Through reflection, through introspection, through digging deeper, to understanding your beliefs and values. You don't have to keep wasting your time watering the surface level parts of you, putting on them again the makeup, the clothes, the cologne, the perfume, the shoes, the Jordans, the jewelry, the career, the car, the house, the girlfriend, the boyfriend, the spouse, the the best friend, the social media, the TikTok, the whatever it is. Like you don't have to just keep watering the surface of you because in the interim time while you have while life is sweet and good and or at least decent, that's the times that you should be taking advantage of watering the depths of you. So that when the wind blows, you don't topple over. I'm your host, Alexandria Robinson, and I'm so glad that you are joining me today. Whether you're new here or a returning listener, I believe that today's episode will spark some deep reflections. This podcast is all about introspection, personal growth, and exploring the deeper aspects of life. And I'm so grateful that you have decided to join me on this journey, that we journey together, as I like to say. In our last episode, we explored the theme or the topic of predators in the pulpit, essentially talking about how our spiritual foundations can be challenged and even uprooted when faced with unhealthy influences. I go through several examples of how to spot spiritual abuse and the subtle power of spiritual abuse through a book that I read and my personal experiences and overall really getting to the point of how much our faith journeys affect our lives, whether they're healthy or unhealthy, because for a lot of us, faith is the foundation. And so, again, when we're talking about being uprooted, right, we have to look at this concept of digging deeper into our roots. And so today we're going to be diving even deeper into this concept about roots and how they play a crucial role, not only in the natural world, but in our personal growth as well. Just like a tree depends on its roots for nourishment, stability, and growth, we too rely on the roots of our beliefs and values to thrive. But here's the thing: just like a tree needs deep root watering to grow strong and healthy, our beliefs and personal growth require deep nourishment to truly flourish. And so in today's episode, we're going to explore why it's so important to look beyond the surface and dig deeper into our roots. Um, our roots being our foundational beliefs, values, and experiences. By doing this, by looking deeper, we can ensure we're growing in a grounded and healthy way that will support us throughout life. And so, first I want to talk about the power of roots or what are roots, and then dive into some of our beliefs and our values. Um, before I jump in there, I want to precursor this with I am not, your girl is not a gardener. I'm not a plant mom. I probably, I actually I'm not even gonna say probably, I cannot keep a plant alive. I'm I'm uh honestly, I can't even blame it on my kids. I can't even say, oh, it's because I got four kids and gotta tend to them. If I was single and had a plant, I couldn't keep it alive. Okay. Um, so yeah, I'm not a plant girl, I'm not a botanist, I'm you know, not like a nature adventure. Really, I've just I I watched my grandma when I was young like plant roses, and so some of those things are very fond memories of watching her dig up the weeds and plant roses in front of her yard. So I've always loved flowers like the you know, average person. And um some years ago I got uh this idea for in a thing called Blossom Girl. And so I looked up flowers and how the life cycle works and or the plant life cycle, excuse me, works. And I just I have always admired how much plants and trees and nature uh resembles and can be used as an analogy of our lives and how much nature and us are so similar. I just I just I just love it. Like when you really think about it, and I think we we obviously know those things, right? We talk about butterflies and caterpillars and things of that uh nature, which is funny and no pun intended. Um but and and I think that once even if you haven't thought about it before, I think many of us can easily understand how we can see plants and trees and nature um resembling our lives and being able to be used as an example of how we should also live and approach um life and challenges and and things that we go through, right? And so um, yeah, I just for a long time I really just been intrigued and inspired by nature and again how it reflects us. And so let's dive in and talk about, like I was saying, we're gonna start with the power of roots and kind of go through some definitions. So, what exactly are roots? And nature, roots are the unseen anchors that keep a tree stable and nourished. And I love this um first little phrase, unseen anchors, because it very much resembles like our soul already and our beliefs and our values, those things that we cannot see, but that um affect us the most, right? And so without deep roots, a tree cannot survive. It will topple in strong winds or struggle to grow in times of drought. And this is really the main inspiration behind doing this episode. Asking ourselves the question, what keeps us, what keeps me grounded in hard times? Because life is full of them. Life is full of hard times and struggles. Not one of us is exempt from hard times, difficulties, struggles, and challenges. And I think we've hear, we hear often about people saying it's not what you go through it, but how you go through it. It's not what happens to you, but how you respond. Those are all reflections of us digging deeper into our roots and what really grounds us. I believe that a sign and of an a sign of an emotionally healthy and stable and growing person is how they weather the storms and handle the challenges of life. Um, we'll talk about this later in a later episode when we talk about red flags. But I often ask my young cousins, especially the girls, uh, and when we're talking about relationships and assessing a person's character and who they are, I often tell them you should look at how they handle stress. You should look at how they handle struggles and trials and and things. Do they crack and break down at the sight of something very little? The tire pops, and all of a sudden he's freaking out, rolling on the ground. And I'm using, you know, the guys as an example because I'm talking to my girl cousins more often than my boy cousins. Um, and so I'm like, is he, you know, does he crack under every little thing or pressure? Does one thing get to him and he's just flailing with his arms around and falling on the floor? And and and obviously the same can be applied to a lady as well, right? To a person in general, right? And so it's it's really looking at how are we handling these moments? Because what is at the core of us, what is at the center of us, is really what keeps us grounded. And when we're looking at our our roots, our roots are the foundational beliefs, values, and experiences that shape who we are. Um, they anchor us in the world and provide the nourishment we need to grow. But just like trees, again, need that deep watering, you'll hear me reference this and we'll talk about what that is here in a few minutes. Um, but we need to nourish our own roots by digging deep into our beliefs and experiences to grow in a meaningful way. And so um when I I don't even know the year, I have this open and I'm I'm gonna post a picture or two of it, but like some years ago, had to be 2013. So what is that? Almost more than 10 years ago, like 11 years ago. So, like 11 years ago, I was I think I was preparing to speak somewhere, and I wrote down this little structure, and it's like I it became a saying that is had that has stuck with me since then. So it's been this saying that I've had that whatever is at a whatever is at the core of you is what you are or who you'll be. Like we have to look at the core of us, who we are, to and in order to