MindWorks Quotes

“Each time you break a false belief, you will recover the personal power that was holding it together.”
― Gary van Warmerdam, MindWorks: A Practical Guide for Changing Thoughts, Beliefs, and Emotional Reactions

“It takes effort to dissect these belief systems. However, it takes much less effort to dismantle them than to support such false mental structures for the rest of your life.”
― Gary van Warmerdam, MindWorks: A Practical Guide for Changing Thoughts, Beliefs, and Emotional Reactions

“can’t do this.” --> Frustration When we feel frustrated, it is because we believe in an expectation that a certain outcome should have been achieved by now. Included in that belief are assumptions that we have all the necessary resources, skills, and time required. The fact that we haven’t yet achieved our external goal denotes a failure on our part. In our belief system, we “know” we are capable of succeeding, and we are reacting because we haven’t done it. But if we become aware that we lack the proper resources, training, or skill level, we won’t have the same expectations of success, and therefore we won’t feel frustrated.”
― Gary van Warmerdam, MindWorks: A Practical Guide for Changing Thoughts, Beliefs, and Emotional Reactions

“I’ve met many people who consider themselves skeptics. They even have advanced experience, by way of scientific study or from practicing for years as an atheist, to not believe what others think. What these self-proclaimed skeptics come to realize is that they never questioned their own thoughts, beliefs, and system of thinking, to the same degree that they questioned everything else. They learned to implicitly trust their own thought process, interpretations, and conclusions even when those thoughts were from the archetype characters of their belief system. To turn their attention on their own beliefs and scrutinize them is an entirely different level of skepticism.”
― Gary van Warmerdam, MindWorks: A Practical Guide for Changing Thoughts, Beliefs, and Emotional Reactions

“At first glance, it might seem like the problem is solved: the tears and screams have stopped, the child is enjoying the candy, and everyone feels better. However, if this Victim dynamic is successful, the child’s mind forms a memory and will try this tactic again the next time he desires something. The child is learning that adopting the Victim identity and expressing Victim emotions will get him what he wants. From the child’s perspective, playing the role of a Victim is a way to control these much bigger adults and get what he wants.”
― Gary van Warmerdam, MindWorks: A Practical Guide for Changing Thoughts, Beliefs, and Emotional Reactions

“These rules can often be recognized by the words should, shouldn’t, supposed to, not supposed to, and have to in our thoughts.”
― Gary van Warmerdam, MindWorks: A Practical Guide for Changing Thoughts, Beliefs, and Emotional Reactions

“Authenticity isn’t a fixed state. At each stage along the way, you can express authentic honesty. Authenticity changes as you dissolve false beliefs and your consciousness grows. As you recognize that this collection of beliefs isn’t really you at all, you’ll take another step towards love, self-acceptance, and humility. This awareness will grow with time and practice. With each step of change the genuine self develops and grows stronger.”
― Gary van Warmerdam, MindWorks: A Practical Guide for Changing Thoughts, Beliefs and Emotional Reactions

“When you are no longer spending energy concerned with being right or appearing wrong, you will have much more personal power to do the right thing.”
― Gary van Warmerdam, MindWorks: A Practical Guide for Changing Thoughts, Beliefs and Emotional Reactions

“When we have invested a lot of our personal power of faith in ego characters and false beliefs we can generate a lot of emotional drama, negative thoughts, opinions, stress, anger, frustration, and judgment. That’s a lot of energy. Imagine having all that power and consciously directing it towards a heartfelt agenda.”
― Gary van Warmerdam, MindWorks: A Practical Guide for Changing Thoughts, Beliefs and Emotional Reactions

“Humility isn’t something you gain or achieve. It is what remains after you strip away the layers of the ego, false identities, and false beliefs.”
― Gary van Warmerdam, MindWorks: A Practical Guide for Changing Thoughts, Beliefs and Emotional Reactions

“If by chance you have transformative experiences like Jeffrey’s, ones that allow you to see things from other people’s viewpoints and to let go of decades of struggle in relationship in one day, be thankful. If it doesn’t happen this fast, then keep taking steps so at least it dissolves slowly.”
― Gary van Warmerdam, MindWorks: A Practical Guide for Changing Thoughts, Beliefs and Emotional Reactions

“Decades later, Jeffrey attended a meditation retreat, where he explored the repressed emotions of anger he had towards his father. Eventually he allowed his perspective to shift. For the first time, he saw their relationship through his father’s eyes. Below the controlling anger was extraordinary fear. His father worried that Jeffrey would fail, become destitute, and have a hard life. Below the fear was a strong desire for Jeffrey to succeed and be happy. All the pressure and strict rules really came from caring. He expressed it through exerting control, but it originated from his caring.”
― Gary van Warmerdam, MindWorks: A Practical Guide for Changing Thoughts, Beliefs and Emotional Reactions

“What, then, is an alternative perspective that we can adopt, as opposed to these ego identities? The neutral observer or witness perspective is a start, but it is not the end point of the journey. Becoming an observer of our mind leads to skepticism about our conditioned beliefs and the recovery of personal power.”
― Gary van Warmerdam, MindWorks: A Practical Guide for Changing Thoughts, Beliefs and Emotional Reactions

“As our perspective changes, conditioned beliefs that created fear and emotional drama will fall away. As our beliefs change, the false identities of the Judge, Victim, Fixer, Pleaser, and other characters will also fall away, along with their habitual interpretations.”
― Gary van Warmerdam, MindWorks: A Practical Guide for Changing Thoughts, Beliefs and Emotional Reactions

“After you have emptied your mind of false and fear-based beliefs, you will find that there are other emotions available to you. Those other emotions are mostly aspects of love, both coming from inside you and present in the world around you. Through your growth, the very world of emotions you learned to fear and repress through social conditioning becomes an incredible world of experiences to enjoy and love.”
― Gary van Warmerdam, MindWorks: A Practical Guide for Changing Thoughts, Beliefs and Emotional Reactions

