Cracking The Code 6: Can You Become Aware Of Your Limiting Beliefs?

 

The next four Belief Codes from Gregg Braden’s The Spontaneous Healing of Belief: Shattering the Paradigm of False Limits begin to move us into the deep end of the emotional pool concerning our beliefs and how they play out in our life/stories. I’ll share some personal examples illustrating this. If you potentially wish to benefit, I suggest that if you feel any flashes of memory beginning to consciously bubble up, allow it to happen.

Belief Code 17: Many of our most deeply held beliefs are subconscious and begin when our brain state allows us to absorb the ideas of others before the age of seven.

I’m going to get a bit scientific with you to illustrate the common ground that the vast majority of human beings experience as part of the growth process. It concerns neuroplasticity.

“Neuroplasticity is the brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections and pruning unused ones. While adults maintain plasticity throughout life, the young brain operates in a hyper-flexible state known as developmental plasticity.”

“During the early years, the brain is actively constructing its core architecture based on incoming experiences. At birth, a newborn's brain has roughly 86 billion neurons, but relatively few connections between them.

• Explosive Growth: Between birth and age 2 to 3, the brain creates over 1 million new neural connections every second.
• Peak Density: By age 2, a child's brain has nearly twice as many synapses as an adult brain. This dense network allows young children to absorb vast amounts of environmental information effortlessly.”

I’m aware that you might be somewhat familiar with this scientific concept, but I think that in spelling it out we will gain some insight into the mechanics of forming beliefs.

“The brain cannot efficiently run a massive, unorganized network indefinitely. Starting in early childhood and continuing through adolescence, the brain begins synaptic pruning:

‘Use it or lose it.’ Pathways that are frequently activated (like language, movement, or emotional response patterns) are reinforced with stronger insulation (myelination). Pathways that go unused are trimmed away to make processing faster and more energy-efficient.”

So how do we discover, or more precisely, uncover these foundational threads that were adapted, adopted, or forced upon us in our formative years?

Belief Code 18: In our greatest challenges of life we often find that our deeply hidden beliefs are exposed and available for healing.

"The dark night of the soul comes just before revelation. When everything is lost, and all seems darkness, then comes the new life and all that is needed."

— Joseph Campbell

Here’s a personal story that illustrates how a seemingly insignificant choice of behavior by a parent can alter the course of one’s life/story. My paternal grandparents emigrated to the United States from Italy. My father was the oldest male child in a family of four with all of the implications inherent for someone born in 1927. He married my mother in 1952, she was of mostly German descent. I was the first male grandchild born in the family with all of the implications that might hold in 1956.

My father was fluent in Italian, as was his entire family. Naturally, that meant that I was going to learn to speak the language, being around them often while being raised. Considering what we just covered concerning neuroplasticity, I do not doubt that my rapidly expanding brain would have taken to it quite naturally.

“Not so fast,” said my mother. I was an American, not an Italian! There would be no molding me to learn any foreign tongue, period. Other than picking up the Italian curse words on the sly, I did not learn to speak the language. The unconscious prejudice this formed in me would have dramatic consequences.

I was a top student through grammar school and high school… except for required foreign language courses. I “survived” the required two years of Spanish, getting the minimum passing grade mostly as an act of mercy by my teachers because they knew that I was trying. That cost me becoming valedictorian, much to the chagrin of my family.

It gets “better.” I was accepted into all three universities that I applied to, including Marquette, one of the foremost schools for journalism in the 1970s. That was absolutely what I wanted my career to encompass.

Instead, I chose my state university, Rutgers, a very good school. Why? They didn’t require taking any foreign language classes as a requirement. I’m not joking; that was the reason that I stayed home and went to Rutgers.

Being home, that put me into the emotional crosshairs of my parents’ failing marriage, which I was drawn into as deeply as could be, eventually leading to me threatening to kill my father and then remaining home to support my mother through her subsequent nervous breakdown. I never made the leap into journalism as I had hoped.

And the roots of this? My mother’s edict that I was an American and would not be taught Italian by my father’s family. That’s my personal illustration of the power of belief and the challenges faced in order to have its deep, hidden roots brought to light.

Belief Code 19: Our beliefs about unresolved hurt can create physical effects with the power to damage or even kill us.

