Viewpoints of Experience:

A Multidimensional Meta-Map
Lion Goodman
The BeliefCloset Process

The BeliefCloset Process™ is a practical and potent methodology for

eliminating negative and limiting beliefs at their core. Its efficacy is based
on the multidimensional and multi-sensory approach used to fully
experience the effect and impact of each belief examined.

Most of our beliefs are indoctrinated into us. Others are conclusions we
come to, based on our repeated experiences.

Beneath every belief is an experience or series of experiences that led to

the belief. Most often, the experience is an uncomfortable or painful
experience. The individual naturally wants to stop or avoid the disomfort.
For example, the experience of “not knowing” why something is happening
is extremely uncomfortable. Not knowing the answer to a teacher’s
question in school is similarly uncomfortable. Taking on a belief is a way to
settle the discomfort.

When the discomfort is in the past, a child will “explain” the discomfort by
believing something. For example, the child in school will say to himself
“I’m stupid” in order to explain a series of shameful experiences. When the
discomfort is in not knowing the future, such as a child whose parent is an
alcoholic, a belief will settle the discomfort. For example, “I have to be
quiet so Dad doesn’t get upset and hit me.”

This is the basis of most learning, from a child’s desire to read books, to
the extreme example of a prisoner being tortured with mind control
techniques. Something unpleasant is felt, which causes a drive to figure
out what to do to stop the unpleasant feeling.

In order to clear a belief from the psyche, we must understand the nature
and structure of experience itself. Beliefs are a basic component of human
consciousness. At its most fundamental level, it is the mechanism by which
beings create experiences. Beliefs are the alphabet we use to create the
language of our experience. This article explains how human experience
may be looked at from many different viewpoints, and it identifies the
numerous viewpoints utilized in the BeliefCloset Process to dis-create
beliefs at their core.

Every human experience is infinitely complex and multidimensional. It is

difficult to talk about, and impossible to describe completely. As soon as we
discuss it, we immediately limit its infinite richness. Language itself is a
limitation device. When we describe something to another person, we
utilize the simplest signs possible to communicate it effectively.

"In science, one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood

by everyone, something that no one ever knew before.
But in poetry, it's the exact opposite."
-- Paul Dirac, British physicist

In the diagram on the last page, Viewpoints of Experience, each colored

sphere represents a different view of experience. Each view provides a lens
to look through, a way to understand it, a language with which to discuss it,
and an explanation of how it fits into the rest of the world. It also provides a
basis for different kinds of healing. Any view we take of human experience,
and any description of it, will be a limited view by necessity. [To test this
theory, try to provide a complete description of any experience, leaving
nothing out.]

Many maps have been created to describe the realm of human experience,
but as Carl Jung pointed out, the map is not the territory. Maps are useful,
but their usefulness depends on three things:

1. Is the scale of the map useful for your purpose? Can you see both where you
are now and where you are going? A world map would not help you find the
small town in which your college roommate lives.
2. Can you find your current location on the map? If you don’t know where you are,
it doesn’t matter whether you know where you’re going.
3. Does the map describe features that are relevant to your needs? A geologic
map that provides exquisite detail of underground strata will not be of use to find
a city street.

The Multidimensional Meta-Map is a map of maps. That is, it describes

the many different types of maps that could be useful in examining the
realm of human experience. If you change the map you’re looking at (or
through), you can discover new resources, abilities, locations and
opportunities you weren’t aware of. A map of nearby restaurants is more
useful than wandering about looking for food.
In The BeliefCloset Process, we work with the foundational structure of
consciousness at the core of human experience. We refer to these building
blocks as beliefs. Our thesis is that our beliefs create our reality. More
accurately: Our beliefs act as lenses through which we see the world. This
viewpoint acts as a filter, creating our particular experiential reality. Each
lens, each belief, colors our experience in such a way that the world looks,
feels, and smells like our beliefs. We experience it as real. It looks and
feels like a direct experience of what is happening around us, but it is
actually a colored view.

Because of this, beliefs are generally self-verifying. Our experience usually

conforms to what we believe because we look through what we believe.
Our experience of our belief-colored world confirms that our beliefs are true
and right. If I look through the lens “Life is hard,” what I see are all the
difficulties, which verifies the belief.

This belief mechanism is basic to our survival. If we believe our elders, we

have a greater chance of surviving into adulthood. If our parent says, “Don’t
eat that mushroom or you’ll die,” and we don’t eat it, we are more likely to
survive. This mechanism makes us look and feel like those around us. We
belong to the troop, and will not be pushed out to die a lonely death. We
feel safe when we are like those around us. This is why we rarely question
our own beliefs. We have mirror neurons in our brain – specialized neurons
that allow us to mirror, or mimic, inside of us what we see outside of us.
They are the basis for empathy, our ability to feel what others feel. Infants
use these brain circuits to become like their parents.

