I BUlieve
I BUlieve
2. I BUlieve: The Power of a "Belief Statement" Episode
In this episode of IBULIEVE, husband and wife duo, Alison Pothier and Jules Williams, take a deeper dive into the process of honing our beliefs. Sharing their own "I BUlieve Statements", they invite listeners write their own. In the process, they challenge listeners to consider more deeply what they truly believe, where those beliefs come from and how well they are working for them in creating the life and world they wish to see.
Links referenced in this episode:
https://www.ibulieve.com/
https://www.alisonpothier.com/
https://www.juleswilliams.com/
The Weigh Forward Kindle Book
Excerpt from the original song and composition by Deepak Ramapryian
I BUlieve in the birthing of creation through woven narratives, storytelling on the page, in film, or around the literal or metaphorical campfire.
Alison_Pothier:I BUlieve that what we believe has a vibration. And that when we truly believe in something, that something becomes truth and manifests in form.
Jules_Williams:There's a couple of teaser excerpts from Alison and myself's, I BUlieves, which we're going to be deep diveing with as this podcast goes on. So welcome to Episode Two. It's Jules Williams and Allison Pothier bringing you all things I BUlieve.
Alison_Pothier:In our first episode, we discussed why it matters to even consider what we believe what it is that our beliefs impact, and this week, we thought we'd take that a step further carrying on with that theme of understanding what we believe in, and why and bring something different in. How do you figure out what it is you believe, where does that come from? Where do we begin when we start thinking about it? And Jules and I we didn't really share too much last week about who we are how we've come to even be here. So maybe we'll share a little bit of our background this week, as well as some of our own I BUlieve statements.
Jules_Williams:I'm Jules I'm Abergavenny, born and bred grew up in Wales. I'd like to say I was forged and honed in the Welsh countryside. I lived in the Cotswolds and in London throughout certain stages of my career and the nucleus now for our I BUlieve platform is out here in Malibu where Al and I live.
Alison_Pothier:And I grew up in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, on the east coast. Number three of six kids, we were all born within seven years of each other, so is 7,6,5 skip 3 skip, newborn twins. Grew up and with traditional Catholic family, if there was any such thing as were traditional back then with certain values and things that were framed for us that define the way our worlds worked. And then over time, moved on to a career in investment banking, moved to New York City and got transferred over to London for one year and ended up there for 20. But in that 20 years overseas, I think it was that time to understand who I was in the world, what I BUlieved then separate from what I had been born and raised to believe and understand and started to challenge beliefs in those 20 years, where I am now living in California, on my second marriage now with Jules, I've come to understand and re-evaluate those beliefs yet again, and coming to a new place of what it is, I BUlieve, and want to believe going forward in my life. And this subject for both Jules and I is a very relevant subject in terms of how you create and define your world, how you take it back, so it's not defined for you but defined from within.
Jules_Williams:One aspect for all of us when we we choose to look back again, or investigate and see what it is we truly believe? Do you think the physical separation of distance from moving from the US to the UK energetically opened up more freedom to question certain beliefs or what you believe in or what you wanted to choose moving forward to believe in?
Alison_Pothier:I think it did for me. It may not have been inherent in the move. It was inherent in my mindset during the move. At that time. I was in my early 20s. And I had been at a time in my life where I was feeling constricted by the definition of myself as set up by the world around me. I wasn't sure if I myself could own all of the beliefs that I was carrying, but I didn't feel free to be able to explore challenge question fully those beliefs without a certain distance to where I was rooted. And where they were rooted. With a very, very strong value system, not just in the family, but in my community and then in the extended community at large. And then there was the American community and I was just somebody who needed to know whether I BUlieved all of the things that I had been told about what it meant to be any of the things I was including myself. I undid my world starting the minute I went away, I went into an identity crisis. But I've been in more than one in my life I almost launched them in order to re-define and re-define and rip labels off myself to see if I can really come to what is authentically me rather than stuck or imposed on me like a sticker, one that I'm you know, agreed to wear.
Jules_Williams:I think everybody, all the listeners that are aware of any form of self investigation, it can sometimes not be pretty, but it also ultimately definitely ends up much more rewarding for us in terms of understanding ourselves and our journey here. What's interesting, we said in this episode, we're gonna cover some sort of areas which help as a deep dive when we start investigating our own I BUlieve what it is we truly believe in these statements, these poetic statements or life affirming statements that sort of start to imbue how we see life how we interact with life, how we want to try and live our lives. Interestingly straight off the bat, there were Al was talking about a physical distance from the US to the UK and a definitive mental statement of which you said I'm gonna give time and separation to look at and re-evaluate. I probably had a similar trigger., when I started investigating in terms of - I was very intuitive as a kid, I used to see energies in people energies of spirit, I didn't have any frame of reference for that. So I lost myself in sport and used the physical to sort of keep at bay, those intuitive vulnerabilities. I didn't understand them as a kid. And I went through sport all the way through school all the way through college, and after college, I lived in the states for a year and then traveled Australia. And it's interesting, all of that intuitive journey, I've sort of kept slightly at bay during the first 20 or so years of my life, having that freedom to travel, being in a different country having new experiences and the freedom to enjoy those new experiences, which you do when you're traveling, started bringing a lot of those thoughts to the surface and I started reading a lot more around the subject experiencing other people that had similar journeys. I'm sure every one of us and all the listeners, they go on holiday, somewhere in a specific place to go on holiday, and they find themselves wandering into a museum or a church or an old building or an old restaurant or bar. And because you're on holiday, because you're in a different environment, because your eyes are up and more aware in a way that sometimes can be a great starting point for asking the questions. That's why people go away on weekend retreats, or go away on holiday or go for a walk in the woods.
