"As you woke up this morning and moved out into the day, you did so by gathering up a host of beliefs to take with you. You then put them on as spectacles through which to view the world. You have beliefs about yourself...about other people...about work, play, recreation...etc. You have beliefs about the world: politics, education, justice system, other countries, wars...etc. You have beliefs about about a thousand different concepts: time, history, the past, the future, personality, destiny etc. Further because you 'have' these beliefs, you operate from them as one uses a map to navigate territory. Beliefs are mental maps govern our life..." Michael Hall.
Can we change our beliefs like changing spectacles? Most certainly can.
The famous Placebo effect is probably the most convincing evidence for the power of beliefs. Placebos are pills containing sugar or starch that contain no active agents. Yet research has shown time and again that people perceive them as therapeutic and actually get well. Ask those con men selling snakes oil! But Placebo do have a very important place in wellness if used correctly and effectively.
Beliefs are also paralysing. Many times we unconsciously use them to filter out the greats from the goods, and waste away many wonderful possibilities. Beliefs can stop us from growing as much as they can benefit us.
Here's a story from Abraham Maslow: A patient wouldn't eat because he believed that he was a corpse. After spending much time and energy trying to convince the patient that he wasn't a corpse, the psychiatrist finally asked him if corpses bled. The patient said he didn't believe they did, so the psychiatrist asked him to participate in an experiment that involved pricking the patient with a pin. The patient started to bled, and in astonishment said, "Wow! Corpses do bleed after all!"
That was probably funny for you as it was for me. But if we examine many of our beliefs closely, we're sometimes not that different from that patient, you know?
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