I’ve found that it is far easier to recognize the “faults and foibles” in other people’s lives and the effects that they spawn rather than to recognize those same faults and flaws in our own. I do my very best not to cast judgment on others because, as we’ll discuss further on in this series, that is an energetic invitation for similar judgment to be inflicted upon ourselves.

One of the most common observations that is generally accepted by society concerns what occurs when one spouse in a lengthy marriage dies and leaves their partner behind. If the surviving spouse is utterly distraught and cannot comprehend life without the deceased partner, does it shock anyone when they die of a “broken heart?” Even with a youngster losing a parent early in life, is it shocking to witness negative ramifications that result in the child’s life as it unfolds?

I believe in the power of beliefs spoken with conviction. When someone tells me, “Cancer runs in my family,” I see that as an almost expected result, proving them to be both “right” and also “loyal” to the family story. I know that some may find this statement controversial or even somewhat unfeeling, but I have seen this play out in many different forms over my lifetime. It has caused me to examine my own unresolved, unforgiven hurts, of which I have been less-than-conscious, to heal them.

The final Belief Code we’ll cover concerns the “language of the soul”:

Belief Code 20: When our soul hurts, the pain is transmitted into the body as the spiritual quality of the life force that we feed into each cell.

From Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005):

Before the labor begins, a medical droid reports her condition to Obi-Wan and Yoda:

Medical Droid: "Medically, she is completely healthy. For reasons we can't explain, we are losing her."

Obi-Wan Kenobi: "She's dying?"

Medical Droid: "We don't know why. She has lost the will to live. We must operate quickly if we are to save the babies."

Padmé is conscious but visibly fading as the medical droids assist her in labor. Obi-Wan holds her hand, offering comfort.

• The Boy: Padmé groans in pain and delivers a baby boy.

Padmé: (gasping) "Luke..."

The droid wipes the crying child and hands him briefly toward Padmé before Obi-Wan takes him.

• The Girl: Moments later, Padmé gives another push as a second child is born.

Padmé: "Leia..."

She touches her daughter briefly before the droid steps back to care for the newborn.

With her strength nearly gone, Padmé calls out to Obi-Wan. She reaches up, grabbing his hand and placing her japor snippet pendant into his palm (or holding his hand tightly in her final moments).

Padmé: "Obi-Wan... there's good in him. I know. I know there's... still..."

She passes away silently, her hand slipping from Obi-Wan's grasp as the heart monitor flatlines. Obi-Wan gently strokes her hair, mourning both her death and the total collapse of his brother, Anakin.

I know it’s “just a movie,” but the powerful context of watching a mother, although healthy, surrender life while giving birth due to the overwhelming pain in her soul illustrates this perfectly.

Would you rather consider numerous examples from the Bard, Shakespeare? Lady Macbeth’s unbearable guilt leading to her doctor’s conclusion, "More needs she the divine than the physician."

You can add Ophelia, King Lear, and Enobarbus for good measure.

See, we “know” this and always have. But do we wish to admit it?

The flip side is “What you don’t know won’t/can’t hurt you” but I also offer you the modern context on this: “While historically used to comfort someone or advise against worrying about hidden problems, today the phrase is often used with a touch of irony or cynicism—frequently cited as a justification for hiding uncomfortable truths or keeping someone in the dark.”

Many feel that the body is the mirror of the soul. Considering the exploration we’re doing of the all-inclusive quantum field and its language, my thought is that the soul will always be heard and expressed.

So now you know.

More to come; stay tuned.

Cracking The Code 5: Can You Become Aware Of Your Limiting Beliefs?

 

Welcome back! The next four Belief Codes from Gregg Braden’s The Spontaneous Healing of Belief: Shattering the Paradigm of False Limits will have you examining what you think, what you feel, what it “means,” and how that meaning is transmitted to the world. The “nitty” now begins to get “gritty” as we proceed.

Belief Code 13: Belief is defined as the certainty that comes from accepting what we think is true in our minds, coupled with what we feel is true in our hearts.

If you’ve experienced enough living here on planet Earth, I’d bet that you’ve had occasions when you were supposed to do something that just didn’t feel “right.” It was even hard to define exactly why this was because the odds were probably great that it was something that you had done before, something that was commonly accepted as “truth” or “fact,” but it wasn’t consciously flowing this time.