Alison_Pothier:We go away to find ourselves.
Jules_Williams:which shouldn't be definitive should it but it is a point sometimes.
Alison_Pothier:I think if you had a childhood experience similar to your own, where you were an intuitive child in a home that didn't understand that, you're in an identity challenge right away. Some of us get that later. I was also like you I was always somebody asking myself who I am what I'm doing. And somewhere along the way, I felt lost really early on being, you know, one of six in the middle, always questioning, I guess who I was within something. And I knew my heart. And I was a sensitive soul. And I was introverted, and couldn't express that. So a lot of things that I expressed out into the world were in forms of poetry hidden, so no one could read it, writing hidden so no one could read it. And a very mathematical mind trying to put everything together. But when I got to teenage years, where everybody's in an identity crisis, it really felt most lost and went off and did volunteer work in a foreign country - in Haiti, and then went into a wealth versus poverty story, really feeling the pain of the world and ended up a banker. How do you end up an investment banker when you've been understanding what ultra poverty is. I was in 100% conflict just every day from childhood through to getting a job in investment banking, and always feeling like my heart wasn't adding up to the place my feet were, then it just changed country to make that more complicated. So somewhere along the way, that all builds up, it builds up it builds up into this thing where you're going to have to reconcile with that and that time is going to come What do you believe? All of this has been shown to you all of this has been exposed to you, influenced by the outside world handed to you, on top of you and you're navigating a ship until suddenly you're in charge of everything from the map to the destination and for me, there was a collision. What could collides colludes I say, there was a collision, but that didn't happen until my 30s.
Jules_Williams:I can only talk from my own belief or my own experience, but I think definitely our soul chooses to come into this lifetime and has certain lessons or understandings or journeys that we want to go through to achieve to understand ourselves. And all of what you're describing there is almost like this perfect storm of childhood and 20s and 30s, which gets all of us back to that question, Who am I? Why am I here? What's my purpose? and really simple words. And yet, what we try and do with, I BUlieve, is frame those questions, Who am I? Why am I here? What's my purpose? It's one way that we can start to frame that by asking the questions of ourselves by our beliefs, or beliefs that have shaped us the beliefs that we've had thrust upon us, or force fed us or the beliefs that have come out of empirical knowledge or kinesthetically feeling ourselves, through experiences, and around the world. And all those angles, some of those beliefs, it's time to adios time to let go of them, time to revisit. And other ones, it's time to bring more to the fore. Like, I love what you said, you know, earlier on Al with hidden writing, when you were a kid, no one could see it, but you needed to get it out. And it's almost like, you're you're inverting that and your writing is meant to be seen now.
Alison_Pothier:It's our voice we find, you know, it's our expression of ourselves out into the world, we find a way to do it. But we have to be ready I think internally to own it. I hid my true beliefs deep inside my heart because of the unsafety of holding them, which I think we see in the world now. The unsafety of holding our true beliefs. So many people holding back their true tongue and so many others imposing their tongue on the world. Somewhat in the imposition, they don't even really fully believe it, it was handed to them. They didn't come to that themselves. They're just putting a sticker on the world so it doesn't look deeper within and question where that really comes from. And then they realize they don't add up to the statement they're making, either. I think that's why I hid my writing while I was searching, and I'm searching and searching. And I want to make sure that when that comes forward, that's allowed in me, my heart allows myself the safety of being able to express my poetry and my music, my writing into the world. And I haven't allowed that for a very long time, for reasons of Do you really believe that? Can you still hang on to that. Now I'm giving myself a little bit more leeway with the ability to have evolving understandings about what I BUlieve and new awarenesses that feed new abilities to stand behind them. But I can stand now behind what I BUlieve in this moment, even if I may change that. And therefore my voice can get more expressed or I can be more myself and not having to wear a suit I don't feel like wearing anymore. But it's it takes a long time and long process. And it usually takes something colliding with you. For yourself, you grow up this intuitive kid you got into sports and personal training and you still couldn't hide from it, it still followed you. True beliefs sticks with you. And you have to face it or a true you sticks with you. How did that
Jules_Williams:It all ties back to the I BUlieve. I'd have these work for you? like flippant simple statements for when someone would come to me and automatically I'd write some program out and then pick up on an ailment or something else that might be going on internally in the body. They'd be like that's is amazing, I am feeling that or I do go through that. And then off they go. And I'd be like nice, I just winged that. It would be almost like a caveat I could I could laugh off for myself, rather than say... you just tapped into that person's soul, read a story of what's going on and have helped them look at that story and heal that story and move on. I didn't have any of that language in my early 20s when I was doing that. So it's almost as if sport and the physical hit a timeline with spiritual growth and emotional growth. I sought out work with the subconscious, I did a very intensive three year course with dealing with the subconscious of my own emotional blocks from the past, going through past lives, understanding cellular memories that we hold in us. And that is one of my beliefs, which we'll read out later on is that cellular memory that we hold that shapes us to and again, in those cells will be beliefs that come out into reality. I actually started to face it head on and say okay, well, this is going on. Let's open it up as much as I can and see where I go with it. And part time I transitioned from working with people on a physical level to working with people on an emotional and spiritual level and using my intuition and the skills of my understanding of the subconscious that way.
