During my younger days, while visiting temples in South India, I have noticed big elephants standing at the entrance and blessing people with it’s trunk. The size of the elephant used to scare me. My parents used to comfort me pointing to the peg and a rope used to tie the elephant. This is how elephants are conditioned. When the elephants are young, the trainer used to tie a rope to its legs and anchor it to the peg. Whenever the elephant tries to move, the rope gets tightened which creates pain to its legs. The elephant learns not to move when tied to the rope. But imagine, when an elephant grows bigger, it can uproot a tree, but is conditioned to believe that it cannot move when the rope is tied to its legs.
How many of us are conditioned by such imaginary ropes ….
How are our Beliefs Formed?
Primarily, Beliefs are formed out of our early experiences. A child learns to believe that a flame burns its fingers after touching a burning candle for the first time. In this case the experience drives belief formation, and the belief drives further behaviour. Belief is also formed through observation. It is not necessary that every time we need to experience something to form a belief about it, it can happen through observing what happens around us. But the belief formed out of our experience is bound to be stronger than the one formed through observation.
But where do we get the first set of beliefs?
Researchers have proved that we start learning when we are in the last trimester in our mother’s womb. These experiences are mainly a reflection of the beliefs of the mother. Mother’s belief triggers her perception to the environment signal which in turn influences her thought process which is conveyed to the child within. So, when we are born, we have a set of programs which are our first set of beliefs.
These beliefs are the first set of programs (operating system) that are loaded to us in our subconscious mind. We also add some more programs in the first 7 to 8 years of our life when our mind operates at theta frequency of vibration.
Role of Parenting in Belief Formation:
Apart from passing on the set of genes, parents have an overwhelming influence on the mental and physical development of the children they raise. (Verny and Kelly 1981). Parents play a major role in creating the environment in which the child grows and experiences the life. More than the genes, the environment plays a major role in the development of the child. This is another reason why children of the same parents having differing characteristics.
Parents need to be careful about the choice of the language they use to their children. Positive Affirmations like “You are born to win”, or “You can do it, Keep trying” are very important for the set of positive beliefs that will be formed in the child. Positive statements leads to enabling beliefs whereas negative statements like “You’re useless”, “You are stupid”, “You can’t do it” will create the set of programs in the child which becomes limiting when they grow up in their life.
The real investment parents can do to their child is to create the right environment to enable the right set of belief formation.
