Ascent Healing

I haven’t written a blog post for awhile but I can fix that right now. This is about Hyrum Smith’s “Belief Window”. If you want to look up his talk, you can search for Hyrum Smith belief window on you tube and it will come right up. I will warn you that it is a talk presented to LDS missionaries but I believe the model has a lot of truth so I’m mentioning it here. In his model, as you can see from the graphic, he theorizes that we have 4 basic needs: to live (survive), to feel important, to be loved and a need for variety. In the belief window we have core beliefs about life, about our self-worth, etc. These could be things as simple as “wealth is the ultimate goal” or things like “People can’t be trusted.” Anything can be a core belief. Based on that core belief, we will make rules for ourselves that meet our basic needs. For example, if I believe that wealth is the ultimate goal, if I want to pick a future job, I will pick whichever job pays the most. This would meet my need for survival or even the other needs to feel important, etc. The rule box is the box that says “if,then”. Another example is if my belief window says people can’t be trusted and I want to fulfill the need to be loved, if I meet a new person, I likely won’t trust them and will shut down. This reflects the next box in the model, the behavior box which is what I choose to do. In the last example, I don’t trust the person and I don’t make a new friend. The last box is where I evaluate the results of my choice and I decide if the results met my needs from the first box. If my action did not meet my needs, then I know the belief window has an incorrect principle and I can change that. In the last example, not making a new friend does NOT meet the need to be loved so I realize that “people can’t be trusted” is an incorrect principle. So I can chose to alter that or keep doing what I’ve always been doing. I might conclude that “some people can be trusted” which would still meet my need to be loved while protecting it at the same time and when I meet someone new, I would be cautious but not refuse to give it a chance. My actions would be to build that trust slowly.

This model is important because it shows how we create self-esteem for ourselves. We need to look closely at our belief window and make sure it has accurate principles. If my belief window says, “I am a bad person” then that will affect a ton of “if,then” statements and my actions will reflect that belief that “I am a bad person.” If a job comes my way I might sabotage myself and decide I’m not good enough for that job and then will pick a job beneath my ability. If my belief window says, “I don’t deserve nice things” then I won’t pick a nice house or other things I might like and settle for less. But these won’t meet my needs possibly for variety or feeling important, etc. So in this blog, consider what is in your belief window. Ask yourself if the results of your choices based on that belief system is meeting your needs and if not, change the principle to something that will meet those needs. This can be a scary process because you might be trying out new beliefs for the first time that you haven’t dared to believe before like “I am a good person” or “I deserve good things” and it is worth the risk to dare to believe these things. Give it a try.