I spent part of Saturday afternoon with a friend of mine. He’s a guy who wears many hats. He’s a regional manager for a national book store chain, a massage therapist, an athletic trainer, and the resident teacher at the zen center I attend. He handed out a sheet of paper that was about changing deeply held beliefs. As I read over this I started to get excited because although it was intended to challenge a persons thinking about fitness and our reluctance to stay with a fitness program, I realized immediately that it had infinite possibilities.
Here’s what it said in as close to a nutshell as I can manage. We all have deeply held beliefs that we may have had since we were young that guide and manipulate at a very deep level our behaviors and attitudes. This is called the “Old False Agreement”. It’s defined as: … usually subconscious but can be brought to consciousness with introspection and inquiry; powerfully drives behavior when it remains below consciousness; often starts with “I can’t,” “I need,” “I must”; limits happiness, success, fulfillment, energy and health; often agreed to in childhood when we are less powerful and are concerned with survival; often adopted passively from the family, clan and culture; sometimes agreed to in response to pain, difficulty, threat and trauma; will be believed at some level unless consciously replaced by a new, truer agreement.
“New Truer Agreement”: made fully consciously, fully intentionally, more in line with reality and natural law, so although all agreements are beliefs, it is more true than the previous false agreement; because it is closer to reality, it is more powerful than it’s related false agreement; through the conscious process of introspection and reframing can replace the old false agreement in the subconscious; expands happiness, success, fulfillment, energy and health.
An example of an Old False Agreement, would be the attitude that many of us carry so automatically that we don’t think about it that says, “I cannot fail or make mistakes at work. Whatever I am doing has to be done right, at all times.” In writing it looks a bit silly doesn’t it, but I lived like that, and I  know many people who approach their everyday life, just like that. The New Truer Agreement sounds like this, “I can and do make mistakes, which are natural in the process of trying new things, growing my abilities and taking risks. Mistakes are great vehicles for learning, and many of my successes and strengths have grown from mistakes I have made. When I acknowledge my mistakes and what I have learned, I have the opportunity for more feedback, which further supports my success.”
This is not permission to go out and throwing common sense to the wind, make mistakes willy nilly. What it does do is create a mindset that when we do make a mistake, we see it for what it is, and not the end of our career, the sovereignty of the United States, or the collapse of the free market system.
This morning, my friend looks at me and says, “we need to sit down and explore your OFA’s about your disease and see if there are any NTA’s we can come up with.”
Uh oh.