BELIEF IT OR NOT This short article is to help you get an idea of how beliefs or expectations work The first goal in REFRAME is to analyse what your expectations were ( or are) in your upsetting situation, then it helps you explore what actually happened (the reality). All of your expecting sits in your mind from where you look out at what's happening and compare the two: your expectation and the reality it compares to. A mismatch between the two, and your evaluation of how much you don't want it to be a mismatch, acts as a starting-point or trigger for you to upset yourself. Beliefs and values we've held for a long time become so familiar to us and so well used that they become almost invisible to our conscious mind. You can be disturbed about an upset because of one or more past unresolved upsets during times like adolescence or even younger. REFRAME works with future expectations by asking you what you want to happen, and what you believe will really happen. It is a projection of your imagination into the future but once again it will largely come out of your stored thoughts about experiences in the past and your desire to avoid emotional or physical discomfort. Our expectations are derived from how we hold our set of beliefs and this article is intended to help you detect when your beliefs are serving you well or when they are serving you poorly. In simple terms, beliefs centre around what we believe SHOULD or SHOULD NOT happen as our thoughts engage CHANGE or NO CHANGE in terms of what life, others or your self dishes up. The dynamic between the two will present a map of your upset when you use the REFRAME process. Generally we upset ourselves when our "shoulds" (underlying beliefs or values) are being challenged or threatened. We might find ourselves thinking something like, "The other person "should" or "should not" have done or said what he or she did!" Or life must or must not be a certain way for us. Or we might think that we, ourselves, must perform or achieve to a higher level than we are capable of. ___________________________________________ When that happens we are focusing our degree of displeasure in regard to whether or not reality matches what we expect or belief. ___________________________________________ Our beliefs are revealed when we use words like "should" and "shouldn't" and "ought to" or "must" or "must not" in our conversations and/or our thinking. Another strong clue to how we upset ourselves comes in the phrases we use to evaluate or rate things: e.g. "That's terrible/poor/no good" or "I can't stand it" or "I can't cope with or handle this!". It is an assessment we make of our inability to cope. Another kind is when we make an exaggerated assessment of how bad we think an outcome is or will be. We might say,“This is a total disaster!” However not many situations earn the label "TOTAL" so guess who upsets themselves when they think something is going to be a lot worse than it actually is or will be? YOU! Some of our set of beliefs come from the influence of those significant to us when we grew up (Parents, care-givers, relatives, teachers, peers etc.) Others may come from our friends, experiences and/or the culture in which we live. Some can be attributed to our own personality and style of problem-solving. Others may come from our experience of religion. Why do beliefs become invisible? To repeat what I said earlier, it is when we use a belief repeatedly and it becomes so familiar and automatic within us, we forget we have it. Think about this: If you've been able to drive a car for while, do you find yourself thinking as much about the rules of driving it as when you first learned? Some approaches to counselling call this habit kind of thinking: 'automatic thinking'. Automatic thinking is a set of prefered ways of thinking which tick along fine until they find an exception in reality to the "rule" they hold. We may even have little phrases or voices (tapes or echoes from the past) in the back of our heads that tell us from time to time what we and others "shouldn't" do, say, and think! We may express it as "If I were you, I would..." or, "What you should do is..." Some people refer to this as echoes from the past. While you're working through the REFRAME forms, and choosing your expectation choices, try and picture the upsetting situation in your mind's eye until it stirs up some of the of feelings and moods that come with it. It may be uncomfortable to do so, but unless you have a warm connection the thoughts behind it may not surface for you. Try and connect with it to the point that you feel something or most of the emotions that are there for you in relationship to it. You'll know when you have arrived at that by listening to the conversation going on in your head. Do you hear yourself using the word "should" or "shouldn't"...? Do you hear yourself putting values on it that are exaggerated? Are you telling yourself that you can’t stand it? When you hear this kind of thinking or self-talk, your beliefs are surfacing! Beliefs are usually situation or people dependent. That is, we keep useful sets that work for us at particular times with particular people or situations for problem-solving in our lives. As adults, for example, we may believe that parents should control their children. But as children we believed that parents should leave us alone. We may believe that saying "please" and "thank you" are the proper things to do, showing manners, except when we are paying