Alison_Pothier:Yeah, So the way you did that is for anyone who hasn't read your story, the way you did that, is you started out obviously traditional Personal Training, and suddenly your intuitions kicking off and you can see the story. You can see the reason they're not losing weight is because something happened at six years old and you can see what that is and you started to know that if you took back an aspect of yourself and owned it that intuitive side of you and combined it with other passions, of course that you had because you were passionate about the physical you could do something special with who you really were, if you would allow. And I know you do that with storytelling, I watch you in your interviews with people, and you know, you do your directing, but people don't know that when you're directing, you already know where you're going that you're given the questions, you're given the understanding of what to do to bring out the truth of somebody, and you have a very special gift. And I know you say you're a storyteller is how you introduce yourself here. But you're not an average storyteller. You're an intuitive storyteller, you bringing the heart forward, and you're making space for somebody who has freedom to do that. So when I listen, and other people listen to the stories that you get told, they asked how you did that. And that's another formula. That's an authentic existence, you showed up fully, and you do that thing. I BUlieve that when we are in line with what we truly believe in and are truly being. So that's why we say be and believe in you. The authentic you, when you're truly being that it's got a magic to it. It has this extra dimensional sense it's making of things or extra dimensional capability of delivering something not just authentic, but inspired. And as a result, the reason we talk about helping people or saying people it's a good time to stop and think about what you believe. We're saying just so you can find your magic, why do we think you should look, because there's a magic wand hanging out right there. And if you are underneath pain, or you are underneath a world of having to show up and be what everybody's expecting of you, and you're stuck. The best starting point is to take a step back and to start looking at the beliefs you hold, the ones that you know you hold or were handed to you, and the ones that you're hiding inside that you hold that no one else can know that you hold. To start to understand what it is that's creating the world we're in.
Jules_Williams:When we talk today on what are some of the diving in points for us to go and have a look at our I BUlieve, even that example there if we take us back to 20 something year old me and I've got somebody on the treadmill, and you could say on a physical level, and bear with me on this because this is going to pan out for both Al and I and our ways that we feel or see things and they'd be on the treadmill and you could on one level say okay, where's their heart rate? What's their cadence? How are they handling this? We're trying to help this person lose weight. And then before you know it, I'm having a conversation about six year old them. And what's surfacing is dad left home, the woman thought it was her fault as a six year old. And of course it wasn't and we're just talking out this story. And that's where it's the way I was always shown. So if I was directing two well-known personalities for a discussion, for a conversation, upstairs would show me to just spend time on eight year old them, there's some story there. So I'd quietly, direct them and guide them into almost like a healing or a sharing or an understanding would come out that it might not have even thought about it for a while and I'm saying that because if I go to look at my own I BUlieve it's almost like I ask and I throw them out there in thought because I see very quickly in thought and what I've witnessed with Al sees so clearly and feels her way through thought and you can obviously explain that a lot better than me because you live with it all the time. But I've watched Al be in someone's company or helping them or coaching them and healing them and feeling almost where energetically this stories going on in their body. So, that in the real time moment as we're doing this podcast brings a question, you know, Al, I ask myself tha, would you feel out your I BUlieves more? Whereas I might see my I BUlieve statements and thoughts, would you feel yours out.