Your brain and heart were not in agreement. Something in your “gut” was causing a hesitation, a questioning. And if you had experienced this previously and you decided to push on through that initial hesitation, how did it work out?

Moving forward, you’ll see the actual importance that mind and heart alignment plays in facilitating powerful belief, the kind that registers as “When you know, you know.” That is what certainty is, and it can move mountains.

Belief Code 14: Belief is expressed in the heart, where our experiences are translated into the electrical and magnetic waves that interact with the physical world.

When I asked about the specifics of the forces produced in and around the human heart, this is what I received: “The human heart is the strongest generator of bioelectricity and biomagnetism in the human body. Every heartbeat is driven by a coordinated electrical signal, and like any electrical current in physics, that movement of charge generates an accompanying magnetic field.”

If you’ve ever taken an electrocardiogram, it’s measuring the electrical activity that travels through the body's conductive tissues and fluids. This is standard stuff.

The cardiac magnetic field is relatively weak, about 100,000 times weaker than the Earth’s geomagnetic field. Extremely sensitive sensors (like SQUID magnetometers inside magnetically shielded rooms) can detect the heart's magnetic signal a few feet away from the chest but it drops off dramatically beyond that short distance.

The important thing is to absolutely know that these fields do exist in and around you. If you’ve ever had events occur that are joyous, have you noticed the expanded, high-energy feeling in your chest?

And on the opposite end, in very sad or tragic times, have you uttered the words, “My heart hurts”?

I watched many emotional reactions to anthems and patriotic displays from around the world during the recently completed World Cup. The belief in their respective teams was evident in people’s faces as they wore their “hearts on their sleeves.” This is an example of powerful, emotional beliefs, translated into the physical world. They truly are “heartfelt,” indeed.

Belief Code 15: Beliefs, and the feelings that we have about them, are the language that “speaks” to the quantum stuff that makes our reality.

The very first Belief Code we covered discussed experiments proving that the focus of attention changes reality itself. Belief Code 4 told of the particles that all things (ourselves included) are made of, and can be in instantaneous communication with one another, in two places at once, and change the past via present choices.

Isn’t a belief, especially a powerfully held one felt and accepted in mind and heart, an observation about something or someone? And what then is the power of observation, of focused attention, “speaking” to?

I will let you ponder that question. Your consideration may illuminate some new avenues of thought about life in general, and your life in particular.

Belief Code 16: The subconscious mind is larger and faster than the conscious mind, and can account for as much as 90 percent of our activity each day.

"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate." — Carl Jung

"The subconscious mind works day and night, by a method of procedure unknown to the conscious mind." — Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich

"The law of your mind is this: You will tend to get the reaction or response from your subconscious mind corresponding to the nature of the thought or belief you hold in your conscious mind." — Joseph Murphy, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind

"Your subconscious doesn't argue with you. It accepts what your conscious mind decrees. If you say, 'I can't afford it,' your subconscious mind works to make sure it remains true." — Joseph Murphy

"The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude." — William James

"Whatever your conscious mind assumes and believes to be true, your subconscious will accept and bring to pass." — E. Stewart Wilde

By and large, we tend to live our lives on cruise control. Watch the oversized reaction when a normal, habitual routine such as commuting to work gets interrupted by some event that seems to be out of one’s control. You can envision a person’s circuits being blown, mental synapses frying before your eyes. The unconscious program that the subconscious mind was in charge of running has gone temporarily haywire.

It’s a good thing that we don’t often think about needing to control our breathing! That going offline would not be pleasant.

I’ve added the quotes above to highlight the power and importance of harnessing one’s subconscious mind, to think about what we’re thinking about more consciously. This is not a new subject, but it is one that not too many people make an effort to attend to for a plethora of reasons, many of which are associated with beliefs that are not serving us well.

We’ll dive deeper into this in our next installment.

Cracking The Code 4: Can You Become Aware Of Your Limiting Beliefs?

 

We’re going to cover the next four Belief Codes from Gregg Braden’s The Spontaneous Healing of Belief: Shattering the Paradigm of False Limits today. These will move from additional clarification on the presence of patterns throughout nature to the “key” that can fashion or alter those patterns.