Beliefs are the Lego blocks with which we build our internal map of the
world. The term “belief” is most often used to describe an intellectual
artifact: “an idea or description that a person considers to be true.” In the
BeliefCloset Process, the term is used differently. In our view of beliefs as
foundational to our construction of reality, beliefs are the alphabet we use to
construct the language of our experience.

Another way to think about this is that like a computer, we have hardware
(the brain/body), software (our thinking/feeling apparatus), and an Operating
System that allows our software to run on our hardware. The beliefs we
have accumulated make up our Human Operating System. Most of us are
walking around with a decades-old Operating System that hasn’t been
updated in a long time. This is why new programs, new ideas, and new
experiences don’t work very well when we try to run them.
We begin accumulating beliefs (our interpretations of the world) while still in
the womb. Some posit that we bring beliefs into this life from our past lives.
Most of our fundamental beliefs about ourselves and the world are formed
(or indoctrinated) before we have language. Consequently, they are pre-
verbal, that is, experiential rather than intellectual.

Once we become language-based beings, in the second and third year of

life, we begin to see the world through words. A dog becomes “dog”
because we have learned to call those animals that name. Prior to having
the word “dog,” our experience was something like big-furry-soft-scary-
moving-licking-knocked-over-crying-person. Language is a belief structure
of its own, and we cannot help but see the world through that structure.
Once we have language to describe the world, we become separated from
our direct experience of the world. We learn to label the world, and once
labeled, it is difficult or impossible to have an experience without
immediately labeling it. Once labeled, it is no longer direct experience.

What we’re pointing to is the core experience of a living infant who is doing
his or her best to be safe, be taken care of by Mommy and Daddy, to feel
loved, and to understand the world. Experience happens, and some
experiences feel bad. Mommy leaves for a while and we panic. Brother
drops us on the floor and we hurt. Sister puts clothes on us and calls us
baby names. Father is there at times, and absent at others. The infant
mind attempts to put this chaos into order – one of our earliest survival
instincts. Beliefs about the world accumulate. The experiences are
repeated, and they verify that our conclusions are correct. We create our
own internal map of the world. This is the core of what we refer to as
“beliefs.” Once language enters into our world, we begin to put our beliefs
into word-based intellectual concepts. “Mommy loves me.” “Sister is good.”
“Brother hates me.” “Daddy is not here.”

The Views

This is not an exhaustive list, but a good sampling of different points of view
about experience:

The Psychological View, for example, sees a person’s experience as a

psychological pattern of thought and behavior, which is based primarily on
the person’s past experience. A psychologist spends time listening to a
person’s story, and how he or she describes their past or present, with an
aim to clear out past misinterpretations or traumas, giving the individual
more personal power in the world. This territory is described in detail in the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
The Emotional View identifies a person’s emotional state, using “feelings”
words such as sadness, anger, joy, grief, etc. It is a description of particular
emotional states, which are rushes of energy and sensation in the body.
Most emotions, when felt fully, are temporary states which pass through us
like a storm or wave. When emotional states are suppressed, ignored, or
resisted, they persist, waiting for the opportunity to express themselves fully.
The willingness to feel one’s feelings is key to allowing them to move
through us. This is why feelings are used in The BeliefCloset Process as a
key to experiencing and eliminating beliefs.

The Body View is useful for healers of the body, such as massage or
bioenergetic therapists, physicians, and chiropractors. It looks at a
person’s pain as a set of signals showing that there is something out of
balance that needs to be fixed or repaired. Fixed or negative patterns
(limitations in movement, posture, digestion, cellular function, organ
function, etc.) can be changed by physically altering, pressing, or moving
the physical body. In some cases, surgical or chemical interventions are
needed to “right” the out-of-balance system. Because beliefs manifest in
the physical body (see The Biology of Beliefs by Bruce Lipton), physical
interventions are often needed. However, fixing the outward manifestation
of a belief will not fix the belief that created the physical symptom.

The Energetic View is useful to acupuncturists, EFT practitioners, chakra

healers, and others. It sees a flow of energy (and blockages of flow)
throughout the body as the central issue, and utilizes interventions such as
tapping, kneading, needling acupuncture points, or bioenergetic exercises in
order to balance or clear the flow of energy. A healthy person from this
viewpoint is a person with easy, balanced flow through all of the energetic
systems of the body. If beliefs are the core creation mechanism, an outer
intervention alone would similarly not correct the false internal belief, and
the symptom would continue to come back. Note that any intervention
that actually reaches the core belief and transforms it would, in fact,
cure the problem permanently, whether it is doing so at the energetic,
body, or emotional level.

The Parts View, shared by practitioners of Voice Dialogue, Internal Family

Systems, Psychosynthesis and others, is a view of the Self as a collection of
inner voices, sub-personalities, or identities. Each Part (such as the Inner
Child, the Critic, the Protector, the Inner Parent) has its own beliefs,
strategies, opinions, and repeated patterns. By getting to know each part’s
needs and point of view, one can shift the relationship between the True
Self and that part. From the BeliefCloset point of view, a Part is a set of
beliefs surrounded by identity, or agency. Through a conscious dialogue, it
can be re-purposed, or given a new job within the structure of the Self, so
that it no longer causes the core experience (such as an inner critical voice).
Essentially, we are changing the beliefs of the Part, and thus changing the
reality produced by those beliefs.

