Sometimes our beliefs lead us to consequences we don’t want to experience. The way to change those beliefs is to dispute the beliefs you have that are leading you to consequences you don’t want to experience. When you’ve experienced a negative consequence in your life, examine and challenge the beliefs you hold that led you to act in such a way that you got consequences you didn’t want.
Note that this act of disputing the belief is a process of trial and error. Changing a belief is no guarantee of getting a better consequence. But it is certain that if we don’t change the belief, we will continue to get the same negative consequence. Making a change isn’t an automatic recipe for success.
We can, however, make educated guesses as to how we might change our beliefs in order to get the consequences we do want. Once we’ve found a belief that might lead to a consequence we do want, we troubleshoot it before implementing it by asking what sort of things might go wrong if we change our beliefs. By making a plan to cover any potential misfires, there’s a greater chance that the changed belief will work to change the consequences to something more to our liking.
There is a special category of beliefs called memes. ‘Meme’ comes from the Greek word mīmēma, which means “imitated thing.” Memes are to ideas as genes are to physical characteristics like hair color, height, and eye color. A meme is an idea, belief or behavior that is passed from one person to another.
We get many of our earliest memes from our parents and our family. Later on we may pick up memes from our friends, our teachers, and our culture and society. Taken together, our memes make up our belief system and the way we deal with others.
If English is your native language, you probably learned it from your family. If you had been raised in a family that only spoke Spanish, then Spanish would be your native language. Your language was handed down to you from the people who raised you. You learned the language though a process of imitation by repeating the sounds you heard.
The people who raised you taught you your native spoken language. But there is also another language they taught you: Your emotional language. Your emotional language is the language you use to deal with relationships. The language you use to express emotions is made up of memes you inherited from your parents, guardians, or other loved ones in your life.
The vast majority of memes that we inherit are good and productive memes. They help us to function in our daily lives. But sometimes the memes we inherit lead to consequences we don’t want. For example, if I have a meme that says that my spouse must make me happy, and my spouse is okay with that, then there are no negative consequences.
But what happens if my spouse gets tired of bearing the burden of carrying my happiness for me? In such a case, if my belief, or meme, is that my spouse must make me happy, and my spouse has grown tired of trying to make me happy, then the consequence will be that I cannot be happy unless I learn to be responsible for my own happiness.
If that is the case, then I need to change the meme, “My spouse must be responsible for my happiness” to something more productive, along the lines of, “I must learn to be responsible for my own happiness.”
Meme Triads are a way to change beliefs. Next time we’ll talk about the components of a meme and how to use meme triads to change our less productive beliefs.