When Beliefs Expire

Thoughts on the bravery required to reconsider

Think for a moment about a belief you used to have and no longer do.

Maybe it was something rigid, narrow-focused. Perhaps naive or unrealistically expansive. Possibly, it was a belief you were handed or conditioned into, that was never really yours in the first place.

Maybe it was something you now know was cruel.

What happened to make you let that belief expire?

What happened TO YOU or to someone you love, or to your soul for you to allow that belief to fall through your formerly white-knuckled grasp?

Expired relationships, held onto tightly for fear another won’t come along. Expired jobs, kept because of worry that the next thing will be worse, or not clear, or unavailable. Or, that there is no “next thing.”

If I was a real jerk, here is where I’d say all of those fears are from a “scarcity mindset” or from a place of “lack.” But I don’t believe that. Perhaps that is one of my own expired beliefs.

Now I know this is often about loss aversion.

I believe in abundance. I believe an “abundant mindset” is so very helpful and positively impactful. I also believe that telling someone to “have an abundance mindset” to solve their deep psychological fear around change, is, well, bullshit.

It’s really hard to reconsider beliefs. It’s tremendously difficult to let them expire. Not only because it requires some replacement, but because it requires openness, curiosity, toleration of uncertainty, and ultimately - risk.

And I think the risk of loss - the aversion to loss - is one of the biggest hurdles.

“If I don’t believe this anymore, who do I belong with, and to?”

“If I don’t believe this anymore, what do I believe?”

“If I don’t believe this anymore, who are my people, and how do I identify myself?”

In my experience, beliefs have expired like the condiments in the door of the fridge.

The Thai peanut sesame dressing that I was, at one point, putting on nearly everything. Now, a half used bottle that I periodically pick up when cleaning the fridge out for the week, convince myself I will plan a meal around this week, and then put right back where I found it. I will do this several more times, over the coming months, until eventually I will examine that Thai dressing just a little closer and see that despite its robust shelf life, it expired 8 months ago.

Because that is what we do with our beliefs - we tell ourselves “I’ll come back to this some day.”

I will then clean out all of the condiments, decisively throwing everything away that isn’t “good anymore.”

The fridge will be new then.

I will feel new then.

What are the beliefs we still let take up space on the shelf because it’s hard to figure out what to do with them?

Or - and this is painful for me - the beliefs that we regret ever buying in the first place because they never really were true for us. Grieving that we ever invested in them in the first place.

I have been doing my own cognitive fridge purging. Deep work with my therapist figuring out what parts of me have held onto some beliefs that have expired. And Fear’s role in trying to convince me it is safest to let my fridge be filled with expired things instead of tolerating the distress that will be required to open a fairly empty fridge until I make it to the market and choose the things that I really want.

I’ve been examining these beliefs in multiple domains: What do I no longer believe about therapy? What beliefs about religion and spirituality have expired? What about myself and my own needs for wellbeing have changed? What about needs, and love, and relationships, and rest, and money, and values, and time?

So I return to my question: What beliefs of yours have expired? How does it feel to name that reconsideration bravely? Can you tolerate that bare fridge for a while as you select the new bounty to fill it?

Maybe what feels like emptiness is just the pause between what no longer feeds you and what will.

Speaking of reconsiderations, I’ve decided to shift the topics for upcoming Seasonal Self offerings. Moving with the seasons, to me, also means moving with intuition. And my intuition is telling me we’re collectively needing something just a little different for July and August. Logistics are the same - just the topics have shifted. If one or both speak to you, I’d love for you to join.