understand how we function, how we respond. And because of that, I drew this little circle with three rings in it, and I'm looking at it right now, so that's how I can describe it so well. It's not that I have this down by memory, um, but it in the center for me, I knew that at the core of me was God, and so I put God, and um at the time I was trying to really understand my faith and how things work. So I put God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. I put the gospel, right? Like I was putting these things that are at the core of me, and then I put from my core, how does my core inform the rest of my life? And so then I put, you know, relationships, decisions, discipleship, support, loneliness, servitude, support. Uh, did I already say support? I got support on here twice. Um, love, struggles, growth. Like I put all of these other things because I believe that whatever was at the core of me informs how I respond, how I act, how I see, what I do. And that's the challenge here today. To again ask yourselves what is at the core of me that keeps me rooted and grounded, that essentially affects our I don't think I want to say essential, I think I want to say that ultimately affects how I respond to trials and tribulations, how I interact with friends, neighbors, and co-workers, um, how I act in general, private or public, right? And so, first, uh before I and I don't want to say before, but let's define some terms. And so I really want to take the time to tease out beliefs. And so, beliefs are the convictions, ideas, or perceptions that a person holds to be true, often without the need for immediate proof or evidence, and that's huge. A lot of times our beliefs come to us indirectly. Okay, that's so important because, and I want to finish this definition, but that's so important because I know people who feel like they're in control of what they believe until you actually sit down and you start to uncover some of your beliefs and you're trying to trace back, well, where did I why did I start? Why do I believe that? You know, and so we have to keep in mind that a lot of our beliefs, again, come indirectly and they often come without the need for immediate proof or evidence. They form the foundation of how we think, behave, and interpret the world around us. Beliefs are shaped by a combination of personal experiences, cultural influences, societal norms, family values, and individual reflections. And so when it comes to um beliefs, again, uh going back to that, you know, not needing that immediate proof or evidence, this is why it's so important that our lives are well-rounded. That's why I always like to say, like, I'm a well, I'm a regular, well-rounded woman. I just I like to be well-rounded. I find that when you're well-rounded, you have um a good balance, a good healthy view of things, right? So, what I'm really trying to say is that it's not enough to have beliefs in and of themselves, especially seeing that a lot of our beliefs come um with no immediate proof or evidence. As you go throughout life, just like we take a belief from family, right? Something that you believed all your life that let's take an example of um like if you were raised in an environment where financial success was was paramount, right? So the belief that then becomes that um happiness and security comes from wealth. And so you may spend years like trying to get money and trying to get money, and only to find out that it doesn't really provide long-term satisfaction. And so then you struggle with these feelings of emptiness and and uh uh loneliness and all and and like unsatisfaction, even though it seems like you have outward success success. And so when you go back to that belief of, oh my gosh, wait a minute, where did that belief come from? You realize that you adopted that belief from the way you were raised and from the people that were around you without questioning it and wondering. But as again, as you go throughout life and you develop and grow and read more and you're exposed to more, and even through your own life experiences, when you've gotten the money and and and you should feel a certain way. You you you believe that okay, I'm successful because I have this wealth, but you don't feel that, right? Like, or you're not you you see the success, but you're struggling still, like you realize that there's more than just that one thing. And so our beliefs need to combine with other aspects of life truth, logic, knowledge, um, you know, perception, experiences, right? And so that's why that's why that's why on this podcast we talk about all kinds of things because they really do go hand in hand. So, anyways, little tangent. But so our beliefs can be cognitive, which I know that I'm when we think about this, it's not hard to understand that our beliefs are cognitive. And so you're like, oh, I believe the earth is round, right? Or or back, you know, back. I think some people still believe that the earth is flat. Um, but you know, you have, you know, people believe that, right? That's that's a cognitive belief. You have emotional beliefs, like I believe in love, moral or ethical beliefs, I believe um honesty is important, or spiritual or religious beliefs, as we talked about in the first episode of the season, predators in the pulpit, that I believe in God, or I believe in karma, or I believe in, you know, whatever it is, right? And so these beliefs, they guide how we make decisions. They um how we make decisions, how we interpret events and relate to others. And that's why it's so important to understand what our beliefs are because it influences so much of our lives. So these beliefs they can be deeply ingrained and influence our actions, relationships, and how we interact with the world, and they often function as subconscious frameworks for how we see and sense our lives. My husband wrote this paper on a logic, it was a class we taught on on logic together, and he talks about beliefs and he talks about the noetic structure in his paper. And this is not concepts that you know we came up with ourselves. Um, this is what's been passed down, right, and understood about how beliefs work in this noetic structure. And so I want to read this from his paper. It says, throughout our lives, we adopt all types of beliefs and act on these beliefs, which were influenced by other beliefs or people. We all create what is called a noetic structure, which is a web-like structure having the least important beliefs towards more the periphery, which is the most outward boundary. So the most outer part of, like I said, like with my circle, right? Um, of the web, which the noetic structure in the paper that he wrote, um, there's a chart, and I think you can look it up too. You can Google it and it'll have like a like little chart of a web of rings. And so the outer part is where our least important beliefs are, and our more core beliefs, the things that um affect us the most are in the center of that web. And so the further to the center of the belief, the more important it is. If my most important belief is destroyed, my whole web structure would be torn. That thought is exactly why I did the episode on predators in the pulpit and why I opened up this season talking about spiritual abuse and predators in the pulpit and predators in the pews, as I mentioned, right? Because faith plays such an important role in so many people's life. And usually, usually your faith is at the core of you, it's at the center of you from your faith and what you believe about your faith, your God, right? Um informs how you act, how you live, how you see the world, how you interact, right? How you use your money, how you date, how you right. And I also talked about how a lot of times people say they believe something, but they don't truly believe it because your actions need to show that as well. Again, if I believe, and I'm saying again because I said this in the first episode, if I believe that I can jump, I mean, I can fly, then