From Survival to Change: The Biology of Belief

Ever felt like your old patterns are stronger than your willpower? You’re not imagining it—your body has adapted to your beliefs.

With limiting beliefs, there is something happening in your body physically as well as in your mind. This is called cell inertia. Your cells have become so used to their environment, they adapt to it. 

Your neurotransmitters are listening all the time, eavesdropping on your thoughts and taking them as being real. Every thought produces a chemical, a hormone. Dopamine, oxytocin and serotonin produce a happy, upbeat and positive state, while cortisol and adrenaline do the opposite: they produce stress and fear. If you have been used to flooding your cells with cortisol and adrenaline, they will have adapted accordingly. It doesn’t matter to them whether this is a good environment. They don’t judge it; they just adapt to survive. 

Imagine it like this. Your cells are like someone who has become used to the cold winter weather. They have all the gear to survive this as they are used to it, so they have hats and scarves, gloves and hot water bottles. They know the landscape. 

This is the cortisol and adrenaline territory. When you try to imagine what your new empowering belief might be, cell inertia holds you back as it’s not equipped for this territory. It literally blinds you to the choices you have. This is when beliefs feel permanent and unchangeable. You’ve got so used to the territory, why change it now? You’ve got all the gear to live with it. 

This is why faking it till you make it doesn’t work. When you try to fake it till you make it, it is like taking your cells from the landscape they have been used to living in, the one that they have adapted to, and saying, ‘OK, you lot, time to get your swimmers on. We are heading to the sunny climes, so get that sunscreen out.’ They are not primed for it and don’t know this landscape, so it’s not just about saying that things are changing. 

It’s not about affirmations or willpower; you need to change at a neurological and cellular level. 

This newsletter was inspired by ideas from my book Knowing You. If today’s message sparked something in you and you’d like to go deeper, visit www.yourlifeliveit.com to learn more or get your own copy.