Belief Code 9: If the universe is made of repeating patterns, then to understand something on a small scale provides a powerful window into similar forms on a grand scale.

Have you ever come across the adage, “As above, so below”? If so, are you aware where it may have originated? It’s a modern paraphrase of a passage from the Emerald Tablet (Tabula Smaragdina), a cryptic ancient text that serves as a cornerstone of Hermeticism and Western alchemy.

From my research, the earliest known written records of the Emerald Tablet appear in Arabic works attributed to Jabir ibn Hayyan and the Kitāb sirr al-khəlīqa ("Book of the Secret of Creation"). The original verse stated that elements above and below derive from one another to perform the wonders of the One Thing. The picture above is of a 1609 engraving of the Emerald Tablet.

Are you also aware of who else was very interested in this? Issac Newton, who translated it this way (from the Latin): "That which is below is like that which is above, and that which is above is like that which is below..."

“As above, so below” was more popularized in the late 1800’s by writers and occultists, so you might say that it has some “staying power.” Given what we recognize about fractals in nature, you can perhaps understand why this continues to the present.

Belief Code 10: Belief is the “program” that creates patterns in reality.

I must admit that I enjoy doing the research to help illustrate these Belief Codes. This one really gets to the heart of the matter: What is a belief?

My AI companion, Gemini, gave me this: “At its most fundamental level, a belief is a mental state or attitude in which a person holds a proposition or premise to be true, regardless of whether objective evidence supports it.”

“Beliefs serve as the internal "map" we use to navigate reality, shaping how we interpret experiences, make decisions, and construct our identity.”

And to really dive deep, there are three dimensions to belief:

Epistemic (Knowledge): Beliefs framed around truth claims or facts about the world. ("I believe the Earth orbits the Sun.")

Evaluative (Values): Beliefs rooted in ethics, aesthetics, or moral judgments. ("I believe fairness is essential for a good society.")

Relational (Trust): Beliefs centered on faith, confidence, or reliance on a person, system, or deity. ("I believe in my friend's ability to succeed.")

These are the “programs” that mankind operates (in a mostly unconscious fashion) in the physical reality we call Earth. Most do not wish to examine them closely because they have the power to make one question who they really are and what their life is all about. Once that happens, preconceived notions about everything begin to quake and potentially shatter. But if you happen to “go there” and risk that;

Belief Code 11: What we believe to be true in life may be more powerful than what others accept as truth.

“Whether you think you can, or think you can’t – you’re right.” – Henry Ford

I’ve been aware of this quote forever. When I did a deeper dive, I got: “It describes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Your belief about your ability dictates your outcome. If you believe you will succeed, your mindset drives you to overcome obstacles. If you believe you will fail, you give up before you start—making both predictions correct”

This puts an entirely different framework around one’s life. Again, I contend that life is story, and that the stories which we “tell” ourselves are mostly of an unconscious nature. 

• “It’s always been like that for my family.” 
• “Everything always seems to work out for me, I guess!” 
• “The odds are stacked against you. Why even bother?”

Do you ever wonder while observing others how they could think, feel, or be “that way” in light of what seems to be common knowledge or truth? If you’ve never thought about it in this fashion before, this might illuminate answers for you. And so;

Belief Code 12: We must accept the power of belief to tap it in our lives.

“Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.” – Abraham Lincoln

A deeper dive into Mr. Lincoln and his philosophy brought me this: “Lincoln was reflecting on human attitude and perception. While he didn't believe people could simply ‘choose’ what facts to believe, he did recognize that emotional state and perspective are largely a choice. Whatever emotional reality you decide to hold onto, that becomes your lived experience.”

As we continue in this examination, we’ll see thought and evidence mount up to illustrate that belief truly is an incredible power. We’ve seen in current history what can occur as beliefs become deliberately molded and cajoled into place en masse. Those who choose to do this fully understand the power of belief, and the will to wield it.

In closing this entry, I’ll revert to where we began: As above, so below.

With deliberate consideration, you can consciously tap into this and alter/change your life/story.

More to come!

Cracking The Code 3: Can You Become Aware Of Your Limiting Beliefs?