I'm gonna get on that roof and I'm gonna jump off of it and I'm gonna fly, but I don't truly believe that, so I'm not gonna act upon it, and so that's why it's so important for us to really dig deeper and look at our beliefs because they inform so much of our lives. I want us to also keep in mind, and it's kind of it's like nerding out, but kind of not too much, because there's so much about beliefs that you can read and get to know about, but there's also different degrees of beliefs, so all of our beliefs are not the same, and that's what the noetic structure is trying to get us to understand, too, that all of our beliefs are not created equal. Some of our beliefs are at the more core of us, so those are the most important ones, whereas others are, you know, kind of okay, we're we can change. Like, so let me say it like this usually, usually how it works is at this interview, your most important beliefs are the ones that are also the hardest to change. Those are the ones that take it will probably take years, but I have to put it in time, right, for them to change. Then you kind of have, and I'm this is my own interpretation. Then you kind of have your middle ones. So your middle beliefs are ones where you're like, okay, you know, I I could go this way, I could go that way. Like, I'm not, I'm not, um, I'm not like putting my stake in the ground, and and this is this isn't the heel that I'm gonna die on. I'm still learning, I'm still you know, mulling around with this kind of belief. And then in the outermost part, these are the beliefs that are are the most fickle, you know. Like, um, I'm trying to think of something, I don't know, I don't know. I can't think of an example, but these are the these are the beliefs that can be plucked up the easiest, that can be changed the fastest and the quickest because they're the the least, you know, things that they're they're the most shaky, and that's not a bad thing, right? Because you don't necessarily need every belief to be at the core of you. You may believe that aliens exist, even though you've never seen them. But if someone came around, and I think there's different degrees of this for different people, but I at the outer core, I could say, yeah, I believe aliens could exist. I believe aliens could exist. Now, if someone came along and said aliens don't exist, we have 100% proof of that, will that really shake up my life? No, it wouldn't because it's at the outermost part of me. Whether now I think I think the opposite, right? If aliens, if we did find out that aliens did exist, right, then that would do something else to my structure. It would it would have to cause me to kind of shift some things around where I'm like, okay, so aliens exist. Now, how do I act and respond with knowing that they exist? But again, finding out that they don't exist or do or do exist is not a heel that I am dying on. Now, it'd be different for me if at my core I found out that there's no God. That completely disrupts my entire structure and my entire web and would cause a lot of reassessing and in my entire web to be torn and destroyed, and a lot of trying to figure things out now. On that token, even though I believe that there is a God and that's at their core of me, and I believe there's good evidence for that, there are things that I have learned from my faith that were close around there, right, that have interrupted and changed how I see God, how I see my faith, how I see people, right? And so I'm just kind of giving this bigger understanding because I want us to get why this matters so much and why beliefs play such a big role in our lives. Okay, and so before I go, I'm gonna go back to a little bit back to the noetic structure at um after, but I want to talk about values because we've already said that digging deeper into our roots means looking at the core of us, right? And at the core of us um in our souls, right, are these beliefs and these values. That's specifically what we're focusing on today. And so values are the principles, standards, or qualities that a person or society considers important and worthwhile. They serve as guiding beliefs or ideals that influence decisions, actions, and behavior. Values help define what individuals prioritize in life and what they believe is morally right, meaningful, or desirable. So, from that definition, we get the hint that values, again, are important alongside beliefs. So values can be personal, so these can be these individual beliefs about what is important in life, such as honesty, kindness, hard work, or freedom. Cultural values can be cultural, so these are shared principles within a group or society, like respect for traditions, community, or social justice. And then you have moral or ethical values, so these are values that govern what is right and wrong, such as fairness, integrity, and responsibility. And then we have these professional values that are values in a work context that might include reliability, creativity, teamwork, or professionalism. And so our values often guide decisions, helping individuals choose actions that align with their beliefs, and they can influence both long term goals and everyday choices. And so over time, values can evolve based on new experiences, learning, or shifts in life priorities. And I think that's to say, um, or shifts in life's priorities. Reading from my notes there. Um So I love what this says, though, is that it says values often guide decisions, helping individuals choose actions that align with their beliefs. And so we're seeing this pattern, right? We're seeing this beliefs, values, action. They they go hand in hand. That your values um choose the actions that align with your beliefs, but it starts with your beliefs. I would say it goes beliefs, values, actions. That from your beliefs informs your values, informs your actions. That's how I would say it. I could be wrong on that. I'm not an expert, but that's just kind of my conclusion of what I understand and how I see it working. It can go other ways. That's fine. I'm not again, I'm not dying on that hill, just kind of an observation. Um, what I what I want to say too is that we see how your values and beliefs divide people in our history, history. That's so funny, history of America. And you can look at how we have the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, and how from the founding fathers, just different beliefs and values separated people to be in these different camps. You have this party over here that believes this, and then you have this party over here. And of course, I know that it's not just Democrat and Republican, you have independent, you have, I know, you know, I'm not a politician, but um, you know, you have these different camps, right? So I'm just acknowledging that I know it's not just two main things. One of the examples, though, that kept coming to my mind was the time Martin Luther King days of segregation, and I was thinking about how, you know, because of Martin Luther King's beliefs, like how strongly he believed in equality and in how wrong segregation was, and how you know, humans should be humans, right, should be treated fair and equal. And we have we should have the same rights as other people, despite the color of our skin or how much money we make and all of these things. You can look at how strongly those beliefs played out in again values and actions, but really I want to focus on those actions that from the beliefs, and really I just want to focus on those actions that from the belief that he had led this movement, this amazing movement that you know has informed the rest of history that literally changed laws and changed mindsets and got people to believe something different, right? And that's the power of what our beliefs can do, not just for us, but for other people around us, for society at large, for our communities. And again, I'm kind of gonna like beaten, you know, beaten the what is it called? I don't even know what it's called. Beating