Very little in life is determinable, yet our beliefs, thoughts, values and consequently actions seem to follow a deterministic path. Though we may rant and rave at the thought of a fatalistic life, little more can be true than the life experiences we have consequently built up that shape who we are, what we hold in high esteem and how we act.

Our self hi-story is precisely that a ‘-story’, one that is currently being played out. As William Shakespeare wrote,

All the World's a Stage;
And all the Men and Women meerly Players;
They have their Exits and their Entrances,
And one Man in his time plays many Parts.

I have a client whom a number of years ago became involved in a car accident. This experience drastically changed his life from an outgoing adventurous person who would often travel to different parts of the country as part of his social calendar; to one, where gradually over time he became less and less confident in driving and started to generalise ‘going out’ as being potentially threatening.

His experience has a severity that most of us may not have had, but nonetheless shows that as humans we are susceptible to our past events and how they shape us, regardless of our conscious thought or control.

He knows that he should go out, yet the past experience created a stronger association at an unconscious level that precedes any physical action of going out of the house. He has an over generalised fear and terror of something that does not exist. His fear is based on the irrational response of something that ‘could potentially’ happen to something that will more than likely happen. I.e. ‘it has happened before so it will happen again’.

In the same way, our previous experiences follow a similar vein. Our actions are guided by our past and how we evaluate particular events through them. These evaluations are netted by a number of factors but predominantly they can be categorized simply into two forms. Experiences that are positive and beneficial and experiences that are negative. Those experiences that are positive we will generally seek more of, and those that are negative, seek less of, or avoid.

However the problem arises when we over generalise experience into other areas of our life. This may happen as a result of a traumatic experience, one which will rob us of our ability to function properly in areas where we normally would. People who have phobias suffer similar problems.

To not experience or behave in a way that we wish does not have to be linked to traumatic or severe events. The build up of small but repeatable ‘bad’ experiences can also have similar effects. These usually pile up until we form limiting beliefs about our experience or selves.

Beliefs are just beliefs, they are neither any more real than a map we have to guide us to our destination. They are as Alfred Korzibski stated ‘the map and not the territory’. Yet we act as if our beliefs are true, as if they are the real thing. We act as if our memories and through them, our past experiences are the real thing. To all intents and purposes for each individual they are. But in reality they are filtered descriptions of events, a story of what happened but not what actually happened only and in so far as we remember them. But to believe they are the truth and that their contents represent the reality of the world we live in is to fall prey to the very devices that serve to keep us alive. These devices, as such, our beliefs and values, can both serve and damn us.