the other person's salary. We may hold different views about the keeping of promises. Keeping them may be something we "should" do, except under certain circumstances. "We should always be nice." "We shouldn't trust anyone we don't know". "A true friend shouldn't do things like that." "True love should last forever." A lot of these sayings decorate our proverbs and wise sayings we use as a short-hand way of accessing wisdom. These beliefs become part of our personality -- and until there is an upset not show themselves at all! ________________________________________________ Bottom line REFRAME suggests that you need to recognise that our beliefs are challenged every time our expectations aren't met AND THAT Your first response may be to evaluate the situation in an exaggerated manner, label it as a catastrophe, and demand it not be so. _________________________________________________ Some of our "shoulds" or beliefs protect us. Others create problems. When we interact and form relationships with friends, lovers, spouses, and business associates, we may occasionally find that we are behaving in ways that "don't feel right." We can sense, even feel -- that something is not right, but we can't put our finger on it. Guess what? What's happening is our sense of what's happening may be in conflict with one or more of our beliefs. Sometimes the first clue we have that something is out of synch is uncomfortable feelings which we cannot explain. Some rules of Thumb 1. If we insist upon holding onto the belief and continue to act and respond in ways that are in conflict with it, we will get upset -- and if left to continue, can lead to long term stress. In order to see our upset objectively, we must separate our actions from our feelings. Then we can match our expectation with the reality of the situation. 2. If the action we took in an upsetting situation didn't satisfy us, it's because we didn't meet our own expectation. 3. If we are upset because no action we take changes the situation, then our expectations of the situation aren't being met. 4. If we are upset because the action we took didn't change the other person, then our expectations of the other person's behaviour are not being met. REFRAME uses a set of (7) expectations (beliefs) and compares them with the reality of a situation. Resolving an upset comes down to three basic strategies. 1. We change or adjust our beliefs (assumption, expectation, etc.) so it matches reality, reality, etc) or ... 2. We change our reality (usually through actions) to match our expectations (beliefs and values). When there’s a match, you’ll cease to feel upset. If your beliefs about reality don’t match what’s true of reality, then your distorted view of things will never be satisfied, and you’ll continue to maintain being upset. 3. We Leave the situation or call it a NO DEAL. This is about withdrawing or retreating to save your energy or resources or emotions for something better or a better time and place and people. As an example: One woman believed that she should "always be nice", and if she said what was on her mind, she was a "bad person". Yet she found herself ineffective in solving her problems during a very trying time in her life. She got sick and went into the hospital. In working REFRAME she became aware of her internal conflict and in so doing, was able to speak her mind. She chose to change her reality, her behaviour. She gave herself permission to do what she needed to do to protect her health instead of protecting the other person's feelings. She realised that the other person was responsible for his/her own feelings just as she was. She found out that the penalty for her belief (being a "nice" person) exceeded the reward (her health). As humans, we seem to be programmed to continue doing what is habitual even though it no longer serves our needs, and costs us our happiness and health. Only when there is a perceived life threatening situation or we face overpowering evidence that what we have always believed works for us now does not -- then and only then do we change! Why do we have to wait so long? In essence because it is humanly easier and takes less energy to AVOID doing the hard yards and so take the easier path. REFRAME presents a reasonably easy way to identify which of your beliefs (expectations) are serving you and which are not. The map it forms lets you see, at a glance, where your expectations and your reality are mismatched. You then decide if holding onto your belief is useful to you or unhelpful. Most have held onto outdated or unreal beliefs for years, but it fortunately it doesn't take years to get rid of them. If we are prepared to put energy into change, we can alter our beliefs to serve us. In working REFRAME you have a way of getting in touch with the way things are and the way people do behave compared to your beliefs about the way you think things "should" be, and the way people "should" behave. When you are aware of the "should(s)" that you think and say, you have the opportunity to look at reality in a different way. Think of the "should(s)" as the outcome you expect to happen. Think of what actually happens as what is real. You will then gain immeasurable insight into why you get upset and be well on the way to resolving your upsets without having to do a degree in psychology. _______________________________________________ Bottom line advice? DON'T RIGIDLY "SHOULD" ON YOURSELF! _______________________________________________