You Don't Need to Keep All the Beliefs You Inherited | Heather Murphy

Stories in Our Roots  00:03

Welcome to the Stories in Our Roots podcast. I'm your host Heather Murphy. In this podcast, we dive deep into how knowing the stories of our ancestors can make a difference in our lives today. Discovering our family history is more than a hobby. It is a way to connect deeply with ourselves, those we love, and the world around us.

Heather Murphy  00:26

Hello, this is Heather Murphy, I am so glad that you have joined me today. And I hope that you are able to take away something that will help you change your life in a way or the better. To go along with this podcast I have a workbook that is free to you the link is in the show notes, you can download this workbook, and work through the things that I will share with you within this episode. So be sure and check that out if you are interested.

Heather Murphy  00:56

Today I'd like to talk about the beliefs that we have within ourselves. Whether those beliefs are something that we created or that we inherit from generations past, there is a story behind each belief. You have the stories that you've created yourself, the stories that you've learned from family members, each one containing your own experiences, or those of your ancestors. And these stories and beliefs explain why you're alive, your world is the way it is.

Heather Murphy  01:26

Personal or family stories are seldom told purely for entertainment. Most stories have a purpose to evoke an emotion, to move the listener to action, or to transmit beliefs from one person to another. These beliefs are passed on through scripted stories, through sharing of memories, through little comments with big meanings, or through actions. Sometimes the meaning or desired outcome isn't even communicated consciously. Beliefs are not facts, thoough they can be based on facts. Others are created from your interpretation of facts. Some are mixed with feelings and emotions, interpreting certain events, whether those events happened in your life, or the events of your ancestors that you read about and that you interpret for yourself.

Heather Murphy  02:21

Why is it important for you to look at these beliefs to be curious and inquisitive about your family history and about your own history to pull out what it is that you believe? Sometimes our beliefs can block us from reaching for our potential or doing those things in life that we really want to do. Sometimes these beliefs, we can use them to even unknowingly self sabotage ourselves. When we're reaching for these goals that means something to us, these beliefs can sometimes lead us to think that we don't have as much control over our lives as we would want to, that there's things that we can't change, that we can't do anything about. But when we know these beliefs, when we understand them, and see why we have them and what purpose that they were believed to serve when they were created, we gained the ability to choose as adults what to keep.

Heather Murphy  03:22

Oftentimes, these beliefs were created when we were children. That is when the majority of them were established, though, we can continue to create new beliefs throughout our lifetimes, as we have different experiences and different input from those experiences. It is so important as adults, that we reflect back on our lives and our beliefs, and understand why we have them. And at that point, we have the choice to recognize them as something that is helpful for us, or something that is actually preventing us from accomplishing things.

Heather Murphy  03:59

Our beliefs are just what you believe to be true. That can come from your own experiences from what you're taught from your family or society. They can be passed down generation through generations, consciously or unconsciously. They're just how you interpret the world around you. It's how you explain why things are the way that they are. Limiting beliefs are those beliefs that block you from living life the way you want to holding you back.

Heather Murphy  04:30

So how do you identify these beliefs? A lot of times these beliefs are unconscious, they just are, that's just the way the world is. So sometimes it can be tricky to identify them. Some clues that you can use it are something that you believe to be good or bad, right or wrong. Those are often indications of your beliefs. Sometimes you can become aware of your beliefs based off the judgments that you make about other people. If you ever catch yourself saying, "Oh, I wouldn't do that" in reference to someone else, or "I can't believe that they do that," or "I don't think that that was a good choice." Those are based on your belief system. Another way to identify your beliefs are strong feelings like fear or anxiety. Why is it that you have such a reaction to that thing that caused that emotion?

Heather Murphy  05:30

 One of the ways to help identify these is to make a timeline of your life, with all the major events, the different things going on. And especially those events that you have tied with emotion, your memories of your younger self have some type of emotion, or there's some reason why you want to remember that. So the first step in identifying your beliefs is to start making a list of them start writing them down. They can be things like women should not work outside the home. That was one of my beliefs that was both consciously and unconsciously passed down to me. You can have beliefs that it doesn't matter how hard you work, things won't turn out your way, that skinny people are bad or overweight people are bad that because someone is a certain way, that means that they have either a positive or negative character trait. You could have the belief that you have to be perfect, that perfection is expected or that you receive love when you're perfect.

Heather Murphy  06:36

There's so many different beliefs that we can have. And sometimes we don't understand what they are until we sit down and we think about it and we pull back the layers to what are the thoughts that are behind the feelings that we have. Be curious and inquisitive as you think about your life experiences and those of your ancestors because when you do that you can identify and beliefs that you have, where they come from, and how they may have started off intending to be a benefit for you or another family member, but maybe aren't as helpful as they set out to be.

