So how did it happen that I lost everything? Cutting to the chase: beliefs. Good god. Beliefs matter, as we say, because they create experience. I always like to think of beliefs, in the main, as nothing more than thoughts we think over and over again. There are beliefs we create on the spot as we live our lives. There are beliefs we’ve held for a long time for one reason or another and, as far as we know, they serve us. There are beliefs we discover we had but didn’t know we had and they definitely do not serve us. That happens a lot.
Then there’s the situation in which I found my Self lo those ten years ago when it was clear that I was actually, absolutely, astonishingly going down, losing it all. I couldn’t, for the life of me, shake the dissonance between the reality I was experiencing and how very much that reality didn’t seem a match for all of the new ways of being I had been cultivating for a dozen years or so, consciously, on purpose.
That’s always a clear indication that some non-serving beliefs are lurking somewhere in our system. They’re creating havoc in our life and the only way to alleviate the havoc and insure the havoc does not continue or return is to pull it up by its roots. The roots are beliefs.
As far as I was concerned, I’d already scratched my way out of an upbringing that was rooted in lack and limitation, a world of no you can’t do that, no you can’t have that, no because I said so. Whatever. It was all so far behind me at that point. I’d put my Self through college. I entered the corporate world and rode that train for a while. I owned my first house before I was 30. I changed careers and made more money. I wasn’t wealthy but I was very comfortable, I was a homeowner, I’d succeeded in every job I ever had — none of which I ever cared about — and now I was ready to roll with work that meant everything to me and, for all intents and purposes, would add something of value to the world. I could pretty much do whatever I wanted to do. I was even able to take a few years off from any work at all to create and adjust to a whole new, more authentic, more fulfilling, more meaningful, even happier-than-my-already-happy life. I really thought I had already won.
Simultaneous to knowing that it was all about to disappear was another knowing: that this experience would fuel my work. I would move through it all Spiritual Workout-style, just as I’d moved through the experience of my partner’s death. I took responsibility for the crushing losses and that set the table for everything else by putting the issue entirely in my control. From there I did what I and Spiritual Workouters always do: looked for any and all beliefs I might have that would possibly create the shitshow of a life I was now about to live. Part of what inspired my taking that particular action was how familiar it all felt. Oh, this again. That’s always a clear indication that some non-serving beliefs are lurking somewhere in our system. They’re creating havoc in our life and the only way to alleviate the havoc and insure the havoc does not continue or return is to pull it up by its roots. The roots are beliefs. So I grabbed a pad of paper and went looking. Sometimes they are right there, clear as day, and sometimes we need to fish a little. Mine were right there:
I can’t have what I want Life is a big, giant, gargantuan struggle Money is a massive problem Whatever I have will disappear / the good times don’t last Things are harder for me than other people Stupid struggle is the story of my life I can’t rely on anyone / people will always disappoint me
In a world where beliefs create experience, that sure explains, um, everything, doesn’t it?
I could see that they were all formed by the time I was four years old. They were actually just conclusions I made from hearing my parents fight about money all the time and the myriad “no” experiences I’d already racked up. It’s a weird system we have because virtually all of us create non-serving beliefs before we have any idea what the hell we’re doing and then wind up living a life that was basically created by a four-year-old.
It wasn’t until a few weeks later, though, after all of the business of physically separating from my stuff and my house and everything was complete, that I could address those beliefs head-on, when I hit the road in earnest as a homeless, penniless person. When old, dormant beliefs are activated, they come with old emotion. Why not? If it’s hysterical it’s historical and I was fuming raging mad hysterical. I was that four-year-old boy on my back on the floor, kicking and screaming at the top of my lungs, unable to contain my fury and in desperate need of a timeout and I was the 52-year-old creator of this practice one hundred percent sure of exactly what to do to alleviate this pain. Two seemingly distinct, opposite beings occupying my heart, mind, and body exact same time. If those newly-activated, old beliefs were the root cause, their days were numbered.
So I went about the business of doing what I know to do: tap the fuck out them. I didn’t believe them in my head anymore, at all, but that didn’t matter. They had been lying in wait, lodged in my subconscious, lodged in my body, and tapping was the tool I had to move all of that dense, non-serving energy from whatever nooks and crannies they occupied in my being. It was an exorcism and I wasn’t going to stop until they were gone, gone, gone. (Hint: They were not gone in one tapping session.)
As this awful, painful, wholly unoriginal, common experience illustrates, old, dormant, non-serving beliefs, once discovered, can be a lot to contend with. Even when one knows exactly how to contend with them. No doubt about it. But here’s the thing. I was a man on a mission with giant visions to which Source/my Higher Self/my spirit guides were saying — because they always do— yes yes yes. Yes, Steven, all that you are wanting and more, all that you are telling us you want to be, do, and have is in motion. And now is the time to check some of that old-consciousness baggage at the door because it just can’t go with you to the new consciousness. We can, though, and we’re right here with you every step of the way.
Beliefs very much matter and that’s what I chose on purpose to believe about what was happening.
Image: personal archives