the horse with the dead stick, beating the dead horse with a stick, y'all. Child, I cannot think of the same. But all I'm trying to say is, all I'm trying to say is this is why this is it's so important for us to dig deeper and to understand our beliefs, our values. You may not be able to tease them all out, you may not even be able to trace where all of them come from. That's okay, but we gotta we gotta dig deeper. We gotta look at these roots and these things that are at the core of us and that define us. We can't go through life trying to ignore them because too often we stay on the surface level of our lives, um, operating on these surface level beliefs, which focus on our immediate needs, and it causes us to avoid the deeper work that is required. Surface level living is like watering a plant only at the surface of the soil. It might seem sufficient for just a little while, but it won't create lasting growth. Without digging deep into our roots, we risk stagnation, and true growth comes from the depths, not from just skimming the surface of us. So last season there was this con this method that I found that I don't even remember what I was looking up or looking for, but I was doing some type of research and I came up on this method called the deep root watering method. Now, this is a real technique, it was it's actually just you um the article I found is is giving advice to people for how to take care of their trees and their plants. That it's not an analogy, it is a literal system. Now, when I read it, I saw a different ver a different from a different perspective. I did see it as an analogy or a metaphor, I would say. I saw it as a metaphor for our lives and how we could be. And so the idea of this deep root watering system is that you have to get down into the roots of the tree, tree specifically, is what I'm gonna address because with plants, you don't need to um get down as deep depending on what type of plant you have. So we're specifically talking about trees that in order to take care of the health of the tree, you have to use this um deep root watering method to get down to the roots of it. Because if you were to only keep the water at the surface level, you will do more damage over time than good. Oh, you guys, it just blows my mind. It's so good, it's so good. They say that if you water the soil only at the top, you will only be able to maintain the health of the tree for only so long because while it looks like you are doing good by the tree by giving it the water at the top and getting the soil, you're missing the main roots, and the roots are what is keeping the tree alive and grounded and healthy. That from the roots, the trunk is whole, the leaves are healthy, the branches are healthy, and when you stay at the surface level, you again do more damage, you almost kill it faster over time than doing the deep root watering method. And another thing that they said with the deep root watering method was that you have to do it slow. Oh, I just love this. I just love this as a metaphor. You have to do the the the the the deep root watering method slow. See, when you're doing the watering at the surface, you often want to put a lot of water because you think that by putting a lot of water, it's gonna make help it sustain for a long time. But it's actually doing the opposite. It eats it up so fast, so the soil so fast because it's so thirsty from the roots not being um fed that you're gonna have to actually water it more. Isn't that crazy? That you're gonna have to water it more when you start doing it at the at the surface or the soil level. But when you go to the roots of the tree, you're more efficient. Even though it's a slower process, like I kind of think of it like a coffee drip, even though it's probably not that slow. But you know, when you get the the tools down in there into the roots, it's a slower process, but it's a longer sustaining um method for keeping the tree healthy and keeping the roots healthy. It helps with stronger roots, water efficiency. So you lose you use less water over time when you water the roots. It has better drought resistance, so the plant with deep roots, they're better able to withstand dry conditions because their roots are well established and can access moisture from lower from sorry from lower soil layers. And then you ultimately get healthier plants, that the deep root watering method ensures that the plants get the water and nutrients it needs, promoting healthier growth, improved flowering, and stronger overall plant health. And when you water at the surface level, you actually miss the things that the tree needs, and you're actually feeding other parts that really that because all there are other parts that are sucking up the water that actually really don't need it. The roots need it the most, y'all. Woo woo woo, child. I don't know if y'all are catching it. I hope, I hope you're catching it. I hope you can hear the excitement in my voice. Like, this is so good. It's so good. Like, this is such a powerful metaphor for our personal growth and our lives. That just like deep root watering encourages the roots to grow stronger and more resilient, focusing on deep self-reflection and addressing our core beliefs, it can help us grow in a grounded and meaningful way. I also think about how we exhaust ourselves with so many things. And I talked about this in the first season. We exhaust ourselves with so many things, journaling and this and that and that, and running and drinking and partying and and you know, all these, whatever it is in that season. I have to do this, I have to do that, I have to do this, I gotta go to my yoga, I gotta go, you know, um, I don't know, clean my house. Whatever it is, right? It's like we have this laundry list of things that we think we're supposed to do in order to grow, and and we think that it's helping us, but really it's just causing us to burn out faster. It's actually causing us to be less efficient because we're focusing on so many surface level and external things that we're missing the core and the root of us. So then when storms happen and struggles happen, um, we wonder why we're so easily affected. We wonder why we're we're just we just we topple over like a tree that has no roots because we're not actually watering and taking care of the deeper parts of us, we're only taking care of the the surface levels of us. And let's put it like this when you water the surface levels of you, when you only take care of the surface levels of you, there are parts of you that are taking the nutrients that you need and your core is not getting it. So let's say, like your face is getting it, you're getting the makeup, or your clothes are getting it, because you're spending money on your shoes and your watches and your jewelry, or your your bank accounts getting it, because all it is is really about money, or people are getting it, they're getting the nutrients that you need, but you're giving it to everybody else because you're so focused on these outward things or or taking care of other people or whatever it is that you don't realize you're exhausting yourself faster by doing all of these things instead of slowing down, looking deep within, doing some introspection, some self-reflection, looking at your core beliefs and your values. Yes, it takes time. Yes, it is slower, but it is more efficient in the long run, it is less exhausting in the long run. It is more beneficial to you to look at those things, the core of you, to water and take care of your roots so that you can be a healthier person. When you don't know how to respond to situations, you will spend your weeks and years, and I'm speaking from personal experience, y'all. You'll spend weeks and years focusing on one situation because you have not really gotten to the root of who you are and how to handle things and how to how to how to how to how to be rooted and grounded in just who you are, your beliefs, your values. And so you'll spend weeks, years