether consciously or unconsciously. ” What process?
Love,Morty
Not saying you should install beliefs: only that it can be and has been done. I’ve done it myself- badly, but I have.
“The process” I’m talking about is whatever you do when you make the thought seem real. You need to find a way that takes seconds, so the desired thought can feel real when you want it. Do the same, often enough and fast enough and it becomes a habit- presto, installed.
As for a life with no occurrences: I’m not convinced. Doesn’t all meaning in life reside in some sort of belief or occurrence?
Hi James,
If you are able to create beliefs that stick and that you really “believe,” that’s great. I’ve been unable to do that.
Re: a life with no occurrences, I’m not trying to convince you. I’m only reporting the results of my courses. Events don’t have inherent meaning — even if you want them to or think they should.
Love, Morty
Hey Morty I just came across this old posting and I came to the same conclusion years ago when I first started listening to those LOA teachers. I’m not even sure who it was I was listening to at the time but the thought occured to me, there is no such thing as positive and negative thoughts or beliefs. It is simply a thought, it is either useful or not.
Personally speaking the belief that many of those loa teachers were promoting, I attracted that into my life, is not a very healthy way to look at life. At the time I questioned it and then thought, maybe they are right, so I gave it a shot and it only sent me in the wrong direction and further away from where I wanted to be in the first place.
Each time I got on board with that stuff I had a sense of enthusiasm, that turned into frustration and eventually more courses, and different “teachers” Each time I felt as if I had failed to get it, or as one teacher believes, ” if your not getting it then your resistant ” .
Instead of allowing that frustration and anger to defeat me I asked myself a simple question, and thats when I found your course. Yes the changes are noticeable enough, so after taking the confidence course I ordered your book. I’m just gonna see where all this goes. I was looking at your occurring course, but I will consider that once I read the book.
Hi Morty its Nic from AMS in Nottingham in England over the pond. Yet again you are so right. Although I have exchanged negative beliefs for positive ones such as changing “change is difficult takes a long time and is challenging” to “change is easy and can be done in an instant” I really much prefer the idea of being the sculptor and not the sculpture.
I probably did sculpture this and I like your point re WAIR (who am I really) and would like to do this everyday as you advise. Can you send me a link to the WAIR process so I can set about spending some quality time each day seeing myself as the sculptor.
Once again I feel grateful coming across you and your work AND that’s not me needing to be liked that’s genuine appreciation for sharing your insights and perceptions of the real World , control and just how good and content you can be as a sculptor. Someone that creates not someone who has Stuff happening / done to them.
Hi Morty,
It’s a pleasure.
Love,
Erdal
Re your belief that “all beliefs are limiting by their very nature”
(which, for convenience,
I will call the Morty Lefkoe Belief About Beliefs) —
do you believe that the Morty Lefkoe Belief About Beliefs
is limiting by its very nature?
During the elimination of a belief, we recognize that we had somehow given a single meaning to an inherently meaningless event out of an infinite amount of possible interpretations. So a belief is kind of selecting one meaning out of an infinite number of possible meanings. When you don’t have a belief about an event you don’t feel compelled to act on a single possibility/interpretation. Your reality is not limited by a previously made generalization. You are free/have a blank sheet to think about a similar occasion excluding the influence of other beliefs. If you have a belief, that might make you more focused and more efficiently driven for some occasions, but on some occasions that same focus will inevitably cause you to miss/filter out any other possible interpretation/avenue of action. That is the inherent limitation (ruling out other possibilities of reality) of having unconsciously chosen to see something as THE truth.
Hi Erdal,
Good to hear from you.
A great summary of why we don’t need to create new beliefs. Thanks.
Love, Morty
Essays like this are so important to brodaneing people’s horizons.
I love the image of every single one of us being the creators of our lives. It’s a very affirming image and certainly powerful. We are all limitless in our potential, yet often forget that. Let’s get sculpting.
Hi,
I would have loved to see Morty reply to Amber question’s: ” If beliefs are created subconsciously, then how come you don’t have to get yourself into an Alpha State to bust the beliefs?” But I do not seem to see it, why?
Hello Morty;
I have just been through all of the comments and what I understand here is that we don’t need to have any beliefs about anything. We just are and things just are.
I use a little mantra on a regular basis that I think originated from Krishna.
” I don,t mind what happens”
testing ability to post with safari
Superb conclusion!
Eliminate all beliefs to achieve freedom and true power.
More I find spiritual overtones in your work.. it cant be helped.
Kudos. You are providing great service.
Morty,
Thank you that answered my question. BTW there is a glitch on this site that doesn’t allow posting a message from Safari, it works on Firefox though.
Dima
Morty, I love your work and reading your blogs! I look forward to them every week!
Your program has helped me more than anything I have ever tried. I introduced my cousin to your program and she agrees!
We have both tried many different coaching programs, therapy, and books galore, and nothing has been so effective as everything Lefkoe! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU
What we love is that it actually works, it is immediate, and permanent! I wish I had your program growing up and I wish that parents and teachers used your program.
QUESTION: If beliefs are created subconsciously, then how come you don’t have to get yourself into an Alpha State to bust the beliefs?
