Forming Beliefs in the Parent-Ego.
It can be said that our beliefs help us form our reality. Every one of us is at the centre of our own universe, just as the spider is at the centre of his universe, and for each of us the universe differs. Your perception of the world is not the same as your brothers, although there may be core similarities.
Two of the important ways we form our reality is in what we choose to see (selective perception); we select which events to pay attention to, and the second, is how we choose to see it - our attitude towards events, in other words.
Get an eyewitness decryption of a robbery and see how much the descriptions differ. Somebody who had a gun pointed at them may be able to give a detailed description of the gun, but very little detail of the robber: the danger focussed his attention.
Our attitudes are a reflection of our beliefs and our attitudes determine what events we select. If you believe the world is evil, you will be able to fang plenty of evidence to support your view. If you believe that people are fundamentally good and the world is benign, you will find evidence for that view. So a manager who believes that the world offers unlimited opportunity, will always find new opportunities, while those with a more limited attitude will be more stereotyped and predictable. In view of this it is important to see how our Parent-Ego beliefs are formed, as these form the foundation of our life scripts.
Every event we are exposed to is recorded in our subconscious, from the time we are born, or even before. For instance, my son remembered a disturbing train whistle which used to upset his mother from when we lived near a railroad crossing while he was in utero and asked us about it. We moved before he was born. So all the opinions, attitudes, beliefs and prejudices of those we come into contact with is recorded. However all these experiences do not have an equal weight and do not play an equal part in our belief system, but we clearly will usually have a lot of contradictory attitudes. Their importance to our scripts is determined by several factors: the emotional impact of the circumstance we heard them, who they emanate from and whether they resonate with us.
We do have additions to our life scripts which may override these underlying beliefs in certain situations, such as work, but these beliefs will still play a part in determining our basic attitudes and can be extraordinarily difficult to overcome despite evidence which contradicts them. We normally elect not to perceive such evidence. What you won't see doesn't exist for you. Later life beliefs would usually be more directed to Adult-Ego, although they may still add to the Parent-Ego.
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