on one situation exhausting your energy. It drives you crazy, it drives you nuts. Why am I still responding to something that I should be over? Why am I still struggling with this thing that I should have been done and dealt with? Now everybody has a process. Um I hear me out. I'm not saying rush that process. But what I am saying is the way that how am I responding? Am I still exhausted? Am I still crying? Am I still emotionally just exhausted and overwhelmed from whatever this thing is? Whereas I could be, right? I could be, I could have responded in a in a totally different way, in a simple way, and been done with it. I didn't have to cuss you out, block you on Instagram, tell everybody about you. Um, I didn't have to go and slander your name, or I don't have to be tossing and turning. I could simply just respond in this simple way because I have a belief of whatever it is, and I have a value that says I respect myself, I love myself, I whatever, whatever it is, right? I hope y'all, I can spend so much time on that, and I've been dying to to get this analogy to y'all or this metaphor to y'all. So I am like, I'm I'm just I am just like here for this moment, and I hope you all are here with me. Um so, anyways, ah, okay, let's keep going. We're almost done. We're about to, you know, wrap up here. I wanted to quickly go back to the noetic structure because I want to um now that we talked about beliefs and values, I want to go back to the noetic structure really fast. So the the term noetic comes from the Greek word, I hope I said this right, noasis, noesis, noasis, which means intellect or understanding. And so the components of your noetic structure, again, it's this mental framework or system of knowledge and understanding that organizes and shapes an individual's perceptions, belief, beliefs, and cognitive processes. So components of our noetic structure are beliefs, as we've already talked about, perceptions, so our sensory experiences and how we interpret them are part of our noetic structure. Um, and then our values, which we've already talked about, uh cognitive filters, so these are mental filters through which we process new information. So they include biases, here uh past experiences and assumptions that color our understanding of the world. And then we have these emotions and intuition. So our emotional reactions and gut feelings are also a part of this noetic structure, right? And these often arise from our deeply held beliefs and personal experiences, and so our emotions can reinforce beliefs and values influencing how we process information and make decisions. Um, beliefs tie into this noetic structure, as I mentioned early, because beliefs are central to the noetic structure. The beliefs shape our perceptions, beliefs influence emotional responses, beliefs guide decision making, beliefs act as cognitive filters, and beliefs reinforce each other. So beliefs are not isolated, as we talked about, right? They're interconnected and they can support each other. So, for example, a belief in personal responsibility, right? This might align with the belief in the importance of hard work. So together, um, to those working together, right, influence how a person approaches their goals. So when beliefs are aligned, they form a strong, coherent framework for understanding the world. And then when beliefs conflict, it can create cognitive dissonance, a sense of discomfort when holding two contradictory beliefs. I'm sure we've all been there, especially again for those of us who, you know, are coming out of some of the things that we've grown up with, sometimes we are at a point where our beliefs contradict and we have to figure out which one is the which one is the one that I should really be holding on to. And so when it comes to like our beliefs and personal growth, um, changing our beliefs, like I said earlier, it alters the new the noetic structure. And so, in order to shift our noetic structure, again, that's our beliefs, perceptions, values, emotional responses, um we often need to change our beliefs. So if we hold a limiting belief about ourselves, like I'm not good enough, or success is only for certain people, then this will dictate our perceptions, emotions, and actions. And so changing these beliefs, beliefs can lead to a transformation in how we perceive ourselves and the world. I also want to add that it's not easy to change our beliefs. Changing our beliefs does not come from like just sitting in the room. Changing our beliefs comes from what you expose yourself to. That's why I always stress read, go on a walk, see some art, travel, do something because the world was given to us in order for us to learn, grow, and explore and inform and shape our beliefs, which then inform and shape who we are, our perceptions, how we interact, and our actions. And that's why I don't, that's why I said in the last in the last episode, I didn't make this podcast a quote unquote Christian podcast, because I believe that this work can be done for all people, that all people should be adhering and seeing the world in this way. But the other reason why I didn't make this a Christian podcast was because it's funny because I did Eric quote, so you can probably hear Christian podcast, was because I think that Christians have a very limited belief. I think they have a very limited view of who God is and how He put us in this earth. There is no reason that any person, but but Christians especially should be so stale and stagnant, and yet many, most are. Why? Because they're not changing their beliefs, they're not exposing themselves to new things, they don't want to be challenged or changed or um you know see new things. And and then often again, it's talking about those things of spiritual abuse. Many people are told that they shouldn't, that they can't, that they they they you know, whatever. So then they won't and they don't. So going back to this structure again and and kind of wrapping this up, and so beliefs shape our identity, it it they contribute significantly to who we are, they help us define who we are and how we relate to others. But then what I love too is that it gives us when you have this noetic structure and these beliefs in your noetic structure, it gives us this cognitive flexibility. And I think this is kind of what I was referring to when I was talking about how I interact with friends. Like I don't just take your side, I'm more I try to be more objective. And so I think this have had like being able for me to take a step back and see the world in this new way, an open way, it has given me this cognitive flexibility where I'm able to examine and adjust my beliefs. Um, or or I was I should say examining and adjusting my beliefs leads me to greater cognitive flexibility where I can have more space to recognize that my beliefs can evolve or be challenged. I can accept new experiences and have these deeper insights and more adaptive responses to life's challenges because you have this greater cognitive flexibility. And I think that's very essential for our personal growth, is when we get so stuck that we put ourselves in this bubble, we realize just how small the world is. I would say it leaves us with the idea that the world is so small when in reality it's very vast and very big. You know those people that have those limiting and small beliefs, and you may be one of them, right? But when we accept and we start to dig deeper into what our beliefs are, what our values are, we start to see how much this affects our personal growth. How much we are open to being challenged and open to new ideas and no longer afraid of our beliefs changing, no longer afraid of you know, you you you ex you just I don't know. Maybe I should get off of that because I think you guys, I think you guys get it. Like, I just want us to be open to those things. But anyways, okay, let's move on. And so obviously, like when it comes to our roots and and what's a f how how how our roots are affected, right? Those