Belief Work and Inquiry: When It Finds You
Belief work and inquiry have been circling me lately. Not in a way I planned. Not because I decided it was “time to work on my beliefs.” But in that quieter, more insistent way life sometimes moves.
When my mum recently shared some insights from my astrology chart for the year and said, “Belief work could be helpful,” my internal response was immediate and clear… Ugh. No thanks.
I felt quite clear. Steady. Not particularly stuck but in a period of waiting.
Belief work, in my mind, still carried an old flavour – hard, grindy, heavy. Something you should do, not something you’re drawn toward.
And then, the following week, almost every client I saw brought belief work to the room in some form.
Unexpected. Unforced. Actually… beautiful.
The invitations weren’t resisted. They were welcomed. Even received with relief.
I tentatively mentioned a 30-day belief journalling practice to two clients, not as a prescription, more as a curiosity. Both responses were surprisingly enthusiastic. It gently challenged my own belief that belief work is dull, difficult, or something to push through.
It reminded me of the beauty in it. What I was noticing, both personally and professionally, was how belief work and inquiry often arrive organically… not as techniques, but as invitations.
In this post, I reflect on a few things that feel alive for me right now:
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how belief work can emerge organically (even when we resist it)
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why beliefs don’t always shift through effort or willpower
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how inquiry (including the work of Byron Katie) can be powerful
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when belief work is helpful, and when it may not be the right tool
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why compassion, parts work, and inner safety matter just as much as insight.
When belief work becomes lived, not theoretical
Even in my own counselling session that week, I found myself walking down a familiar internal path – one where I knew what I was supposed to do next, but couldn’t quite take the step.
My mentor gently stopped me. Instead of problem-solving, we paused and worked with a belief that had quietly appeared.
What followed felt… magical. Life-changing, even.
A belief that began as: “I can’t do this.” Softened into: “I can do this.” And then without effort or force, landed as: “I am doing this.”
Alongside it came a phrase almost like a homeopathic tincture, that continues to reverberate through me:
“What I want, wants me.”
Even now, writing that, I feel tears. Not because I’m trying to remember to believe it. Not because I repeat it like a mantra. But because it drops into my body when it’s needed.
Multiple times a day, when I engage with what I want, it appears and my whole experience of the moment shifts. No tension. No striving. No discipline required.
Just a different orientation to life. This is one of the ways belief work and inquiry move from being conceptual ideas into something lived and embodied.
Beliefs don’t shift because we push them
One of my clients recently shared an analogy that stayed with me:
Changing a belief is like learning to bounce a basketball with the other hand.
You don’t do it once and call it done. You repeat it… awkwardly at first, until it becomes familiar.
For some people, that looks like:
writing a new belief again and again
saying it out loud
deliberately feeling into it
consciously practising a new internal response.
For others, it emerges more quietly, through insight, reflection, or experience. What matters is not the method, but whether it works and feels respectful for the person engaging in it.
When beliefs are protective, not just “wrong”
Seven years ago, a friend trained in Psych-K invited me to explore the benefits of holding onto a negative belief. What I discovered was too raw at the time, too vulnerable.
I didn’t complete the work.
That belief still sits quietly in the background of my life. It is less powerful than it once was, but still present. One of the ways I know this is surprisingly ordinary:
I avoid my mailbox.
Every day, I walk past it. I don’t consciously think about why, but there’s a part of me that knows “we” just don’t go there.
That belief has been shaping my behaviour silently, without demanding attention. Only now, as I write this, do I feel a gentle readiness to meet it – not to eliminate it, but to understand how it once protected me, and how it still affects my daily experience.
Imagine being afraid of walking past something every day. Ignoring its existence just so you can keep going!
The missing ingredient in belief work: compassion
Beliefs are not always cognitive errors to be corrected. Many are held by protective parts. Some belong to younger versions of us who needed them to survive.
Without compassion, belief work and inquiry can feel harsh or even invalidating, especially when beliefs are held by protective parts. Before questioning a belief, what’s sometimes needed first is reassurance, gentleness, emotional safety, presence – compassion.
Not rushing past the uncomfortable parts in effort to clear, release or bust the belief. But offering real, genuine compassion first.
This is where parts-based work, inner child awareness, and compassionate counselling approaches matter .
Inquiry is a tool, not a rule
There are many ways to work with beliefs.
Some people resonate with inquiry. Others with cognitive or behavioural approaches. For some, somatic work opens the door. For others, energy-based modalities, repetition and affirmation, or forms of subconscious re-patterning are what allow something to shift.
It would be egotistical and inaccurate to suggest there is one best way.
I’ve had some beliefs shift through a small tweak in thinking, a new perspective or a well-timed reframe or affirmation. Others have softened or cleared through energy-based work. Some bigger, stickier ones have required deeper processes, such as family constellations.
For now, my personal and professional “go-to” is a blend that usually includes:
inquiry inspired by Byron Katie
compassionate key work
parts-based awareness
and, when it naturally arises, a phrase or belief that lands like a homeopathic remedy
The belief I described earlier shifted in about 15 minutes. A week later, it’s still quietly working its magic in the background. For me, that’s a win.
Final thoughts
For me, the value of belief work and inquiry lies in their ability to meet us where we are… not where we think we should be. Belief work doesn’t have to be hard. It doesn’t have to be boring. And it doesn’t have to look the same at every stage of life.
What matters most is finding a way of working with beliefs that:
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feels safe
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feels respectful
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meets the part of you that holds the belief
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and fits where you are right now.
Who knows, I may one day write about repetitive belief writing with genuine curiosity.
Perhaps that’s how belief work really begins.
Meet The Author
Amy Doyle
Amy is a Holistic Counsellor who helps her clients move from this idea that they are broken or missing pieces of their own puzzle, to owning their story, claiming back all parts of themselves and merging together as one team to allow them to rest and be in their deepest expression.
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