Heather Murphy  07:10

After you've made this list of beliefs that you have, then you need to choose one. And don't think that you need to have a huge list of every belief that you have just right, maybe five or six. And then from that choose one to examine more deeply. As you move on in this process, it's important for you to remember that you are gathering information and you are not looking for someone to blame for the beliefs that you have. You are not looking to judge people for the beliefs that they had. You're just gathering information.

Heather Murphy  07:49

Start by looking for evidence from your life that supports this belief that you've identified. Don't self edit yourself, as you're thinking about the evidence that supports that belief, don't analyze it and take it apart. If it comes to mind as evidence, then write it down. The situation or the event doesn't matter so much as your perception of the event, you can have a five people experience the exact same thing at the exact same time. But each person has their own perspective, and will carry something different from that experience.

Heather Murphy  08:27

Now many of your beliefs are established when you are very young. And many of us do not have a lot of memories of our early childhood years. One idea is for you to interview your parents or older siblings about what life was like for your family during your younger years, they might be able to tell you things that you didn't know and you didn't think to ask about what was the finances of your family? What was life like? Where were you living? What was your economic status? What was the family dynamics? And you might be able to learn some things that you didn't know.

Heather Murphy  09:06

For instance, I have a belief that exhibits in a fear of running out of food and then being hungry. And I didn't know where that belief came from. But I asked my parents about it. And they were able to tell me that when I was very young, they were in a financial situation where income was not consistent. And so they would buy a lot of food and hope that it wouldn't run out before the next time they had money. So that was a very important piece and understanding one of my beliefs that I wouldn't have understood had I not talked to other family members.

Heather Murphy  09:43

Now these beliefs may start in your life, but they also may have started in generations before you. Your parents taught you as a child how to interpret the world. They transmitted their beliefs to you. And their beliefs were a compilation of their experiences, and the beliefs that were taught to them when they were children. And so this pattern goes back generations and generations of transmitting of beliefs each generation down the line. You may find that the belief that you have started three generations beforehand and was passed down until it reached you.

Heather Murphy  10:26

Another way to find these family beliefs is to look at the stories that are passed down in your family. Family stories usually contain a belief system. Usually there is some reason why the person telling the story thinks it should be told. And usually there is some type of lesson or attribute they hope the listener picks up on. It's a way of transmitting what is important to the family. Whether there is a summary at the end that says this is what I want you to take out of this story, or if it's just inferred in the story, it is a way to pass on beliefs through different generations. So look at the stories within your family and how they were passed down. And even look at how the stories are passed down differently depending on who you ask. You can have the same family story, but they are told differently, not only maybe little details that are facts, but what part of the story is important, because those people telling the story have a different relationship to that story and what they want to pass down.

Heather Murphy  11:33

Now after you've thought about your life and your grandparents or great grandparents life regarding this belief, the next step is to look at this evidence and learn the story that all of these stories or facts tell you can you see within your life where the belief started? Can you see a situation that gave you evidence that this belief was true? And started that belief? Or do you see situations that strengthened that belief that continued to teach you that belief was true?

Heather Murphy  12:10

Think about how that belief helps you. Does it help you to be happy? Does it keep you safe? Does it make you part of your family group? Do you avoid conflict because you have that belief? There are so many ways that these beliefs and stories can protect us in a way or keep us from feelings that maybe we had before or a generation before had the it's trying to prevent us from feeling again. And then also look at ways where that belief doesn't benefit you.

Heather Murphy  12:40

Sometimes you may have this belief, and you think that it's doing really good things for you. But let yourself look and see if there are maybe some aspects that it is not serving you. All these limiting beliefs can be self fulfilling, we believe that we're not good enough to get a job so we don't put as much effort into our resume and we're not enthusiastic in the interview because we don't think we're going to get the job anyway. And then the result is we don't get the job.

Heather Murphy  13:12

Look and see the pros and the cons in your life of having this belief. And then do the same thing as much as you can for your ancestors, which members in your family could have benefited from a similar belief to yours. Can you find stories or facts or even inferences from facts, within reason, that show how this belief was a part of their life experience? Another way to do this is to really dive deep into what life was like for this person. What was going on in their world? When did the people closest to them die? Did they have siblings die young? How old were their parents when they died? Were they particularly close to their grandparents? What were their relationship like with different family members? Were there any traumatic events that happened during their life? What was like life for someone in their social class at that time in place? Be really curious about what it meant to be them.

Heather Murphy  14:19

Now, of course, we can't be 100% accurate, we are not rewriting their lives for them. But we can gain great insights as we think about the lives of our ancestors, and all the intricacies and reasons why they may have created certain beliefs during their lifetime, which then got passed down. And you see evidence of them through multiple generations where a great grandfather teaches his children who then embody that belief and continue passing it down generations. Maybe there's a scattering of people throughout your family tree who had similar beliefs.