things that are at the core of us, they can be they can be affected by both external forces and internal forces. And so some of those external forces are like society, culture, family expectations, and even our own past experiences can distort or challenge our beliefs, causing us to question our foundations. We may adopt beliefs that aren't truly ours, as I talked about early, simply because they've been handed down or influenced by those around us. I've talked about this before. I believed for so long that like my voice was not valuable, that I had nothing to offer because someone else said that to me. But even though they said that to me and it was no longer, uh, it really wasn't mine to carry, I still adopted that belief. Though it wasn't a core belief, it was a belief that still had an effect on how I see myself and how I seen the world. That belief kept me from uh going after things. Or every time that I went after something, that belief would come back and haunt me, making me feel like I was inadequate and unworthy and uncapable of doing something or that I shouldn't be doing it because my voice did not matter. And so we have to again be careful about where these beliefs are coming from and really examine and take the time to peel back some of those layers. As I talked about earlier, some people may feel like that that financial success, right? But for other people, you may have grown up in a family or an environment where academic achievement, career status, or again, financial success um uh was internalized, that the belief is that your self-worth is tied to these things. So your self-worth saying it better, saying kind of cleaning this up, your self-worth is tied to academic achievement, career status, or even religion, right? And how you perform in church or what you do. And so then you go throughout life, and even though you may achieve significant uh personal professional success, or you become a big church star, whatever it is, you may still feel unfulfilled and anxious and unable to reconcile um your internal sense of purpose because of those pressures that were placed on you. And so it's like I want to use as an example where this is it's just like a little quote, but it says, I spent most of my life chasing promotions and accolades, thinking that success meant constantly outdoing others. But when I finally reached the top, I felt lost. I realized. I had been le I had been living someone else's definition of success, not my own. Now I'm focusing on finding meaning in my work and building deeper, more meaningful connections with people instead of just climbing a ladder that never felt right to me. It's okay if that's your belief of success, but it's different when you've adopted a belief from someone else that you are do not personally believe. You are you may be like me, where you came from a strict family that believes you can only do these certain things or traditional expectations, you can only dress this way or not. Um let me say this, let me go back. You can only dress this way or wear these things, or like how I grew up, tattoos are a sin. And so when I started realizing that some of these things, like when I wore jeans to church, oh shoot, I didn't burn. Oh shoot, and then um understanding that the scriptures, right? The scriptures that were used against me for why tattoos were bad, taking the taking it back, and then understanding actually what those scriptures really meant and realizing that the way they were using them wasn't accurate, it it freed me up to new beliefs. Now, I got my tattoos, right? I got four tattoos over time. And when I got my after I got my tattoos, I no longer had the belief that my tattoos were a sin, but I held different beliefs about how they actually do the tattoos. There was there's no evidence or not enough research on how tattoos affect our bodies over time. I would realize that my tattoos would raise at certain points, like that it would be it would be um lifted as if I had just got it. And I've I've had my tattoos for years. And so my beliefs on it being a sin change, however, I adopted new beliefs that maybe they're not the most healthy thing for me, and there's not enough research on the toxins and the things that do actually affect your body. But I ran to get my tattoos once I found out they wanted sin, and I didn't care about the the health implications, I just wanted to prove a point. So you see how, like, when we have those unhealthy beliefs, right? And they can be replaced with healthy ones, how it can inform our decisions very differently. I mean, we can go on and on with examples, and I'm sure you're thinking of your own, you know, examples, and we can go back to, you know, growing up again in toxic or unhelpful religious environments, or even, you know, growing up in a certain marriage environment, or, you know, I still have uncles that will try to take a baby doll out of my son's arms because they think that him carrying a baby doll is all of a sudden gonna mysteriously make him gay. Uh, it's just silly, right? It's just silly things that we pass down from time to time and beliefs that keep us very limited, and beliefs that can really do damage when they're acted upon. Again, can't stress it enough. That's why this is so important. It's so essential to dive deep into these, into our roots because true growth requires nourishment from the deepest part of ourselves. If we only tend to the surface, if we ignore the deeper layers of our beliefs and values, then we miss out on the opportunity to grow into the fullest, most authentic version of ourselves. This is where the deep root watering method can serve as such a beautiful metaphor because just as trees need water to penetrate deep into the soil to encourage strong roots, we need to nourish our inner selves by going deeper. We need to give ourselves the time, attention, and tools to connect with our true beliefs and values. And again, when your beliefs and values aren't rooted, that means that they can be easily uprooted. I know people who beliefs change depending upon who they're dating. Beliefs change depending upon who or you know what setting they're in. All of a sudden they're acting different, they're acting on a new belief because they're around a different person. That's why it's important to be rooted at the core of you. As I mentioned earlier, there's different degrees, right? But your core beliefs shouldn't be changing with the wind. Because then what's really keeping you grounded when those struggles happen, when life's challenges happen, when when you're going through, you know, so many women, right, go through miscarriages and um and people in general go through divorces, and then you have even um people getting married, right? And you're nervous to get married, and people have all these different ideas and beliefs about um a prenup, right? It's it's just like you need to establish your core beliefs so that when you go through these different situations, as I mentioned, miscarriage, marriage, divorce, friendship breakups, or meeting new friends, um, school things, or or even car accidents, right? Seeing someone be killed, like or shot. And you know, just I mean, you can go from the least traumatic thing to the most traumatic thing. And there are stories of people who have been through some of the most traumatic things that have um taught them so many things, but what is it at the core of you that's gonna keep you rooted and influence how you respond to life and life challenges? I say that because you never know what's going to happen. We don't know what life is going to bring us. And sometimes we think, oh, I'm gonna respond, or I got it, or I or I don't got it, right? It's like you don't really know, but you can prepare yourself in the interim through reflection, through introspection, through digging deeper, to understand through understanding your beliefs and values. You don't have to keep wasting your time watering the surface level parts of