Wisdom of the Tao

I  draw inspiration from the Tao Teh Ching by Lao Tzu. The verses often appear obscure and contradictory but, in my opinion, can give great insights. I also find the work of Dr Wayne Dyer very useful in general and included within his works is an analysis of the Tao called Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life.

The 41st verse of the Tao notes that " The wise men of old have truly said. The bright way looks dim. The progressive way looks retrograde. The smooth way looks rugged."

In our lives the best way may not to follow the well trodden path but the path less followed. Finding this, however, requires attention. We may be attracted to follow the crowd, to follow the bright lights and to  enter through the most impressive doorway. The right path may be through the inconspicuous door in the corner of the hall, the rather overgrown path or a small door in the wall.

Children know this, they are curious and as interested in the cupboard under the stairs as the door to the living room Remember the way to the magical land was through the back of the wardrobe in the spare room.

Metaphor for Belief Change

Some years ago my standard order from the menu would be steak and chips. When I first started as a GP I was fairly frequently invited to meetings sponsored by pharmaceutical companies, these meetings were often associated with a meal. I decided that, when I was being wine and dined, I would choose a fish dish and that when I was paying for the meal I would order as I fancied. Whilst I have not been wined and dined for a long time now I eat fish in restaurants frequently as my preferred choice and some of my favourite restaurants like Loch Fyne specialise in fish.

Identify empowering beliefs that you would like to hold and start to try them on, over time such beliefs may become part of your staple diet

changing beliefs an alternative metaphor

For those people who favour fantasy metaphors over IT ones, this post looks at beliefs in another way. Suppose that you negative, unhelpful and obstructive beliefs were curses and your positive enabling beliefs were charms. This may not be far from the truth as we know that sorcerers would effectively install beliefs in people through rituals and incantations such that people would believe they were cursed and turned into a frog. If people believed in the power of sorcery they were vulnerable to such approached. Imagine if I offered you a curse busting spell that eliminated all of your beliefs that were hindering or blocking your ambitions or development and that produced more supportive beliefs. Surely you could lead a charmed life.

Interestingly in googling curses and charms I found that you could purchase both online. Some providers offer antidotes to curses charging twice the price of a curse bought from them or 5 times of a curse sourced from elsewhere. I guess this is true of beliefs, they can be easily (cheaply) installed but take much effort and expense to change.

Choose your beliefs carefully, chose those that help you lead a charmed life. Discard the curses they only have power over you if you choose to believe in their power.

Developing a supportive belief structure

We all carry around a set of beliefs that help or hinder us. They are a bit like programmes on our computers. Some we have installed ourselves, some are pre- installed (often during childhood) and some are like computer viruses. Just like on our computers, however, we can delete unhelpful programmes (beliefs) and install more useful ones.

How can this be achieved? If we get stuck and find ourselves unable to make the progress we were hoping to it is useful to spend some time asking the questions " What would I have to believe in order to not succeed?" and "What beliefs would be useful to help me make the progress that I wish to make?"

Review the list. Are the first set of of beliefs absolutely 100% true all of the time? Has there been a time when they weren't true?

Similarly, have the useful beliefs ever been true for you? Is there a possibility that they could be true?

If the useful beliefs could be true and the obstructive beliefs are not necessarily true then why not install a set of useful beliefs that support your progression and uninstall those that don't support you.

An introduction

Hi welcome to my new blog. My name is David Lee and my mission is to inspire people to enable them to live happy and fulfilling lives. In this blog I hope to share insights, techniques and approaches that inspire me.

By background I am a GP in England. in addition to my medical work, I also have worked extensively in health service management, have a passion for NLP and hypnotherapy as well as having a fascination with excellence.

I'm increasingly interested in more spiritual approaches.

I hope you find this blog inspiring