The bottom-line is that everything we experience in life is our own doing and is based on one thing and one thing only. That thing is what we believe. I want to thank my good friend Fiona for inspiring this week’s blog. We were chatting the other day, and we were talking about self-belief and self-image and how they impact every area of life. Then she said, when it comes to belief, often it’s not even our belief, but one we have adopted from someone else. So, the question was posed; whose belief is it really?

As I have mentioned in a previous post, I was given a beautiful gift last week. I was asked by the Lions Club, a wonderful organisation doing incredible things to make a difference in people’s lives, to come and speak and interact with several flood affected families at a camp they were hosting. It was over three hours to drive to a beautiful mountain surrounded wilderness park in a place called Licola in Victoria. As I said in my social media post, I believe the person most impacted by my visit was me.

There were nine families, lots of energetic children, and they were all loving time to have fun and be away from the stresses of the trauma they were experiencing at home. We started outside kicking the football and playing some games, until the rain started, and so we went inside to sit in a circle and chat. I had no idea how this would work, particularly as there were many young children with energy to burn. Incredibly, it was one of the most profound and inspiring experiences of my life, as people were very open to share their thoughts, struggles, and breakthroughs.

There was one teenage girl in particular who had the greatest impact on me, and her name was Angel. Angel now 16 years old was left by her drug affected parents, who couldn’t take care of her, to be taken care of by her grandmother when she was a baby. Her grandmother was at the camp as well, and is an amazing lady, for sure. Even after her parents had moved on and had other children with different partners, Angel was still not embraced or supported by either of them. As you can imagine, she had deep issues with abandonment and feelings of being unworthy and unlovable.

As we sat in that circle, I asked several questions of the group. One question I asked was, what is one thing you are proud of about yourself? Angel, who is a shy girl, put up her hand and told the group she was proud that she had removed herself from a toxic relationship. Her initial belief about herself was that she was not worthy of being loved, and so she stayed in the relationship thinking she would never find another, even though it was not healthy. But here is the great news. Angel had realised that the belief was not hers, it was passed on to her by her parents. She went on to say, I have too much self-respect to stay in a toxic situation’. The whole group applauded and hugged her and gave her so much love and support it brought tears to my eyes.

I know Angel will go on and do great things in this world and have a positive impact on many lives, as she is doing right now. It does beg the question I want to ask you, as I have asked myself, whose belief is it really? When you tell yourself you are not good enough, where did that come from? You were not born with that belief. Who told you that? Who exampled that to you? Who conditioned that into you? When you resign yourself to the fact that you will never have enough money, where did that belief come from? Trust me, it’s not yours. It may have come from growing up in a family that struggled financially, or associating with people who believed the pursuit of wealth is evil. Whose belief is it really?

In my podcast this week with Andrea Nicholson, called A pristine health scene, she talks about her own health challenges and the significant history of heart disease in her family. She explained that every woman had died before 50 and every man before 70. It would be a pretty common belief that Andrea would experience the same fate. However, what she said was amazing. She said, genetics had very little to do with the generational history. It was adopted beliefs and habits that led family members down the same path.

I want to encourage you to really examine your beliefs and attitudes towards certain areas of your life this week. If you are struggling, and if you are telling yourself certain stories based on your beliefs, I want to urge you to ask the question, whose belief is this, really? When you realise it is not your belief, but one adopted by you, or pushed onto you by someone else, then let it go and replace it with one that serves you. Your life is far too short and you are far too important to be influenced and impacted by the belief system of someone else. Start today with your own belief that you are worthy and enough.