Changing beliefs as a series of choices and actions

Frederick asks whether changing a belief really is just a matter of choice and worries that his choices are mostly ego-based.

The Wonders say many are, but he will learn to tell an ego-based choice — a mind game where nothing follows and no movement occurs — from a self-based one; choice must be repeated and reinforced.

Using the example of going to the corner store, they show that an original choice generates a chain of further choices — get up, get the coat, get the hat, open the door, walk — thought in milliseconds only because they have become repetitious; the first time, he simply did it without knowing the steps.

Applied to teeth, this is action, not passive allowing: having chosen to grow teeth, he asks what the next step is — nourishment and calcium, then whether the body can use them, then what belief structures must change — rather than sitting on a mountain navel-gazing.

He objects that even with perfect nutrition a belief would still block it; they agree, and say that suspending the belief that observation requires judgment is precisely the next step in the chain.

When the mind gets distracted — as by a pretty woman walking a dog on the way to the shop — he simply drifts into a different direction and picks up other belief structures that preclude what he wanted, perhaps even circumstances that make growing teeth unnecessary.

So at each new belief structure he must observe and ask whether moving that way will preclude what he intends, while still living his life.

Suspending a belief structure means the self telling the mind, thank you for that observation, but we do not need it any more, so please do not choose that way again — and the key question is whether he is willing to let one suspension affect not just his teeth but everything.