you, putting on them again the makeup, the clothes, the cologne, the perfume, the shoes, the Jordans, the jewelry, the the career, the car, the house, the girlfriend, the boyfriend, the spouse, the the best friend, the the social media, the TikTok, the whatever it is. Like you don't have to just keep watering the surface of you because in the interim time while you have while life is sweet and good and or at least decent, that's the times that you should be taking advantage of watering the depths of you so that when the wind blows, you don't topple over. You ever seen certain states who know they get hurricanes or know they get these tropical storms or strong winds? You ever seen the trees? How deeply rooted the trees are, them trees will bend left. I watched trees at Clark Atlanta. Them trees bent left, they bent right, but they did not come out of that route. Why? Because they grounded them, they prepared them in such a way for an environment where they know that strong winds and storms were likely to happen. That is how you and I need to be, because life happens. We cannot control so much of life, but then there are the things that we can control like our growth, our health, our emotional, spiritual, mental, physical health, our beliefs, our values, right? Again, a lot of them come to us, right? But by examining what they are, there are aspects that we can control and refine and tease out and learn over time. I hope this is helping y'all. It's so good to me that I really hope that you're getting something from it. You know, we talked about um renovating the soul. And in season one, I talked about specifically our renovation and building you know what it's like to renovate a home. And so as I was thinking about this, it really didn't hit me till I sat down to record and I was thinking about how you when you are building a house, what is a house made out of wood. And what is wood from trees, and so even when we're looking at this idea of renovating our soul, our foundation, what what the type of wood we use, right? The the the house itself is made out of wood. Obviously, you know the outside can have brick, and but the inside structures of that house is wood. If you built the house on uh, I don't know, materials, rubber, is that a good one? I'm by myself asking myself, is rubber a good one? I'm gonna go with rubber because I don't think that rubber is as strong as wood. And hopefully I'm right. But if you if you you guys understand what I'm saying, like if you built your house on even glass, glass is easily shattered. There's a reason why we are still using trees and wood to build, you know, not just houses, but cabinets and drawers and desks and and things, so many things come from wood. Why? Because it can withstand, it can go through some things. My husband and I were thinking about moving to Arkansas, and uh we have some friends there that have own a real estate company and they build houses. And so when we're talking to them about potentially building a house out there, they told us they said, you know, you can't, we we typically don't do two-story houses out here in Arkansas. And I said, Oh, why? They said, Because of the tornadoes. They're already preparing that house now to not be a house of two stories because they know that the environment is conducive of having tornadoes. They know that tornadoes are so likely to happen in that area. That why would I set us up for failure with two a two-story house? And instead, we build these one-story houses because we found that they are safer and that they can withstand our strong storms. Now, there's can be an argument made of why move there in the first place, and we're not going there, we're just gonna stick with the analogy, y'all. Just rock with me. Sometimes I can feel like I hear, and maybe it's just me. Sometimes I feel like I hear the other side, which I do often. I try to look at both sides when somebody, and I just feel like I hear somebody like, yeah, but you could also just not move there, like you can also just not go to Arkansas, and to that I say, you right, friend. I 100% agree. So let me end this by giving you all just like a few practical ways that you can start to dig deeper. I did mention earlier journaling, and I I use it as like a like a thing to do, but when I say journaling, I really just mean writing, like I don't want to make it a thing. It it's just all I'm saying is you can write, you can type on your phone, you can get a post-it sticky note, you can type on your computer, um, and you can start by just writing down your thoughts and reflecting on your beliefs. You can ask yourself questions like what core values drive my decisions, or what beliefs do I hold that I've never truly examined? In my coaching session, my coach often asked me, she she I've been with her for two years, I think. Almost actually, I think I've been with her longer. I think where I've been with her for um since my since my grandfather passed away, so it was like three years. And one of the questions that she asked me that stumped me when she asked me was, What core value does this trample on? And when she asked me, I was like, what are values in my mind? I had to Google it. I was like, what are values? Because I didn't really know what my values were. I couldn't think of what what are my values, like what are values? And so I so in from our coaching sessions, I have become more in tune with what my values are and what my core values are. And she'll ask, what is at the what is at the core of this for you? Why does this matter so much? And so you can take one situation as I do in my coaching sessions with her. You don't have to take many, but you can take one one thing in your life that has happened, past or present, and ask yourself, what core value does this trample on? And Google core Google what values are. Google some ideas and values like I did and look through them and get to know them and understand them. And over time you'll begin to develop and understand. And I'm faster, I'm faster at saying it. I feel like I'm limited in my still in the values that I I know I know what my core core values are, and then I feel like I'm still learning what my other values are. Um, and so it it does take time, but that's a way that you can start, right? What what are what core values drive my decisions or what beliefs do I hold that I've never truly examined? Um I think the easiest, one of the easiest ways to start again is with a specific situation and then work your way from there. You can also practice, and this is, you know, for people, just to give a name to it, like mindfulness or meditation. And again, I'm not trying to make these ultra deep or weird. It's just helping you to observe your thoughts and your feelings without judgment. And so this just allows you to sit quietly in a space. You can call it whatever you want to call it, you can call it quiet time. It just allows you to sit quietly in a space and really just give your time yourself time. No music, no distractions. If you gotta sit in your car, if you gotta sit in um some office spaces, have those quiet rooms. If you gotta, you know, go somewhere, right? Whatever, or even maybe you're reflective when you're walking around the mall or going for a walk, right? Um, but I I say no music and things like that because you kind of want to look within without relying on the influence of certain emotions at that time. And even when you're talking to someone like a therapist or a coach or psychologist, they can bring up emotions as well, or a friend, even right, or a family member, right? But when you're alone and you have nothing to influence that, it's a little more organic, in my opinion. And so you can sit in a space again, walk, whatever, sit at a park, and you can begin to reflect and just think, just become in tune with what's happening on the inside of you. And then from there, you can write down or voice note what you've experienced or what you thought about or what you've discovered. If