Alison_Pothier:I'd probably feel my reaction to them. So if I wrote down a sentence that says I BUlieve this and I tried to read it out, I would possibly vomit if I was in conflict with them, I would have a physical reaction to it or a physical experience of it. If it resonated in the heart, it would go right in like you know, Ta Ching that makes sense. And when I'm in conflict with literally kicks me in the stomach. For some people, they think that's a phrase, for me, it's an absolute punch in the stomach and it's painful. So we're talking about intuition really, and how intuition overlays with our beliefs. But I think the clearer you are on understanding who you are and your emotional landscape and your real truths, the clearer your intuition is. And when you're telling yourself lies or you're trying to believe something you don't really believe whatever, your intuition has as much inaccuracy built into it. So who is our original self and our original self is extra sensory. We know what we need to know, see what we need to see, feel what we need to feel and we can navigate life without the influence of anybody else. If we can shift the influence of everybody else and we will be adding up to something that can be really inspired. So we're talking about intuition and belief and how they're running side By side. My intuition works through feeling, yours is profoundly thought, I mean, literally is just a thought and is absolutely clear. Mine is, somebody could be talking to me, they're telling me they're fine. And I know that they're harboring a heart ache that is so bad, I'm going to double over. And I have to find a way to either exit the conversation and still have my heart intact, or bring that up in a way that doesn't expose somebody, but invites that pain to come out. And in my coaching, I will know whether somebody's saying, Hey, I'm totally on course with this, and this is where I want to go. And I'm like, that's great. I'm glad you have that plan, you are absolutely not adding up to that. So your energy is in conflict with your words. And I can help you with that. We can ask why. And boom, you know, you're on to a whole subject that once revealed and healed does make the dream add up to the desire, but not when the story underneath it is in conflict. And I feel my way through that you see and know how can we be ourselves in those conversations, if I remember the beginning of coaching coming out of like a really traditional executive career where you get evaluated on your performance, you have skills and tasks and ways you do them. But it's kind of one dimensional in terms of your ability to succeed. It was really challenging to be able to be who I was in it, versus who everybody else was in it. I wasn't the same coach, as a coach gets trained to be, you could call me a coach. And I wouldn't add up to the expectation. Yes, I can perform those functional coaching things. But I had things going on in conversations, I was listening to more than one conversation at the same time and needing to interrupt somebody, say, you know, I know we're going down this path, and a psychotherapist will allow you to go down that for an hour. And there you go. But you're going to waste an hour's time, because that's not what's bothering you. Who am I to say that, except for I know that so I interject that. So it puts me on the spot to have to be free to be authentic and not afraid of the repercussions of that.
Jules_Williams:And I've watched that in you all the time. And I see you embody that more so than anybody I know. That's a real help. I'd say to us in terms of sharing 'Now it's your turn. What do you believe?' There you go. There's a there's a little vignette we've just covered in that part is aah okay. So it's not just a question of I'm going to write it down or I'm going to think about it. I'm going to say it out loud because Al's very musical. I am around a lot of musicians and their hearings, amazing. And even their intuition probably comes predominantly through sound even though as Alison said a minute ago, we have all of those multi senses. But they predominantly probably do it through Sound. So aah okay, I'm gonna write down my I BUlieve, I'm going to think about it. I'm going to write it down. I'm going to say it out loud. I'm going to roll it around my tongue. And I'm going to imagine myself taking part in that statement of what I BUlieve in and see how it feels. Does it actually jar against my body? Or does it feel pretty anchored and empowering and look at it multisensory? Because they will give you clues about how potent that belief is. within you.
Alison_Pothier:Yeah, and so to take your musician thing forward is I'm quite auditory too clairaudient and clear hearing. And like a musician, I have to hear it and feel it. And a musician will hear something that doesn't resonate, we do as people, we listen to people talking. We know when it doesn't resonate. It's a vibration. If a musician is doing their I BUlieve one way to know whether they believe it is to hear it back and hear whether or not it resonates and which sentence jars in their ear and where their beat is off. And if it is off don't just push through that- ask. What about that? And where am I stuck? And what else do I hear when I say that sentence? We've seen so many people in our interviews or they had it all written out, they're ready to go and their mouth won't deliver that word. And it sounds funny. So we'll stop and say every other note sounded normal, but that one so what's going on there? Oh, my mother's in my eyes. And when I say this, I can hear her going on that's not true or my friends. And so I'm having a hard time saying this because it's going to conflict with these people. Okay, well, what would you do that could correct that for you that you can say that same sentiment and it will flow easier for you? I'm a feeler. I have to hear it and feel it. You know whether it resonates and then you know when you're in conflict and you have to be really honest with yourself. Other people, their intuition comes through taste and smell and all sorts of sensory understandings about how something resonates as truth to them. If we watch somebody on stage, speaking a room will go silent when truth is speaking. When noise is speaking, data, facts, whatever the room will be noisy. People will be shifting in their seats, truth resonates and we know it so when we're in our truth, others know it. When we're out of line with ourselves. Others hear it and particularly those who know you really well. Oh, yeah, you're just bullshitting right there? Come on, give it to me straight. What are you hiding? We can't hide from ourselves.