 

In our continuing review of Gregg Braden’s The Spontaneous Healing of Belief: Shattering the Paradigm of False Limits, we’re starting to move into territory that is far more fleshed out in discussion today than it was back in 2008 when this book was published. I’m guessing that you may have heard of the Simulation Hypothesis. You might be surprised, though, how many other somewhat important and influential people have also ventured into this subject:

Belief Code 6: Just as we can run a simulated program that looks and feels real, studies suggest that the universe itself may be the output of a huge and ancient simulation – a computer program – that began long ago. If so, then to know the program’s code is to know the rules of reality itself.

"If we are living in a simulation, then the cosmos that we are observing is just a tiny piece of the totality of physical existence... It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation." – Nick Bostrom, 2003 (Oxford philosopher)

"Forty years ago we had Pong—two rectangles and a dot. Now 40 years later, we have photorealistic, 3D simulations with millions of people playing simultaneously... If you assume any rate of improvement at all, then the games will become indistinguishable from reality... The odds that we’re in base reality is one in billions." – Elon Musk (2016)

"I think the likelihood may be very high... It’s easy to imagine an advanced species looking at us the way we look at chimpanzees. We share 98%+ of our DNA with chimps, yet we build space telescopes and write poetry while chimps can barely use stick tools. If a species existed that was 1% smarter than us, to them, our highest intellectual achievements would be like child’s play—and creating a universe simulation on their desktop would be routine.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson (2016)

"If one looks at the evolution of computing power and physics, it shows that even now, our top supercomputers could simulate human memory. Quite frankly, if we are not living in a simulation, it is an absolute anomaly." – Rich Terrile (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Physicist)

If your mind is open to this hypothesis, well, you’re in good company! Now on to;

Belief Code 7: When we think of the universe as a program, atoms represent “bits” of information that work just the way familiar computer bits do. They are either “on,” as physical matter, or “off,” as invisible waves.

Before 1905, science considered waves (such as light) and matter (such as electrons) as completely separate phenomena. It took 22 years, from Einstein proposing in 1905 that light could be particles (now known as photons) until 1927 when three scientists (two at Bell Labs) proved in experiments that matter behaved as a wave.

So, this, the birth of quantum physics, showed that Light (traditionally a wave) behaves like a particle, and Electrons (traditionally particles) behave like waves. Literally, “on/particle” and “off/wave” potential in the same phenomenon.

Now recall Belief Code 1 about what has been proven concerning the power of focused attention, and we are off to the races. There is one other element we’ll add to this today, which is;

Belief Code 8: Nature uses a few simple, self-similar, and repeating patterns- fractals – to build atoms into the familiar patterns of everything from elements and molecules to rocks, trees, and us.

I’m sure that you’ve heard the ancient phrase, “Don’t reinvent the wheel.” Nature follows this to a fault by the Principle of Least Action, a.k.a. “follow the path of least resistance.”  Water flowing downhill will automatically utilize the path that requires the least action.

Makes you rethink the entire concept of “nose to the grindstone,” “pedal to the metal,” and maximum energy expended, doesn’t it?

Add to this the discovery of fractals by Benoit Mandelbrot, a term that he coined in 1975. If you wish to be hypnotically entertained, find an online video that takes you on a literal journey through a Mandelbrot Set. If you haven’t encountered this, it’ll give you a new perspective once you experience it.

What has been revealed in nature and subsequently utilized throughout diverse fields such as technology, computer graphics, medicine, and finance is that there exist no irregular patterns. There actually is an underlying order in seeming chaos. And as this Belief Code states, nature utilizes this, following the path of least resistance, to build atoms into absolutely everything, including us.

Stay tuned! We’re just getting into the good stuff.

Cracking The Code 2: Can You Become Aware Of Your Limiting Beliefs?

Welcome back to our continued review of Gregg Braden’s The Spontaneous Healing of Belief: Shattering the Paradigm of False Limits. The first two Belief Codes that we covered laid the groundwork for the seemingly paradoxical stances that science and personal beliefs might have in a direct comparison. This article, covering the next three Belief Codes, will start to lay the groundwork that begins to bridge this perceived gap.

Belief Code 3: Science is a language – one of many that describe the universe, our bodies and how things work.

