What Fear-Based Beliefs Are Sabotaging Your Happiness?

Life is what we make it when we choose to retain and own our personal power. Sometimes we give our personal power away to others and sometimes we give it away to life events or things that happen to us. But often times we give our personal power away to our own fears and the beliefs that spring from these fears.

For example, a lady in her mid-50s came to me anonymously several years back. She wanted to talk about the fact that she was divorcing her husband. She said he had been unfaithful and she made it clear to me that she lived by this ironclad rule or belief: “If my husband ever cheats on me, it’s over. I will divorce him.”

I asked her to explain what had happened and she told me the following. She and her husband had been married for 26 years. They had known each other since high school. He had lots of friends from his college days that he still socialized with. In fact, they got together every Thursday night for a boys night out where they played poker. Everyone gathered at Eddie’s house because Eddie was a confirmed bachelor.

She then told me that her husband had a drinking problem when he got together with the boys. One night he came back from Eddie’s so drunk, she had no idea how he was able to even drive himself home. So, instead of dealing with the real issue—his drinking problem—she decided to put a Band-Aid on it. She insisted from that time forward that every Thursday night he was going to sleep-over at Eddie’s. No more driving home drunk.

But this simple solution back-fired on her when her husband met a lady who showed great interest in him. They started out having lunch together, but as it became more serious, the husband started skipping out on Eddie’s poker game every Thursday night and staying over with his new lady friend. He had a perfect out for having an affair.

Eventually, the magic of still being physically attractive to another woman wore off for the husband. He realized he didn’t love this woman, that he still loved his wife. And so he broke off the affair.

I asked how she found out that her husband had been cheating on her and she said that he came to her and told her the entire truth. She hadn’t learned it from a third party. He had confessed and he was apparently honestly sorry and contrite for what he had done. He begged her forgiveness, but she had refused to forgive him because she lived by her ironclad rule: “If my husband ever cheats on me, it’s over. I will divorce him.”

At this point her rule made no sense to me. I asked her how she developed this belief or rule. She told me that when she was 12 her mother divorced her father for cheating on her. It was a terrible experience and she was determined that she would do the same if she were ever cheated on. It was a rule that was based in her mother’s experience and how that experienced had affected her. And it was a rule that served her well as a child. It gave her a measure of protection, but I didn’t think it was serving her well as an adult.

So I asked her “Do you think your husband really loves you?” She paused and said “Yes.” Then I asked “Do you still love him?” She paused longer this time and with some hesitation said “Yes.” So I asked “Do you think that this old belief of yours is really serving you well? Don’t you think it would be better to work things out and to salvage your marriage? You still love each other and marriage is built on mutual love even if we do make terrible mistakes within our marriage.”

She suddenly reared her head and said “No. I have always believed that if my husband ever cheated on me, that was it. The marriage was over. I’d file for divorce.” She thanked me for my time and left.

I don’t know how this situation worked out, but if she did indeed divorce her husband, I believe she gave her personal power away to a rule or belief that was fear-based and that no longer served her well, and I doubt that she is happy today. It would have made more sense to challenge that rule, to realize that it was based in the experience between her father and mother and to understand that was a different experience from her own experience with her husband. It may have been that her parents’ marriage wasn’t salvageable, but I believe hers was.

What old fear-based rules or beliefs do we all have that no longer serve us well? Are we giving our power away to them and allowing them to make our life experience miserable? It’s important to find the answers to these questions if we truly want to own our personal power and make our lives happier.