Jules_Williams:Having laid that out. I think that's one aspect of so many levels that are open to us by investigating our I BUlieve, but because we're talking about how it feels, how we think about it, how it sounds, there's two things. One, we mentioned last week, when we're talking about it, it is a journey, our I BUlieve, and I myself, I wrote my first one in around about 1988, and I'm probably on my eighth or ninth iteration now. But the last one I wrote was about three years ago in 2017. So I haven't really looked at it even for the last three years. So I thought, if you're happy to let's read it out now. And then I can go through and see some of that will have changed or some won't resonate or some will not feel right, even though it would have felt right in 2017 at the time. And again, there's another aspect that Al and I are going to talk through as this series goes on even the way that you frame your I BUlieve statements. I like words, and I like poetry, and I like sort of mixing them up. So not only the statements themselves, but the way they get framed and how they come out is a little poetic, some people's might come out in song some people's might literally come out in a sentence after sentence after sentence. That's again, another beauty of it. But that's for something that we're going to cover in a later episode. If I run through mine... I BUlieve in the soul and our j urney through many lives u ique and unrepeatable and yet s amped with the patterning of h man experience and emotions f miliar to all. I BUlieve in t e power of the subconscious. A d I BUlieve in an infinite l ght and loving source, but o ly once you are willing to a cept that the infinite source i also an aspect of you. I B lieve in the power of story, c eativity and writing it out. I Ulieve in kidi, in chi and I al o BUlieve we live in the age of the Ronin, a time of the sp ritual warrior without a ma ter other than the infinite sou ce that is also within. I BUl eve in the Native American med cine animals, especially ba ger (you can look it up), and also in dolphin, playfull reminding us of the alchemy o breath. I BUlieve in Zuma Be ch - from Trancas to the Point - here those very dolphins play their medicine holistical y with the pelicans and the wh les in the cleansing ocean that olds hands with ionized air. W en I say, I BUlieve in story, mean the story we tell our elves and others storie of how we perceive I and i to be. And, of course, I BUli ve in the birthing of cre tion through woven narratives, torytelling on the page, in film or around the lite al or metaphorical campfire. I BUlieve in every cell, in cell lar memory and the cleansing of our awareness from the inside ou. I also BUlieve in karma, bu have to be specific, not ten ous, with that belief. Ka ma, as in Universal Law, eturn to Sender, our own intenti ns delivered back to our own fro t door, but knowing this a so means not policing it becau e the as, the when and the how i not for us to decide. I BUliev in the many words and teaching of other fellow souls, but st uggle with the rhetoric of posi ive statement where, for exam le, 'live in the moment' and ' e here now' lose potency from epetitive mantra and end up hid en in plain sight, their value diminished from drowning the motional marketplace and d livering limp and sodden sup rlatives lost to the all-enco passing caveat of noise. Talking of which, I do BUlieve in unconditional love and uthenticity, specifically throu h witnessing their energy in ction in my wife, Alison, the learest reflection of the auth ntic I have yet to see. I Ulieve in the power of our intuition, the wild silver Brum y, the vibration of words a d, most of all, I BUlieve in the ability to shine a light br ghter than the mass medi of fear and control that is ttempting to play backgammon So that was three years ago, and there's a few things that jump out as more apt there, you're smiling did you have... I think evolving first is definitely the medicine
Alison_Pothier:No I was just thinking out of all of that. If you were to close your eyes and say one of those sentences that resonates either as truth or as editable, what's your deepest truth out of all that still r is something that you're ev lving. animals. And it's interesting because at the period of time I'd have written that badger medicine, by the way is very much about constructive aggression. And I was working with harnessing the energy of aggression but in a constructive way. But I'd probably be channeling a different medicine animal at this moment in time to rewrite it. I think dolphins still a good one
Jules_Williams:Dolphin stays.
Alison_Pothier:Geez we need to get more dolphin
Jules_Williams:Never more so than now. And I'm talking for you darling. But you and I are enjoying our stretch of Trancus to the Point on the beach and nature that's out there. So that's why I mentioned badger and left dolphin because dolphin stays in for now. Certainly without going on about it is that implicit belief within the we have that power of intuition we have that power of the subconscious and our light is infinite. And if we can really keep focusing on working on our vibration that makes the change out into the world
Alison_Pothier:When you believe in the meaning of the soul. It's light, it's infinite possibilities.
Jules_Williams:The statement was in an earlier iteration where I implicitly BUlieve that the external world is living feedback of our internal reality. And that would probably come back in again, as a statement.
Alison_Pothier:Yeah, I can see that. In experiencing your, I BUlieve - listening, right? And what we said we should do badger stood out for me listening. And in my mind as you read it, I
Jules_Williams:And even that 'I can't breathe' and dolphin is thought to myself, I wonder if he would still say that, because I know badger was a really important animal guide for you during the early years of spiritual work with people. And I've found it interesting that badger would remain. It was just a thought it just kind of came and I'm like, that's interesting that badgers still held through Okay, well, then there you go. I didn't know you would say badger, actually. And I think it's quite funny. But we are that in tune with each other, we do share common thoughts, which I always still find magical when that happens. But yeah, badger stood out for me. And I'd be interested in the listeners to see whether or not actually that stood out, or what else stood out. Because your feedback and their feedback to you would probably be really interesting, them going do you believe that now? because when you said that I felt this or when you said that I thought this of myself? Okay, well, is that a reflection of the listener? Is that a reflection of you? And as a listener, we always should be thinking about ourselves first, certainly. But usually, there's an 'and' you and me. And so I was reflecting on badger too going yeah, it's not necessarily ever been my spirit animal. But I can appreciate how dolphin is going to have to go the distance with us because, in fact, probably not paying enough attention these days. And I'm not sure how many are in the world, I mean, play is getti g just squeezed right out of u. and hard work versus heart wo k is also squeezed out of us t the moment. all about the breath, right? And the whole assault on the breath that is going on in the world as we speak at this moment.
Alison_Pothier:And so to come to making a statement, I BUlieve, like your yours has, and you've done a formalized statement of your beliefs more often than I have. I've done formalized statements of intentions -once. Manifestation lists, I've done more internal challenging of my beliefs, as opposed to statement of.
Jules_Williams:I may have written more over the years, which is the joy of doing them. And we should always champion ourselves and not look back, I can see different levels of growth within myself to get to like where you are now where you're older and fully formed.