I re-watched the award-winning film Oppenheimer to prepare for an upcoming viewing of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. As I watched Robert Oppenheimer, tormented by his visualization of the unseen, inner mechanics of the energy of the universe, it struck me that the way he needed to transcribe these visions was in the language of mathematics, something that I personally have never excelled at beyond the most essential level.

Even though I do not understand this esoteric language, I obviously respect its exacting form. I don’t believe that I could utilize it to write poetry, but it certainly can do the work of scientific description in a way that can be recognized and proven by others. Thus, it’s both respected and vital, especially in regard to citing proof of any concept. Keep this in mind as we advance to;

Belief Code 4: If the particles that we’re made of can be in instantaneous communication with one another, be in two places at once, and even change the past through choices made in the present, then we can as well.

OK, it’s time to stretch.

Are you familiar with these seemingly radical notions which are representative of the quantum world? It is a world that we are part and parcel of, as a matter of scientific fact. Please think about this, seriously.

I’m betting that most reading this have some basic awareness that absolutely everything we believe is “solid” is actually empty space, right? Like 99.9999999% empty space, to give you a number you can look up for yourself. The illusion of separation in which we frolic is exactly that; an illusion. But one with rules for the subatomic waves and particles that dance around within its confines. So then;

Belief Code 5: Our beliefs have the power to change the flow of events in the universe – literally to interrupt and redirect time, matter, and space, and the events that occur within them.

This fully fleshed-out statement circles back to the first Code and the power inherent in “mere” observation. How many movies and books are you aware of that speak to the existence of a “multi-verse” where all possibilities exist simultaneously? Think of it as a universal tuner, one where you take on the role of said tuner.

In choosing your signal of focus in any form, visual, auditory, sensory, you transform the space about you via the nature of your choice. Consider how it shifts the energy at any gathering of which you are part. Others are seemingly affected as they focus on your choice of signal.  It can literally change the atmosphere in a flash. I’ll bet that you won’t have to think too hard to find personal experiences of this that you’ve had.

This represents the power that’s broadcast by our firmly held beliefs. They can literally change the world. The only question then regards the scale of the world you happen to be influencing.

We will continue to build on this going forward. I appreciate your interest!

Cracking The Code: Can You Become Aware Of Your Limiting Beliefs?

 

I am beginning to witness many more articles on LinkedIn that are of an energetic or spiritual nature in their examinations of the business environment. This is no great surprise to me, as during my life/story this has been my primary focus regardless of the situation I was in, either personal or professional. Even early in my work life, I would often find myself serving as an empathic listener and offering up suggestions to my managers for different ways of viewing and approaching various situations, not all of them directly related to the business at hand.

I believe the adage that “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” Indeed, there are no accidents in life in this regard. And sometimes the exact information or approach needed in a particular situation will appear before you at the perfect time if you are open to it.

Thus it occurred when I discovered a book in my collection that I purchased when it was published in 2008 but put away without reading: The Spontaneous Healing of Belief: Shattering the Paradigm of False Limits by Gregg Braden.

If you are unfamiliar with Mr. Braden, here is a summary from greggbraden.com: “Gregg Braden is a multi-time New York Times best-selling author, researcher, and international educator widely recognized for bridging modern science, spirituality, and human potential. Drawing from a background in earth sciences and technical operations in computer systems, his work explores deep connections between quantum physics, ancient wisdom traditions, and the mind-body relationship. Through his books, films, and international lectures, he shares insights aimed at helping individuals better understand human purpose, resilience, and personal transformation."

In The Spontaneous Healing of Belief: Shattering the Paradigm of False Limits, Gregg Braden argues that human emotion and belief act as a "reality code" capable of directly influencing physical reality, our health, and our DNA.

There have been massive technological advancements made in the 18 years since this book came out. Yet I witness the astounding turbulence that we are individually and collectively encountering while striving to adapt to and adopt them in the face of highly visible manifestations of fear and accompanying emotions.  I do not need to list them all; you encounter them every day both in the “real world” and here on LinkedIn.

Braden lists 31 “Belief Codes” in the book. I believe that examining them with an open mind and heart may be a tremendous benefit to all drawn to this material. What I will do is examine them here in a series of articles for your consideration.

We all know that we are currently within a period of massive change that is not going to recede. One can either be swept up by it while hoping for mere survival, or choose to perceive both it and yourself in a different light and thus navigate it to incredible new possibilities.