Heather Murphy  15:01

I want to take a moment and remind you not to judge or categorize your ancestors, keep your assumptions or your inference separate from the facts. Ponder about their lives. Think about what might have been their motivations or their feelings. But realize that that is just your interpretation on the situation. But then also consider do you have beliefs that that stem from those assumptions about your ancestors? I assumed that one of my great grandmother's contributed to her marriage falling apart because she chose to teach school and let her husband move to the next city where he could get work, where my sister has a different perspective, different information. And her assumption is that the great grandfather was the one who pushed her away. So look for those instances where your beliefs have come from an assumption about your ancestors.

Heather Murphy  15:59

Once you've gone through all of this, and you've gathered all this information, and you see where these stories may have come from, where these beliefs may have come from, when you understand yourself better, you understand your ancestors better about this belief that you may have, the next thing you can do is choose to keep that belief or choose to replace it, decide whether that belief helps you to live the life and be the person you want to. Something to keep in mind while you're doing this is that beliefs aren't necessarily right or wrong, good or bad. They could have been something that served a purpose for an ancestor, or was a result of the things that went on in their life, just as it might have been an event that happened in your life, that doesn't necessarily mean you at this place in your life need that belief that belief is helpful. In fact, it might not be helpful, and it's okay to let go of that. Also, don't judge yourself or beliefs that you may have created, just be willing to set it down and move into the future without it.

Heather Murphy  17:09

Now, this is not something you're just going to be able to do tonight and leave it at the wayside and continue on. You have had these beliefs for years, perhaps for your entire life. Maybe this belief goes back generations, and is not going to be easy just to give it up just to let it go. One of the ways that you can help yourself along that path is to give yourself permission to choose what beliefs are important to you, and to let go of the ones that aren't, even if it goes against family patterns. And this can be a real struggle, because it may feel like you're breaking a connection with your family identity.

Heather Murphy  17:52

Last month, my dad called and asked what I was doing. And I told him that I was working on painting the new trim in my son's room. We had taken out all the old trim and retextured and repainted and completely had redone his room. And my dad commented that he was so proud of his daughters for taking on projects like that when his sons just hired out to someone else. The underlying belief there was that I had a desired quality trait because I was willing to do house projects, and that my brothers lacked that quality trait. But because I was aware that we all have different beliefs, and that those beliefs come from a place that may have served us I could let that comment float away. I knew that he was someone whose livelihood depended on his ability to physically work and so that is what he believed to be valuable. We didn't have money to pay someone to remodel a room and so it was a very valuable thing for him to know how to do it himself to be able to save money that we didn't even have in the first place. And so from his perspective, it was so admirable to choose to do things yourself, that belief is not good or bad. It can serve different people at different times. That's an example of being able to let go of a family belief that is limiting because there was so much guilt over hiring someone to do a job when we quote unquote, should be able to do it ourselves.

Heather Murphy  19:36

But it's okay to change the way you do things. Even if it's been generations of family that has done a certain way. Don't feel like you need to force yourself into giving up a belief. Like I said, you've had this belief for years and you can't expect yourself to just be able to let go and move on. It will take time. You'll have to keep reminding yourself that that thing needs to change that when that thought pops up that it's not what you believe anymore. And that you can replace it with a new belief. And over time, you'll be able to shift that belief into something that serves you better. And you can work on building up evidence that shows you that that belief isn't the best for you or that another belief is what will serve you better. Make a list of all the reasons why this new belief that you're choosing to embrace is going to be helpful for you, and focus on the positive that can come out of that, while you're letting go of the old belief.

Heather Murphy  20:37

Beliefs are something that are so complicated. Beliefs are built from the stories of our lives, and not only our lives but our parents and our grandparents and our great grandparents, and all those people that had an influence on our world. There's so many beliefs that can be piled up. Think about all the people in your family tree in the last three generations, maybe four, how many are there? And if you add all their beliefs up, how many beliefs is that, that you're potentially being weighed down by in addition to your own beliefs and your own experiences? And that's why as an adult, it's so important to look at your beliefs, especially those unconscious beliefs that are so ingrained in us that they function without us even being conscious of them. Once you're aware that they're there, then you'll be able to see them. And once you see them, then you can choose whether or not to keep them, then you can have more control over your life because you've gotten rid of the stones that have been obstructing your path that have been making it harder for you to get where you want to go.

Heather Murphy  21:51

I hope you have found this conversation helpful. Download that workbook and start thinking about the beliefs that you hold and how do they serve you and which beliefs might serve you better, and that you can pass on the beliefs that you choose to your children and the generations beyond that. The link to the workbook is in the show notes. I look forward to hearing from you about the beliefs that you've been able to identify and let go by looking to your past and your family history. Thank you very much, and I will talk with you next week.

Stories in Our Roots  22:27

Thank you for joining me today for Stories in Our Roots.  Please help this podcast grow by subscribing, leaving a review, and sharing it with your friends. If you have feedback or would like to recommend someone to share their story head to storiesinourroots.com and fill out the form. Thanks again for listening and I look forward to being with you again next week.