Alison_Pothier:That's very kind of you. And you've given me more credit than I will when I find out what I actually wrote. No what I was thinking is you cover a lot of different areas. So when when we're thinking about traditional beliefs, or what we would actually put on a piece of paper, you're covering kind of a really colorful spectrum. So you got things in there about the place you live, okay, you talk really specifically about Zuma beach, and then you talk philosophical thoughts. So here's what I BUlieve about karma. Here's what I BUlieve about the importance of your light in the world. And then you go to childhood specifics or things that feed you and I like the permission for all of that rather than it has to be all philosophy because a belief is only philosophy. No, we're saying it's a mix, because they're all aspects of yourself and formed, formulating loves.
Jules_Williams:Definitely. And I think you and I are both so clear with others when we work with them and and when we go through this is there is no right or wrong. I BUlieve. As long as you have taken the time with yourself and investigated it. It can be funny, it can be flippant, it can be philosophical as Al was saying there, it can be spiritual, it could be very pragmatic, it could be projectionist or futuristic, as long as we take our time with ourselves and unravel how that comes out. However, it comes out as if we've taken the time to go within to investigate and to feel our way around our own personal I Bulieve, then it's perfect and the joy is we can come back and revisit it. What's interesting when we were talking last week, I was trying to explain I BUlieve in other people's teachings and fellow soul but there is this current thought I have a lot of the moment where Facebook, Instagram all social media are rife almost with positive spiritual yogic statements. So I mentioned specifically in here 'live in the moment' 'be in the now' but I think they're losing their potency because they' are being seen or said so often. So what we're trying to explain last week was okay what is Be Here Now, if you love that, just give a feeling of it in your statement of what it feels like to you or a specific place where you can be here now, either with a person or a place or in nature so it is ones to expand out on but then also I'm reading that and I'm laughing to myself because I have a whole internal journey for example with I BUlieve in the wild silver Brumby, a regular person that would be reading mine or listening to that knows none of that story and I haven't shared a feeling as to why it was a childhood book that gave a whole depth of emotion to me and of which I enjoyed, I BUlieve in the wild silver brumby. So there is no right or wrong as we're saying there, whether they come out fully formed and investigative or shared as a feeling or literally is a word or a statement that means something to us personally and has a story behind it.
Alison_Pothier:Well, the wild silver Brumby in your subconscious will take that to the whole three dimensional understanding about what that is, somebody else may have a different orientation even to the word wild to the word brumby but your whole being doesn't need expansion in the statement because it's already expansion within you. What you're trying to say there is be here now in many cases isn't expanded within us. It's so overly expressed outside it's expressed for us and you're saying where it's been expressed for you not from within you, somebody gave you those words, add so that you contextualize or expand that for you. So that is you, you do believe that but you believe that in your understanding and your experience of what those words really mean for you. And you've looked at physical, you've looked at emotional, you've looked at spiritual, you've looked at family, etc. I think for me, when I come to the statements of I BUlieve, we got brought up in church, you know, I lived in church, and anyone who knows our family knows we lived in church, like literally surrounded by priests in the family, all the friends of and also social life in church, my younger brother used to be the altar boy and sit behind the priests mouthing every single word because he knew it so well as a result those words are in us. And one of those prayers the Nicene Creed starts I BUieve,
Jules_Williams:How did I not know that? us married and all
Alison_Pothier:I think you've stood in church with me and these things to discover. heard it but never had yourself to say it. I believe in one God the Father, the almighty, creator of heaven and earth, and it goes on and and all that is seen and unseen. It wasn't until in my 30s Yeah, pretty much because that's where everything got really questioned, where I stuttered in that I believe in one God, do I? the father the Almighty, okay, do I? the creator of heaven and earth, and all that is seen and unseen. And actually, I thought, well, I can take one of those sentences in more than I ever could. And some of the sentences I actually have to go through for myself and figure out how I would contextualize them because I'm making this promise every time I go to church, and I'm not sure. And it was helpful, it was from a friend at the time, I owned the center in London, Inside out Retreats, and I was surrounded by big thinkers in the spiritual world. And they had also come up with different churched backgrounds, and were still celebrating their religious backgrounds along with their expanded understanding of their lives now. They were working on marrying the old and the new for them. And this one woman who was standing next to me, she was quite influential for me, said listen to that line, I believe in the seen and the unseen. I believe in the seen and unseen I believe in an everlasting life. She's like, Where's the conflict Al? You finally get to admit that you believe there's more to life than meets the eye and always have and in an everlasting life. Well, where's the conflict with past life present life whatever, no such thing as time so the souls never really died. So you're good. You can explore any of this stuff it's just permission granted to take a wider look at what else other people are contextualizing may be different than the words you grew up with. But maybe you're not as in conflict with some of the new understandings as you thought you were based on your old understandings. Maybe they all merge, but I have questions you know, your gang given sentences you practice those sentences, you know those sentences do you qustiion those and when do you and oh my god, oh my gosh, oh, my goodness. What is it to say I don't believe in God. Okay, well, what if you do but not in the description you were brought up with? Or what if you believe in energy, it doesn't matter. As long as you understand the way you're understanding whatever words you're using, and they can authentically resonate from you. If they were given to us as children practiced in us as children and never questioned in us, they're going to have to come into question in order for you to resonate with them as your own truth versus an imposed truth that you're practicing probably to please somebody, as opposed to actualize that within your own world, and as soon as you pleasing somebody you're out of step with yourself anyway. And so that practice for me has been to question everything. When my life collided with itself in my 30s - husband having an affair, top of my career, lots of bad stuff going on in an organization and everything I thought I understood myself to be - rug pulled out of underneath me overnight and free to question free you to be mad at the whole understanding I had of it because it's not working to that understanding, why is the world not work to these rules. Do unto others? What!! I don't think anyone else is doing that, or they are, but it's not very nice. And is there more, you know, was there meaning and purpose and intention in life was the question. When I started to ask myself what I BUlieve does it matter? Well, it came to the point where it mattered so much it was about life, it was about whether or not I wanted one, because if it didn't matter, if it didn't add up, and it didn't resonate with me as a need for some form of truth that defined some sort of possibility that could make a better life for me and a happier one, then I wasn't interested. I wanted out of the way, it all worked, this insignificance of anything we believe, but I had to own my own beliefs, because the ones imposed on me they didn't work the way I understood them, to. I'll share some of mine.
