Most of us can name a few beliefs we “have.” Opinions. Values. Preferences. Stories we’re willing to defend.
But the beliefs that shape your life most aren’t the ones you can list. They’re the ones you don’t recognize as beliefs at all. They feel like reality. They feel like you.
This teaching invites a different kind of honesty: not “what do I believe?” as a personality quiz, but “what beliefs are quietly defining my experience of being alive?” The ones beneath tribe, beneath persona, beneath the need to be right or safe.
And once those beliefs come into view, something starts to move. Not as an idea, but as a shift in the ground itself.
Which Beliefs Define You?
Which beliefs define you?
Which beliefs do you hold that feel like you, that feel like who you are?
Sometimes we can start with more superficial beliefs, more overt beliefs.
Like: “I believe the Christian God is the real God.” Or: “I believe this political viewpoint is the correct one, the kind one, the right one.” Or: “I believe dogs make better pets than cats.”
These are the kinds of beliefs people will overtly say: “I believe this.”
To the degree that you identify with those beliefs, they can be binding. They can start to feel imprisoning. They can feel narrow. They make your experience of life feel narrow.
The Beliefs That Matter Most Are the Ones You Don’t Question
But the beliefs I’m more interested in are the more fundamental beliefs you don’t question because you don’t realize those are beliefs.
When you start to challenge those—or even just reveal them to yourself—that’s when you start making movement.
Progress in awakening. Progress in freeing yourself from the pain of having to uphold a sense of separate self, an ego structure, ego boundaries.
So what beliefs do you hold?
A good way to start is simply asking yourself: What beliefs do I hold?
Start with the superficial ones.
What Do Your Beliefs Do for You?
Then look at how you relate to your beliefs.
Maybe you don’t, but many people do: how do you communicate those beliefs to other people?
How do you interact with those beliefs such that it gives you comfort? A feeling of power? Leverage? Self-understanding?
Just noticing how that works is helpful.
Does the set of beliefs you hold out as “yours” give you a license into a certain tribe? A membership card?
I hear this mostly from religious people, maybe also politically. Religion and politics are two areas where this tendency is strong: “I believe this, I believe that,” and then arguing about it.
If that’s part of your experience, ask: what is that doing for me?
Is it a badge to show other people? A sense of superiority? A sense of being right? A sense of safety or belonging?
A lot of times that’s what underlies it.
Even though we tell ourselves it’s because “I want to go to heaven” or “it’s the right thing,” we really use beliefs to feel like we belong.
Why People Resist New Evidence
This is why, when evidence to the contrary shows up in rigid political stances, people can be surprisingly obtuse to incorporating new information and changing views.
Because it’s like you’re asking them to leave their tribe.
You’re asking them to leave comfort.
You’re asking them to let go of belonging that has been earned or crystallized through those belief systems and communicating those belief systems.
So seeing what’s tied into your beliefs is helpful.
When Inquiry Gets Close, Things Start to Shift
Then you start to get into beliefs that are more closely held.
There are playlists that can help with this: thoughts, mind identification, inquiry.
Because then you start to ask: what are the more background beliefs? The hidden beliefs defining my experience?
When you start to inquire into those, that’s when you often feel things shifting.
Questioning conscious, tribal beliefs can feel academic or conceptual, even if you’re willing.
But questioning beliefs that feel closer to you—unexamined beliefs you’re discovering in the shadow—beliefs defining your experience of you in a more fundamental way…
When you question those, you feel things shift. You feel the ground shift.
And what that feels like can vary.
It can feel mystical, expansive, even universal love.
Or it can feel like existential fear, dread, foundation crumbling.
Strangely, the shifting is the same. The response or interpretation often has more to do with mood: whether you’re primed to fear versus surrender in that moment.
So I can’t promise what you’ll experience when the foundation starts to shift. But it will be something, and usually it’s remarkable.
It will feel like something about the fabric of how you experience yourself is shifting, and/or how you experience reality itself is shifting—world, time, space, separation.
All of that can start to shift when you really question closely held beliefs.
Examples of Hidden Beliefs That Run Deep
I’m disinclined to list a bunch of closely held beliefs, because I want you to explore them yourself.
But I can give broad brush strokes.
One is the sense: “I’m not a good person.”
Or: “Something is wrong with me that I need to fix.”
Or: “I’m fundamentally flawed.”
Many people don’t know they hold that belief until they start to see it, or start to feel the shame underneath the persona.
Then you see: oh, there is a belief that something’s wrong with me. That I’ve done something wrong. That I always do something wrong. That I can’t trust myself. That I’m untrustworthy. That I don’t have it together.
“I’m not enough” is a very common one.
These are background beliefs you can challenge.
You can start by asking: what are the background beliefs here?
Or, if you see a repetitive behavior pattern in your life, ask: what beliefs might this behavior be based on?
Follow the breadcrumbs of thought.
If your thoughts are habituated in a certain way—if you feel distracted or obsessed with a certain problem, or trying to solve a problem about yourself—ask:
What beliefs underlie this viewpoint that I am whatever, that I need to fix whatever?
Seeing that can be helpful.
Example: why do I constantly improve my health—endlessly, obsessively?
What’s the belief underneath?
Maybe it’s “I’m fundamentally unhealthy.” Maybe it’s “I’m tainted.” Maybe there’s overcompensating—a reaction formation of being “the super healthy one.”
These are just examples of things I see frequently.
The “Good Person” Belief Can Hide Shadow
You might have a hidden belief that you’re a good person.
As bad as this is to say, that’s probably worse than having a hidden belief you’re not a good person.
Not because you aren’t good people. You are.
I mean the belief and identity around it.
It can turn into holier-than-thou personality. It can turn into toxic positivity.
And it often hides aspects of yourself you don’t want to look at—things that don’t align with that identity.
Even simple mistakes can get overlooked because acknowledging them doesn’t align with how you want to see yourself.
So “I’m a good person,” “I’m a bad person,” “something’s wrong with me”—these can all be identity-beliefs that hide the shadow. And there’s treasure hidden in the shadow.
The Deep Code: Beliefs About Separation, Body, Time, and Seeking
Then you can get into the really deep code.
When you start to really challenge thoughts—when you get under thoughts—whether you use one-pointed approach, a koan, intense inquiry or self-inquiry—you start to see fundamental thoughts like:
“I’m here, and I’m apart from that.”
“I’m separate.”
“I exist in relationship with others.”
“I have a physical body.”
These may sound absurd to question, but at some point, if you get to deeper layers, you can question these thoughts too.
“I’m moving through time.”
“I’m trying to solve something.”
“I’m trying to wake up.”
“When I wake up, I’ll have X, Y, Z.”
These are all beliefs.
You can question any of them.
Just question the belief.
What does it feel like to not identify with that belief right now?
What does it feel like to see that one belief is really one thought—right now?
What does it feel like to let go of that?
And then the next belief rears its head:
“Well, yeah, but this is true. That might not be true, but this is definitely true.”
What is it like to not identify with that belief?
And on and on.
This can get steep. You can go deep quickly if you’re willing.
Kensho: How the Shift in Identity Happens
When we talk about awakening, when I talk about kensho—having a shift in identity, a fundamental shift in the experience of self—this is how it happens one way or another.
You get into those deeper experience-shaping beliefs and start toppling them.
At some point they topple like dominoes.
And what will be revealed is—let’s call it—your true nature.
Your true face before your parents were born.
Not bound by beliefs. Not defined by beliefs. Not clinging to beliefs.
Free. Free of that.
Yeah, let me know how that lands for you.