“The emotion of anger is real—it exists, and we feel it. However, the assumed reason or cause of that anger is not necessarily true or real. Anger could be coming from our belief system, associated beliefs unrelated to traffic, anger triggered by other aspects of our life that week, or repressed emotions from years ago. We might also be feeling emotions from the collective field around us. Sometimes the emotions you feel aren’t even yours. Just because you feel emotions doesn’t mean they are about what your mind says they’re about. Actually, what the belief system proposes as the cause of emotions is usually wrong. This is why an inventory and skepticism are so valuable”
― Gary van Warmerdam, MindWorks: A Practical Guide for Changing Thoughts, Beliefs and Emotional Reactions

“Emotional mastery is about expressing love and respect when the thoughts in your mind are tempting you to believe that you can’t.”
― Gary van Warmerdam, MindWorks: A Practical Guide for Changing Thoughts, Beliefs and Emotional Reactions

“Consider giving love and acceptance to yourself, not because you’ve done something to deserve it, but for no reason, or just because it feels good. This is approaching a completely unreasonable kind of love: a love that is unconditional.”
― Gary van Warmerdam, MindWorks: A Practical Guide for Changing Thoughts, Beliefs and Emotional Reactions

“While this positive image and story are much closer to the truth, they carry some risks. The first is that the positive self-image is used to hide and repress the negative self-image and feelings that you don’t like. The beliefs of the negative self-image remain in your unconscious, obscured by the positive ones you laid over them. You haven’t reclaimed your faith from your negative self-image. Instead, you are now feeding two opposing self-images. It is quite possible to have faith in a positive and a negative self-image at the same time. The result is that you bounce from one belief bubble to another. In one moment, you might feel unworthy. In the next moment, your perspective and thoughts shift to defending yourself from this belief by holding up the positive image. The opposing beliefs may go back and forth like a debate in your mind. Since you have faith in both beliefs, both appear true. If you are unaware that this is occurring, the conflicting beliefs can be confusing and unsettling.”
― Gary van Warmerdam, MindWorks: A Practical Guide for Changing Thoughts, Beliefs and Emotional Reactions

“Distraction strategies can make you feel better but they keep you from looking at the real issue. For people who don’t have the skills to change their perspective, be an observer, and apply techniques of skepticism, distracting themselves is the best they can do to feel better.”
― Gary van Warmerdam, MindWorks: A Practical Guide for Changing Thoughts, Beliefs and Emotional Reactions

“From an outsider perspective it’s fairly easy to see that this is all happening within the false world of Bill’s ingrained belief system. But someone else recognizing this fact from outside doesn’t get Bill out of his belief bubble. What’s required is that Bill must see his beliefs as false. And to do that, he needs to identify the assumptions behind those beliefs. It’s not enough just to know our beliefs are false—sometimes we also have to know why they are false.”
― Gary van Warmerdam, MindWorks: A Practical Guide for Changing Thoughts, Beliefs and Emotional Reactions

“What these stories amount to is a defensive gesture—gathering evidence to prove that they are in control—or, at a minimum, a distraction from the fact that they don’t control their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. All of this denial and distraction is actually just another layer of reaction by the characters of the belief system.”
― Gary van Warmerdam, MindWorks: A Practical Guide for Changing Thoughts, Beliefs and Emotional Reactions

“When you believe false beliefs (lies), they are like splinters in your mind, causing you pain. Getting rid of a lie can be an unpleasant process, but only once. Leaving it there can cause festering pain the rest of your life.”
― Gary van Warmerdam, MindWorks: A Practical Guide for Changing Thoughts, Beliefs and Emotional Reactions

“Growing up, we didn’t learn to pay attention to how we use our personal power of faith. As adults, we continue to be unaware of the silent and profound force that we expend every day in our thoughts and imagination. Without awareness, the power of faith seeps into our thoughts, opinions, and judgments, and is wasted like money falling out of our wallet. As a result, we end up feeling weak and powerless, but without knowing why.”
― Gary van Warmerdam, MindWorks: A Practical Guide for Changing Thoughts, Beliefs and Emotional Reactions

“Looking at the world from a character of a “Student of Life’s Experiences” focused on growth and learning, they are more likely to perceive possibilities that could work out or that are worth trying. They will put faith in the idea that things are worth trying even if they don’t always work out as that person intended. Their feeling of confidence and willingness to take action will result in more attempts and therefore a greater chance of accomplishments. Their focus is on growing and getting better, which is done through trial and error. In contrast, the focus of the Judge and Victim is concerned with measuring oneself according to concepts of failure or success.”
― Gary van Warmerdam, MindWorks: A Practical Guide for Changing Thoughts, Beliefs and Emotional Reactions

“The insecure and fearful character perspective, with a poorer self-image, will project failure in the future of their world. From this perspective their belief bubble will filter out and ignore possible actions that would result in successful outcomes. As a result, the person will take fewer actions towards achieving changes in their life.”
― Gary van Warmerdam, MindWorks: A Practical Guide for Changing Thoughts, Beliefs and Emotional Reactions

“Our beliefs influence our actions and emotions because of the power of our faith that holds those beliefs in place. If we desire to change our behaviors and how we feel, we need to be aware of how we handle this invisible force of personal faith.”
― Gary van Warmerdam, MindWorks: A Practical Guide for Changing Thoughts, Beliefs and Emotional Reactions

“Bursting our belief bubble is an emotional experience we are conditioned to avoid, even if the belief itself is false.”
― Gary van Warmerdam, MindWorks: A Practical Guide for Changing Thoughts, Beliefs and Emotional Reactions