Jules_Williams:Can't wait to hear yours. I haven't heard it read out in all its capacity, and you shared what's quite a religious centric, one for want of a better word, upbringing and what you went through that brought you to a point. I wrote a chapter in my book The Weigh Forward called the god issue. And ultimately, what I explained in there, and we talked about this a little bit last week, if you want to revisit Episode One, is all of us, every single one of us on this planet will have to at some point, ask the question, do I BUlieve in a higher source a higher power? Are you comfortable with the word God? Is it something else and not having had a religious upbringing as you did, I was quite comfortable with the word God. I did explain this last week too. We are a soul and, whether we take it as our familial lineage or whether we take it as past lives, there has been a huge amount of man-made religious indoctrination on all of us as souls over the last few thousand years. So whichever way we dress it up, and again, we did the apple pie section last week, it's a great starting point in doing your, I BUlieve, is to go in spiritually and say, Do I BUlieve in God, in a higher power. When I was doing my own investigation, my own journey myself and my subconscious and my healing, I fell upon like an all encompassing caveat. When I link in when I ask when I connect to my higher power, I always say Father, God, Mother, God, great spirit, Infinite Light loving source feels very comfortable to me, I know what that means in my cells, and my connection with with upstairs as I call it with the highest source. So it's one not to avoid, and I've had famous people I've done on a TV show that I used to do back in the UK, complete atheists, and have got the best arguments for there is no God, and we can chat and we can talk. And then we go back to a huge life event that makes it far more comfortable to protect oneself thinking that there isn't a higher source or not part of it. But whether some people are happy talking Mother Earth, some people are happy talking light sunlight, however, rather than shy away from it, avoid it, or if we do have dogmatic beliefs about it - fine, but explore them first, and then come out with some kind of belief statement around how you fit into this world, with or without spirituality.
Alison_Pothier:And even using the term God means something so different to everybody. And so that's one of those ones to expand on. Yes, but I see it this way. No, because it's said this way, it's still down to what you believe, a universal wisdom, somebody else calls that God, some calls that a man in a chair, whatever it is, for you, it's fine, it is just important to reconcile with the self where that is separate from the human intervention within the church, the church has a spirit, it's got a soul too, the humans messing with it. And I mean, that of all churches, all churches have souls separate from the human messing with it, and the human representing it and human representing it has their own story. So discernment, we talked last week about the need to be able to discern for yourself your beliefs within a belief system, and then take responsibility for them and what they're creating in the world. Now it's your turn. What do you BUlieve? Now it's my turn, what do I BUlieve? All right, this was a draft. Now, I did not actually reread this. And I do not remember fully what I said. So
Jules_Williams:Even better.