A lot of the programs I have done say that you should do your positive affirmations right away in the morning, and again right before bed ’cause you’re sleepy and in an Alpha state (usually). The Alpha state apparently let’s you tap into the Left Prefontal Cortex of the brain and create change on a subconcious level which controls your beliefs which in turn control your life.
What is your take?
Thank you again,
Amber
Hi Dima,
Not sure what the question is? Is it can our experiences influence the Creator part of us? If so, I don’t think so. It always was and always will be. It is the energy/consciousness in which our physical reality shows up.
Yes, there are things we can do that might make it easier to get in touch with who we really are, but nothing affects who we really are.
If you were asking a different question, let me know.
Regards, Morty
Dear Morty,
First of all I’d like to thank you for your wonderful system. I went through the entire course a while ago and am significantly freer from worries and don’t care what others may think of me now. A lot of past childhood baggage is now off my shoulders and I love my parents more instead of having feelings of resentment for them.
I wanted to comment on Joy’s comment in that I believe that God created us in his image as Creators and not sculptures. We and only we are responsible for our reality not others not God not Satan. I now understand Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning significantly better in that even in the concentration camp we can be and are responsible for our own reality! I think that’s what Werner Erhard meant in his est training that we are responsible for our own reality even it relates to the concentration camp. I do not agree with him that one’s thinking caused one to be in a concentration camp, but one is fully responsible for one’ s experience there nevertheless.
Having tried a similar course such as Sedona Method I also think that Recreate My Life’s elimination of beliefs is significantly superior in that you eliminate the root of the problem instead of constantly letting go of “negative” emotions.
One question I have for you Morty: we are creators, but I believe one’s previous experiences and choices alter/shape not just the sculpture but the Creator part of us as well. For example, Eskimos can distinguish 100s of types of snow; an artist can recognize color differences a simple person can’t. Same for musician with sounds. The ultimate example is Jesus Christ and Buddha who both realized WAIR at the perfect level and created their own reality! How else can one explain Jesus walking on water?
Thank you once again!
Dima
Hi Joy,
Thanks for your thoughtful response to my blog post.
It is important to change your attitude if it doesn’t work. But you can change your attitude by eliminating beliefs, without necessarily creating replacement beliefs.
The essential point is, it is no more true that you are good enough than you aren’t good enough. You are the creator of your beliefs, not the sum total of them, whether they are “positive” or “negative.”
If you have a way to install positive beliefs and it works, that’s OK. But remember the new positive beliefs aren’t any more true than the negative ones were.
Regards, Morty
Marty this is great. I have eleminated several “keep me in the gutter of life” beliefs and a lot of just “mess me up” beliefs but I had to replace them with a new belief. You wont change your actions until you change your attitude, you wont change your attitude until you change your belief system and you wont change your belife system until you get some new information and that information must come from a source you consider valid. Most people base their belief system on information they have received from their experiences and their 5 senses and the interpertation of those experiences and the interpertation of the information received from the senses.
You tell me I am the creator well how and when did I get to be the creator? In my studies of the Bible I found out that to a large degree you are correct. I am made in the image and likeness of The Creator, thus making me A creator NOT THE Creator. Because I am made in the likeness of THE Creator I can create the world I want. I found out what THE Creator said about me and chose to believe that and then configer my world based on that instead of what my experiences told me or my senses tell me. People in my past who gave me experiences and my interpertation of those experiences was missing one piece of information, that I was make in the image and like ness of THE Creator so I was treated as something elso so I came to believe I was something elso. Once I found out who and what I am I am now able to replace the old information with the new information (renewing my mind to the truth of who, whose, what I am). My life has been one bezillion times better and getting better everyday as I develop the new thought patterens and habbits that go with the new image and concept of myself. Everything we do is based on a belief so yes I think we have to replace our incorrect beliefs with correct beleifs. I am available to discuss this with you further if you have a mind to do so.
yours in the pursuit of greatness
Joy Croel
Thank you !
Because your message was there in front of me at the right moment.
I was wondering how could Morty be wrong on the subject of experiencing oneself as a creator after I read some “ayat” in the Coran (I am a muslim) heavily warning people about polytheism or pretending to have got some of his great features and vowed that will lead them to hell.
So the message in the Coran was clear and scary. But I thought if Morty is right, and he IS because I remember my self going though “Who I Am Realy” before becoming muslim and experiencing everything is possible. But since, I feel it is a sin to think like that because God can’t be wrong. eventually I formed the belief “A lot of things are possible but not everything”.
* In fact, I’ve been mislead until now. The word “Creator” betrayed me. Your passage about “a creator” not “THE creator” triggered my thinking toward the answer.
GOD IS THE ABSOLUTE CREATOR. WE ARE CREATORS WITHIN HIS LAWS.
For instance, God would order things to be or events to happen saying just “Be” to be.
But as humans we have not this absolute ability. We are controlled by his laws, like the psychological Lefkoe is using to get rid of limiting beliefs, like gravitation, like electricity and magnetism laws, etc.
We can not eliminate beliefs without going through a specific process, a cup must fall on the floor if we drop it, etc.
To make any thing happen, we can’t just order or wish to make it happen, we must go through a process according to the laws of the universe. Then it will certainly happen.
So, WE ARE CREATORS. EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE FOR US.