you're like me, you might be a little bit of a crab baby. Because coming face to face with some of the things is is challenging and hard. Some of the things that you beliefs that you've been holding on to about other people, I sometimes I think are the hardest ones to have to let go of. Where you believe that someone was going to be further along, or you thought that someone was going to be here and they passed on, or you thought that you were going to have a different type of relationship with someone. We talked about last season grieving relationships. That is not an easy process because you have to directly challenge the beliefs that you've held all those years of the I ideal that you of a relationship that you were supposed to have. And I and I think that's a good example of holding two contradictory beliefs where you believe that this person is capable of doing this, but then you also believe that this relationship is probably not going to go anywhere. And so you're so conflicted. Like, I want this, I think it can happen, I believe it can happen. But then you're also like, but I don't believe that we'll ever get to the place that we're gonna get. And so you have to figure out which one of those is gonna inform your actions. And it creates, it created, I say, I would say for me, this funnel of emotions because I'm fighting with these two contradictory ideas, and I don't know which one is winning. I don't know which one I want to win, but it's causing me to act out, it's causing me to not like this person, it's causing me to to stop speaking to this person for times or give this person the cold, give this person the cold shoulder at one moment, but then you know, be nice to them in the next. And so it's it's challenging. The other thing that you can do is to so that so that was mindfulness, meditation, or like I said, quiet time, sitting still, just again being in tune and digging deeper and then covering some of those beliefs and values that guide your life. And then, as I mentioned, you know, using that notebook journal, paper, post-it note, or voice note to um write it down so you can see it. I'm a firm believer in seeing your thoughts on paper. I love me some pen and paper. Um, seeking diverse perspectives so you expand your worldview by engaging with people who have different experiences or beliefs. You can seek diverse perspectives through reading books or having conversations with other people who challenge your viewpoints. This can help you break free from the surface-level beliefs that may not um truly serve you. And so, y'all know I stress reading books, reading articles, um, reading different opinions other than yours, reading arguments on the other side of yours, um, talking with people who have had different life experiences. That has given me such a great appreciation for um the way I grew up. And and honestly, talking with people, talking to people with different life experiences also created space and room. As we talked about with that cognitive flexibility, it created space and room for me to even appreciate what I did get in the moments of like growing up in church, even though there's a lot of bad, I can also acknowledge that there's a lot of good too. Even though my family had so much drama and so many things, and it was you know negative and all this stuff. I've also from expanding and get seeking these diverse perspectives, I've also been able to appreciate who they've been, who they are, the things I learned, right? And so you don't want to be all, like I said, a ball of just fire, right? You want to find that balance and you want to be able to look at things a little more objectively and know that it wasn't all bad and it wasn't all good. But you can pull from both of those experiences to inform you and how you interact and how you grow and how you see the world. And it'll give you, it can, I should say, give you a different and a better appreciate appreciation for who you are, for how you've made it, or for what you do have. Um, you can do this through coaching, right? You can do it through a mentor, you can do it through a um, like I said, a therapist, psychologist, psychiatrist. You may even have a pastor who you trust, right? One of the things that I am obsessed with is people's stories. I have built so many of my programs and things off of hearing people's stories, creating space for people to share their stories. Um, because I I I keep saying this now that we keep talking about beliefs, but I do believe that everyone has a story, everyone has a journey, and oftentimes we only make space for certain stories or certain journeys, but everyone has something to offer in my personal belief bubble, in my noetic structure. Um, everyone has something to offer. And so I have loved hearing about stories, not necessarily from celebrities and biographies, although I love those and I love history, um, but from my neighbor. I got I have gotten close with my neighbors this past year and have gotten to know them and just love to see their life through them and love to see how different they are. I I just I love it. I have my neighbor across the street comes from a different background than us. My our neighbors next door to us, though Christian, right, are different from us. Our neighbors, a couple houses down, they're different from us. And we've all been able to talk and laugh and get along and find commonalities in our stories, but also celebrate the differences. And it's and it's uh, it just has like opened up so much for me doing that. But like I said, also reading. That's why I'm always giving you guys resources and books because I hope that you would take from them and learn and read and grow. Because from reading one thing, it sparks ideas in you, ideas that you didn't have before, um, beliefs you didn't have before. By right, like it sparks something in you, new ideas, fresh perspectives, creativity. Um, I just just so much can come from it. So those are just a few practical examples that you can do. And so the benefits of looking beyond the surface is that when we take the time to dig deeper into our roots, the transformation can be profound. Much like a tree that grows taller and stronger when its roots are properly nourished, we too can evolve into more authentic, confident versions of ourselves when we examine and nurture our foundational beliefs. By digging deeper into our beliefs, we free ourselves from the limiting beliefs that no longer serve us. We can shed old narratives and embrace new truths that align with our true selves. This process leads to more intentional living, healthier relationships, and greater fulfillment. With deep roots, we're more resilient, y'all. We can handle life's challenges with greater ease because we're anchored in what we truly believe and value. Our personal growth becomes aligned with our authentic self and we begin to create a life that's truly reflective of who we are deep down. So as we close today's episode, I encourage you to think about your own roots. What are the foundational beliefs and values that shape your life? Have you been watering them deeply or have you stayed on the surface? I challenge you to take time to dig deeper, whether through journaling, mindfulness, or seeking new perspectives. Just as deep root watering encourages healthy trees to grow strong and resilient, nurturing your inner roots will help you grow into your most authentic self. So I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences from today's episode. Please share them with me on social media or in the comments. Please like, share, and subscribe. Um, again, you can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube. Share this episode with someone who needs it. Share it with someone who could benefit from it. And thank you all so much for tuning in. And remember that growth begins below the surface. Let's continue nourishing our roots and growing together, and let's keep doing the work to renovate our souls. Bye, y'all.