Alison_Pothier:I BUlieve that what we truly believe, is born in the heart not in the mind a d that to change one's mind, w have to heal the heart. I B lieve that our beliefs can and s ould change every day, all the t me, because by evolving our b liefs, we create new p ssibilities in the world. I B lieve that what we believe r sonates as truth in our world a d creates, manifests the world a ound us and the outcomes p ssible for us. We will always e right about what we believe s possible, therefore I BUlieve hat changing our beliefs can hange the world from the inside ut and open us up to new ossibilities and outcome for ur world. I BUlieve that wh t we believe has a vibrati n and that when we truly believe in something, that someth ng becomes truth and manife ts in form. Therefore, I BUliev that when we change our belief, we change our resonance and th things that no longer vibe w th us can no longer attrac to us. I BUlieve that what w believe matters most in the wo ld, because without owning our beliefs and what they cr ate in the world, we disempo er ourselves and allow others t influence our beliefs and cr ate their own outcomes by the po er to infiltrate your truths- the truths that create truth in the world. Own our beli fs and we own our world and it outcomes, freedoms and possib lities. Surrender our belie s to others, and our outco es, freedoms and possi ilities are no longer arisi g from us authentically, but i posed on us with agenda. To be ieve takes courage to face faith and win. It takes cour ge, commitment and pers verance to heal and reco cile our worlds from the insi e out. To truly believe req ires a reconciliation of all tha we don't believe or we can t believe in. To say we b lieve is to say we trust that e are SAFE to believe, safe to trust, safe to have faith, afe to surrender control without fearing control safe to believ BEYOND THE FEAR of believ ng, beyond the fear of bein naive, being ignorant, eing disappointed, being gu lible, being played, being the ool, and the fear of findin out we should never have bel eved in the first place. We trus it is SAFE to hope, to trust to express and to follow our he rts to trust magic, intu tion and the guidance of our own inner truths and knowing TO BELIEVE in our power and that it doesn't require power struggle to do so. We rust we are safe to allow power without needing to fight o resist, to allow birth of all w create believing it is safe to o so, trusting in love and em race when we do it. To truly be ieve is to allow safety, t allow materialization, creatio, abundance of all we hold insid and can dream into existence. o say we BUlieve - to truly BUl eve - is to say you are free to e you. To be and be you, to be nd believe in you, to be and liv as you. I BUlieve that lif's journey is one big journey o learn to believe and to b and believe in you."
Jules_Williams:Love it.
Alison_Pothier:So it's pretty good.
Jules_Williams:Really good. You did double the work there. So you did your own I BUlieve and you did the collective I BUlieve for I BUlieve.
Alison_Pothier:But I think if we use that or put that stuff, somewhere we have the ability to also have that online and accessible to people and pose it as what I BUlieve is really trying to say is like it takes courage to believe. Every time you say I BUlieve in the fact that magic can happen in my life. You're just facing the fear of the disappointed dreamer and the fear of idealistic thoughts and the fear that you're just going to find out there is no God and it is a big failing. And I think for me when life collided, that's exactly what happened is I met with a disillusionment. What kind of God would let that happen to me? What kind of God would let the Do unto others not be the golden rule for everybody? Maybe there is no God. And that undermined all my world, the whole world I got brought up in. So I BUlieve you have to go back and rewrite the rules in order to really make the beliefs that you have work for you in the world. I know I BUlieve in I BUlieve, because I know how important I BUlieve is. And it's so important. This is the way I would describe it, which does resonate with me.
Jules_Williams:Where do we get time if we don't give ourselves permission time to investigate that statement? We're talking huge themes of the journey of the human soul by understanding our connection to our spirituality, and to magic per se. If it was ever clear last week in Episode One, when we were doing the podcast is saying we hardly give ourselves five minutes of contemplation. Or even if you know we joke with with meditate, right meditation time, get out the calm app, play something, and off you go. And you're fed and meditation on the app. And yes, that's being cheeky in using that example. But what you're sharing there with that confrontation of beliefs around God and magic, and that is the ultimate journeys of why we're here. So that's the depth that we keep sharing and offering up to the listener is, it will all be there for you. If you take the time to go and ask those questions and not be fearful, be brave, and just write it out. Think about it, get it on paper, and be brave to say Actually, I didn't want to go there for a number of reasons. But now I've gone there. It wasn't so scary. And actually, I'm rejuvenate because I've come out with a more certain belief.
Alison_Pothier:If you want to get in touch with either of us. One of the things you know maybe you're listening to this, and we're triggering thoughts or you need support in addressing the
Jules_Williams:And that's I BUlieve www.ibulieve.com and world that you are in or shifting it to reflect a better version of yourself. You can contact us at anytime - or get in touch with us on our websites- www.ibulieve.com, you can contact us there, reference this podcast and we are offering 10% off of an introductory coaching session with either Jules or I as support for people during this time who are trying to wrap their heads around the new them and the world they want to believe in thank you so much for all the feedback again on episode one last week, you know where Alison and I are coming from, from us sharing our stories too it's a simple thing like a statement of what it is you truly believe in and its one of the deepest dives if you choose to go there you can do as well. Unravelling healing and past things you might want to let go of and bringing forward to the fore more of a vision of how you want to move forward, it can all be unveiled wihthin going through the process of doing an I BUlieve which both Alison and I love coaching people through to do.
Alison_Pothier:Let's start a movement lets shift consciousness by inviting better beliefs in the world and stating them together. Instead of innundating the world with negative news let's innundate the world with a counter force so strong that its a wave no-one saw coming and to me making those statements in my own life mattered, my life came tumbling down on the back of the need to question everything I BUlieved in and rebuild it to be my own, so when words come out of my mouth they are my truth and I can stand by them and I have the courage of them and the faith in them, it takes a lot of work, I'm still working on it.
Jules_Williams:I've seen that work in action with you and we've been rumbled, viewers we've been rumbled thats how passionate we BUlieve in. Let's start a movement, let's you guys have your voice. We are going to explain as the podcast goes on how you can send in either a visual or a recorded I BUlieve of your own.
Alison_Pothier:So now its your turn, everyone out there listening take a step back and ask yourself what do you BUlieve and pass that on to those around you
Jules_Williams:Lets get this movement going