Breaking Free: How to Uncover Hidden Beliefs and Reclaim Your Power

These questions were the starting point where everything in my life began to change..

Our mind is a powerful thing. It’s capable of many tasks, but its most instinctual and primary role is to protect us at all times. It’s so determined to keep us safe that it will feed us any story necessary to prevent perceived danger from impacting us, even if that story isn’t true.

Through various life experiences that had impacted us negatively, the mind learned that uncomfortable feelings and threatening situations must be avoided at all costs. As it learns this and builds these associations, it works tirelessly to prevent those negative experiences from happening again. This is where our belief system becomes prominent and ultimately comes into play as a critical part of life.

Once the mind creates these associations, it begins to build belief systems around them. These beliefs act like a filter for how we see the world and interact with it. Every experience is processed through that filter, reinforcing what the mind already believes to be true.

For example: I had experienced rejection in the past, actually many times, and it impacted me deeply. Because of this, my mind formed the belief that I wasn’t good enough and that I needed to be perfect in order to feel like I was able to be loved. To protect me from feeling that rejection again, my mind had created this story to keep me from stepping outside of my comfort zone. It convinced me it’s safer not to open myself up, not to risk vulnerability, and not to seek connection. It convinced me that I needed to show up exactly how I thought people wanted me to, because being who I was wasn’t good enough and would ultimately result in me being rejected and abandoned all over again. That unfortunately didn’t prevent any rejection at all. But it was my mind’s truest intention to prevent me from experiencing those painful feelings again, even if it meant keeping me small and isolated through those beliefs of not being good enough or worthy of love.

The thing is, as time goes on these types of beliefs solidify and start to run quietly in the background, influencing how you experience life. Without realizing it, you begin living a reality shaped by patterns designed not to expand you, but to protect you. These protective mechanisms become so convincing that we begin to believe the stories the mind tells us are true. The mind’s voice becomes the lens through which we see everything, and we mistake these stories for reality. We mistake the mind for who we are.

We don’t question it either, because it feels oh so familiar. “I’ll never be good enough.” “The world isn’t safe.” “Love will always hurt me.” The mind plays these narratives on repeat, not because they’re true, but because it believes they’ll protect us from pain.

This is how we fall into the illusion of the mind, living within the limits of its stories. But these illusions don’t protect us; they trap us. They prevent us from growing, expanding, and stepping into the fullness of who we are.

Over time, this trap becomes painful. It leaves us feeling stuck, disconnected, and potentially leading us to spiral into despair, or what many recognize as depression. This is exactly what happened to me. It led me right into a bottomless pit of self-destruction and misery. Even if on the outside everything seemed okay.

As our minds push these stories onto us consistently, they become more and more ingrained in our belief system. It can start to feel like there’s no escaping it, that what we are thinking is true and there’s no way to convince yourself otherwise. We’re often told and believe that depression and anxiety are things we’ll carry for life, and the only way to manage them is through therapy and medication. We are even told that it’s a chemical imbalance in the brain and “just the way we are”. Though there has never been any evidence provided that chemical imbalances in the brain are real. By seeing this we start to dismantle the previously created claims about these mental health conditions. It shows us that the ways we have been thinking about it have been fed on illusions.

The current “healing” modalities commonly focus on only addressing the symptoms of a much deeper-rooted issue. Through my own exploration, I learned that the problem isn’t the depression itself, but the underlying patterns, beliefs, and unprocessed emotions that create it in the first place. I realized that depression was just a label for what seemed to be a variety of unaddressed problems within myself that, when combined together, created a sense of hopelessness, a feeling that reinforced all of the beliefs that had been created.

When we only address the symptoms, we miss the opportunity to explore what’s happening beneath the surface, the stories and protective mechanisms that have kept us stuck. These stories might have served a purpose at one point, but over time, they become the source of our pain. But if we’re willing to look beyond the surface, beyond the symptoms, we can start uncovering what’s truly causing this pain. The root isn’t the depression itself, but the stories, beliefs, and emotions buried deep within us.

I found that the key to true healing rested in going deeper, in uncovering those root causes of the painful patterns, and bringing awareness to the beliefs that have quietly shaped our lives.

To do this, I had to step beyond managing my symptoms, I had to get passed my judging mind, and begin exploring everything that lived beneath it all. Every time I felt stuck, anxious, or weighed down by despair, it was an invitation for me to look inward. I would reflect upon what story or belief was at the root of those emotions and then work to see what my mind was trying to convince me of in that moment. Was the story I was repeating true or was it an illusion created to protect me from the being hurt again and reinforcing what I believed to be true? Was I getting caught up in unconscious thought patterns that seemed real, but actually weren’t, so that I would remain in a place where I could keep a sense of control?

Often, it wasn’t the feeling itself that trapped me, it was the meaning I had attached to it. I would tell myself it was too hard, that I couldn’t do it anymore, and that I was miserable. But once I started to become curious about these stories, I began to see through the lies that were webbed within them. I started to uncover the hidden beliefs that drove them.

I saw that it wasn’t really that it was too hard, but that I didn’t want to look at the truth because it hurt. And not only that it hurt, I didn’t know how to navigate through the overwhelming emotions that were present within that truth. I started to see that those emotions were covering beliefs that weren’t serving me and instead were protecting me. Unfortunately, that protection kept me right where I was, in a familiar misery. Those beliefs deep down were made to keep me stuck, stuck right where I was so I wouldn’t go out into danger and potentially get hurt again. Beliefs that told me I wasn’t good enough and that I didn’t matter, all things that my mind had convinced me of because of previous rejections.

Uncovering this was the start of an in-depth journey of cultivating self-awareness. It led me to learn how to see through the illusions my mind was creating and step into a place of truth. A truth that needed to be seen even if it was uncomfortable, because I knew that in the end the truth would set me free.

Now let me tell you, if you are a human being like me, then I can guarantee that there are some hidden truths within you that will help set you free too. Things that you have been holding on to for far too long deep down within you. Things that are hard to look at but one day need to be resolved so you can continue on towards who you are meant to be. The first step towards this is having the courage to turn inward. To uncover the underlying beliefs so that you can start on your own journey toward the authentic, integrated, and best version of you. You deserve that. And if you’re ready to begin, I’m here along side you.