In my life/story, this has occurred with the advent of personal computing and the mass rollout of the internet. There is no difference with AI. How you choose to see it and thus create your reality is entirely up to you. These Belief Codes can assist you with that. Let’s dive into the first two.

Belief Code 1: Experiments show that the focus of our attention changes reality itself and suggest that we live in an interactive universe.

Have you ever been driving and had your attention momentarily locked upon something other than the road ahead? Inevitably, the direction of the car begins to follow the direction that your attention is fixed upon. Thankfully, we now have Lane Departure Warning and Lane Keeping Assist in our cars, helping us avoid drastic reactions to the situation.

Braden cites the scientific studies behind each point he offers. In this case, it’s the fact that a wave of energy, when observed, can “lock in” as a particle. The act of observation “changes” the state of reality. It is important to recognize your role in the witnessed reality. This brings us to;

Belief Code 2: We live our lives based on what we believe about our world, ourselves, our capabilities, and our limits.

“I can’t help it. It’s who I am.”

Have you ever taken the time to examine what that “Who I am” contains, where it came from, and if these serve you well? Honestly, most of us are so busy with running the survival loops of our life/stories that we never take the time to slow down and actually examine what we’re authoring, mostly in an unconscious fashion.

This, then, is the “direction” that the vehicle called “your life” is headed. Personal life, social life, family life, business life… We need a very large garage to house all these vehicles that belong to you! But you’ll witness a great many commonalities when you stop to examine your beliefs with deliberate intent.

We’ll continue soon with the next two Belief Codes. I appreciate your attention!

48 Years of Christmas Poems: Christmas 2025

 

Life is a story. 

Whenever I write about my experiences, I use the phrase "life/story" because, to me, they are one and the same. And I understand that the only time that you can perceive and thus create another page in your individual life/story is here and now, the present moment. Again, I write that as "here/now" since I know that they, too, are one and the same.

I believe there is but one force, one energy, which is a constant. That is love. Everything that exists in what we know as life is powered by love. And I feel that love is truly eternal. It never perishes, never dies. It simply transforms and continues.

The simple question in looking back on anything, the only question that matters, is was I loving in the moment? It isn't an easy question since I am no longer present in the here/now, but instead pondering something that is just a memory. We all know that memories become clouded over time.

So this year's poem is dedicated to the woman with whom I spent 25 years of my life, sharing many pages of our individual and combined life/stories. The power that I have in hand is selective memory, recalling the love that we shared, the experiences we created, and that we saw it through together by choice. It wasn't always easy, especially in the final years. And looking back, seeing it through helped me to understand and grow in ways that I never could have created alone.

It made my love more vital, more present, and alive in the here/now. This I now carry forward, understanding that Jeri may no longer be a physical presence in my world, but I absolutely know and feel her love, her spirit, every day. It's impacted the quality of my relationship with a new friend and companion who has flowed in on the same river, the vibration of love and respect.

So love truly does live on. No one is ever "lost" to you if you remember the love and joy that you both shared, and choose to make it a part of your here/now in ways both "big" and "small."

When you forget, forgive yourself and choose again. It honors the spirit of love and your loved ones.

This holiday season, choose to keep the light alive.

Christmas 2025

By Richard Perrotti

 

Ironic, it is, at this time of year

That in darkness, we strive for the light.

In candles, bright colors, and twinkling displays

We find comfort and beauty in their sight.

 

Understand that it takes this gloom of the night

To properly see the illume.

Minus the contrast that blackness brings

It would fade like a tattered costume.

 

Sometimes it takes what seems like a loss

To realize that love never dies.

The spirit within always beckons

And appears in a differing guise.

 

Ponder within this one question

To reveal your wisdom unfurled:

Does the shadow of this world darken your heart

Or does your heart enlighten the world?

 

In the crush of traditions and presents

It feels like our love we exhaust.

Strive not for a Christmas so “perfect,”

That its genuine meaning is lost.

 

The power of love is forgiveness,

And forgiveness begins with yourself.

Judgement as dark and deep as the night

Can be released and put up on the shelf.

 

So, fear not, as the angel announced long ago,

For what is not love is but fear.

Let the light of your love go forth and shine bright,

Spreading tidings of joy and great cheer!