Over the last 3-4 years, I’ve changed my mind about a lot of things. Partly because I started living a life I was unfamiliar with, learning things I didn’t even know existed, and meeting people with differing perspectives on well…pretty much anything.

I was recently in a conversation with someone who said “You realize how much you don’t know when you decide to start learning.” It’s true. If we’re learning, we’re taking in knowledge that we otherwise didn’t have. I suppose that why I’ve been changing my mind a lot.

If you listen to the Treehouse or StrangeHouse podcasts, or follow us on social media, you know I’m all about the positive vibes. I’m all about personal growth, and learning more about myself, the human race, and how we’re all connected. In this search, I’ve learned about inherited belief.

Inherited belief, or at least how I understand it, is the idea that we have inherited beliefs, ideas, perceptions, misconceptions, attitudes, insecurities, and comforts & discomforts from people and environments that surrounded us at a young age. We all have them.

The last six months or so, I’ve been doing my best to recognize something about myself that I don’t understand. Why does it make me uncomfortable to talk about certain subjects? Why do I react they way I do? Why do I think and believe the way I do? After asking myself these questions, I never realized how much of my past I was hanging onto.

With all these questions rolling around in my head, I came to the conclusion that I can choose what I believe, think, and feel. Regardless of what I was taught growing up, and or what I was taught yesterday, it’s up to me, and no one else, to figure all this out, regardless of what I always thought. I had to change my mindset to a positive one if I wanted my situation to change.

However, it’s strange… It’s hard letting go of those old beliefs. In a weird way, they’re like a special toy or security blanket you’ve had forever; you feel guilty throwing it away, but you know that’s the only way you’ll move on and grow. But once you let go, you realize there’s a whole world out there you didn’t know about it, and your eyes are open to it.

A lot of these beliefs have caused me to put limits on myself. They’ve kept me from building confidence, kept me from being open to opportunities, and led me to believe I was incapable of doing many things. Once I started taking chances on myself, “faking it, til making it,” and keeping a positive attitude (especially when I didn’t feel like it), I started to see a lot of changes I wanted take shape.

Now, more than ever, we’re able to be influenced by thousands of messages a day. Which is why it’s important to consider why we think the way we do, why we believe the way we do, and why we feel the way we do. Is it us really doing the thinking, believing, and feeling? Or is it something from our past telling us we have to feel that way?

I’ve also heard “we are the sum of everyone we’ve ever met.” Meaning we’re influenced just a tiny bit by every person we’ve ever come in contact with, but still remain ourselves. We can do whatever we want with these influences. When we’re younger, we adopt them - no questions asked - we don’t know any better. Now, we can decide whether to accept, reject, or look further into the influence and messages thrown at us on the daily.

People should change. People should grow. I’d be a pretty frustrated person if I still had the perspective and outlook I did 5 years ago. I remember that place, and it wasn’t a happy one. I was fed up with that life, and wanted something better. I was only living that life because of my inherited beliefs. It wasn’t until I started questioning and thinking for myself that things started to change.

Start questioning. Start thinking. Become who you want to be.

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