From interview with Morty Lefkoe by Tina Amorok [TA] of the Institute of Noetic Sciences

TA: So, I guess the sixty thousand dollar question is how do you actually discover what those core underlying negative beliefs are?

Is it, is it – how difficult is that for most people?

Morty Lefkoe: Well, that actually is one of the things that sometimes can take a little bit of training.

When we train people to do our process that actually takes a 3-day weekend.

But, part of it is sort of just logical and common sense, and then a lot of practice is really what it is.

But, if, if for example, you, you notice that you’re procrastinating you would say, “What do you believe that logically would have you procrastinate?” And, well you’re afraid of making mistakes, so one of the beliefs underneath procrastination is mistakes are bad.

If you didn’t think mistakes were bad you might not put it off.

You might have the belief that what makes me good enough is doing things perfectly, so you’re afraid of doing something that’s not going to be perfect.

So, basically, it’s sort of logical. If you have a hard time getting into relationships you might believe relationships don’t work, or, or, “I’ll lose my independence if I’m in a relationship,” or men / women can’t be trusted.

So, it takes a while sometimes to figure out what they are, but they’re basically logical, and if you’ve, you know, done this for a while, it sort of becomes relatively obvious as to what the beliefs are.

See, what I mean by a belief is a statement about reality we think is the truth. It’s a fact. I mean, this is the way things are - “Life is difficult.” “I can’t get what I want.” “Relationships are hard.”

For people who have those beliefs – “that’s not, sort of, in my head – that’s not what I think – that’s the way the world really is.”

So, what I mean by the belief is the way we think the world really is. And, the way we think the world really is determines how we act, how we feel, how we perceive life.

TA: I understand. So, you were saying to me the other day, Morty, that you’ve identified 19 I don’t know if you want to use the word “core beliefs,” but… that when we can access them they can, they can, sort of, uproot and dismantle any, any problem in our lives. Is that correct?

ML: That might have been confusing… no, the number of beliefs involved varies. There are some simple problems, certain kinds of phobias for example, that may only be 4 or 5 beliefs. Some of the more complex issues like chronic depression or eating disorders can have 40, 50, 60 beliefs.

The fear of public speaking - we’ve worked with thousands of people with that - there’s generally about 10 beliefs.

So, the number of beliefs really depends on the issue and the individual.

What I was talking about was we’re creating an interactive website that ought to be ready in a couple of months that will totally eliminate the most common problem that people have which is a lack of self-confidence and a concern with the opinion of others – we need to have other people approve of us.

And, what I said was, is, is our experience is that there’s, like, 19 beliefs that cause that particular problem – some people a few more, some a few less - but, if you eliminate these 19 beliefs, most people will totally eliminate their lack of self-confidence and their over-concern with the opinion of others.

That’s the number of beliefs just for that particular problem.

TA: And, then you were saying – now I remember – and, you were saying that you, that that is, that you have identified that in consultation with many mental health folks and researched that as, like, the essentially… the big human problem – yeah.

ML: that, that’s one of the most common things, is just a lack of self-confidence and worrying about other people – “what are they thinking?”, doing things just to get their approval. So, as is say, you could…there’s many different problems involving different numbers of beliefs, but that’s probably the most common problem people have, and it’s relatively simple to get rid of.

There’s 19 beliefs, and when they’re gone the problem’s gone.


TA: So, I’m, I’m wondering, you know, in our transformation study, when people have a realization or epiphany or a deep insight or understanding about something of themselves or in their lives that catalyzes a transformation, it doesn’t always stick.

So, I’m wondering…in your process it seems like you’ve had a good success rate in, sort of, the longevity of the success. And, is there actually a process for integrating the realizations into one’s life? Or, is it an ongoing, must we do ongoing practice and reinforcement of, of, of the things that we realize when we get a hold of our beliefs?

ML: My experience is that for, oh, 70 to 80% of the people, when the beliefs go away, they never come back. So, there’s no thinking about it, there’s no working on it. When you get rid of the belief ‘I’m not good enough’ and, or whatever the beliefs happen to be, and all the beliefs that cause the given problem, the problem goes away, and the beliefs don’t come back.

We have found that in some cases, and I’ve got some hypotheses that I’m currently researching - maybe 20% of the cases, or something, the beliefs do come back. Now, they seem to come back with less intensity, so when you say the words, and you think about the belief they don’t feel as strong – it’s a lot more subtle – but, they do, they can come back.

And, all you need to do is, again, go through a 15, 20-minute process, get rid of the belief again, and then it either goes away permanently or comes back with even less intensity, and 90% plus people, if you eliminate it two or three times, will never come back again.

So, this is not like cognitive therapy which is a tool for the client to keep looking at your, you know, “Are you thinking well? Are you thinking logically? Are you making thinking mistakes? Well, you’ve got to work on yourself between sessions.”

This is more a tool for the facilitator to help a client eliminate the beliefs, and when the beliefs are gone there is nothing more that the client has to do except notice that your life has changed.

Excerpted from transcript of IONS interview.

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