It is always interesting for us to reflect on how we were introduced to the three elements of the Shamrock, and how we maintain them in our life today.
A good way of doing this is to examine our Core Beliefs. These are important because they lead us to forming values. Values in turn lead us to judge situations, people, events, etc. against what we feel is important to us.
Core beliefs set out the norms by which we live our life. An interesting aspect of our core beliefs is what our limit is in various situations. As we go through life we hear/see/read messages that influence us.
If they are delivered by an individual we look up to (e.g. parent, teacher, a sporting hero, a celebrity we admire), they are even more enduring. They can be considered to maintain a status quo or a comfort zone that we can feel happy to be in. Eventually the core beliefs become truths, which, when sedimented, become very hard to shift!
Challenging them usually causes us to have an emotional reaction, sometimes this reaction can be quite painful.
The emotional reaction that we have when someone challenges our core beliefs is very often fear. And this fear may turn to anger if the challenge to the core belief is persisted with by the other. The fear reduces if the challenger is someone we trust, however.
In the Chapter on Universal Theories Of Change I referred to the necessity for community workers to consider which core beliefs prop up unjust systems that de-power individuals and families.
Some of these could be from educational, religious, or wealthy interests that feel that their system, power, or wealth might be threatened by different, more independent thinking.
Many of these, particularly the religious ones, have been challenged and unpacked at this stage of our development as a country but a strong residue still exists today. (In fact I’d say that many of our unjust systems are now propped up by wealth interests).
In the Chapter on Power And Control In Society I suggested using knowledge about the nuances of power and control as a gift to ourselves, and in particular when supporting families in our Focus Group, not to rise up against society which would be a different project altogether and which would most certainly not, in my experience, be responding directly to the needs of those who we are committed to helping.
In this, it is most useful for us to examine two things:
1. What core beliefs eroded and gradually took away our power to think as independent human beings,
And – the opposite;
2. What core beliefs assisted us in becoming independent, thinking, adults.
Also, it might be useful to consider exploring who or what were the strongest influencers in both. A crucial part of this reflection is an estimation of how easy or hard it is to challenge core beliefs that now are harmful to me, but still, for some mysterious reason, linger on. (This is covered in more detail in this post, where I explore how we end up believing myths).
Supervision is usually helpful in such exploration, and is a necessity, not a luxury in our work.