The Experiential View does not have any associated word-based

description. The infant’s experience of the world is like this, purely
experiential and pre-verbal. It is a completely unique personal and multi-
dimensional happening. After we mature, we can return to that state,
although it is now different. Many types of meditation, such as Vipassana
and Zen, aim at this type of stream-of-consciousness experiencing. The
mental processes of analyzing, labeling, judging, criticizing, and comparing
cease. It is called Samadhi, Kensho, At-one-ment, and many other names
in different disciplines. It is direct and beyond words, so it is impossible to
describe or speak about. Emotional trauma release, whether it occurs
through therapy or the BeliefCloset Process, is this kind of re-experiencing
of a remembered experience – direct, without the mediation of mental
processes.

The Historic View is the story an individual tells himself to describe how he
came to be and do what he is and does. It is an interpretation of his life
experience that explains or justifies his decisions, experiences, values, etc.
Psychotherapists will have their own interpretive story about their client, and
friends will have another. We are story-telling and myth-making animals.
We want to explain the crazy complexities of the world, so the story view is
understandable. History is his story. We connect ourselves to the past and
draw inferences. Journaling and memoirs are used to articulate the story of
the Self. In the BeliefCloset Process, we acknowledge that we have stories,
but do not use them because it is the long way around. We prefer to get to
the core experiences and work with the beliefs directly. When a person has
a new belief, they will begin to construct a different story.

The Karmic View is similar to The Historic View, but stretches back beyond
this life to previous lifetimes. Karma means “balance.” The main idea is
that the Universe seeks balance, and if you caused pain in a previous life,
you will experience pain in some future life so that you learn the lesson and
balance the books. What you do in this lifetime also affects your future
lifetimes. Those who can “read your past lives” claim to have this point of
view, and advanced astrologers can see karmic patterns in your astrological
chart. In the Advanced BeliefCloset Process, it is possible to look at Karmic
patterns of beliefs and clear them throughout all lifetimes. If it is true that
the soul carries beliefs from lifetime to lifetime, it should be possible to dis-
create the beliefs backward through one’s karmic history and forward into
one’s karmic future. This is considered an area of exploration and
experimental research in the BeliefCloset Process. We do not hold specific
beliefs about this topic.

The Cosmic View is a transpersonal view from outside and beyond our
limited human viewpoint. We have chosen to believe that Consciousness
exists throughout the Universe, and that all Consciousness is connected.
Thus, we should theoretically be able to view any reality from any point of
view, regardless of whether it is a “human” point of view or not. Shamanism
is an ancient practice of moving one’s consciousness into other realms and
experiencing reality from a very non-human point of view. In Buddhism,
there are many methods for achievement of expanded states of awareness.
It is possible that “channels,” people who claim to be channels for beings of
other dimensions or worlds, are tapping into some kind of Universal
Consciousness which we are merely a part of. It is also possible that
experiences of “God Consciousness,” “Christ Consciousness,” and
“Ascended Masters,” all of which have been discussed for hundreds of
years, are possible. If they are possible for one person to experience, they
are possible for anyone to experience. Again, we have no specific beliefs
about this, but point to it as an area for exploration and experimentation.

The Linguistic System View interprets experience through word-

descriptions. NeuroLinguistic Programming (NLP) is mostly a word-based
approach, focusing on changing the interpretations of the past through
rational thought and mind-changing tools. This makes sense because we
are language-using animals. One of Lion’s earliest studies in college was
Descriptive Psychology, a useful map and formulation which could be
used to create complete descriptions of human behavior, persons,
language, and reality, leaving nothing out.

The BeliefCloset View is a multidimensional and multi-sensory viewpoint of

experience utilized during The BeliefCloset Process, a methodology that
utilizes the Imaginal Realm to get in touch with subconscious beliefs. Using
the metaphor of a closet, in which all beliefs are displayed to the conscious
mind as outfits of clothing, a particular belief is seen in the Imaginal Mirror
as a Belief-Outfit that can be taken off, discarded, or dealt with in other
ways. It is a way of making what is unconscious conscious, and working at
the deepest levels of consciousness to eliminate beliefs that are no longer
needed, or that interfere with happiness, relationships, or a productive life.

The World-Centric View includes all past and present repetitions of the
belief-experience throughout the history of all sentient beings. It is a useful
view to take during Collective Belief Discreations in which each person
eliminates their particular version of a commonly-held belief. This is an act
of service on behalf of all sentient beings, awakening of all sentient beings.

Summary

Returning to the computer metaphor, we see the world through our Human
Operating System – the beliefs we accumulated during our youth. We make
adjustments from time to time as we age, but our old Operating System is
still running in the background. We don’t experience reality, we experience
our interpretation of reality through the lenses we’ve accumulated. When
we communicate with another person, we speak through our interpretation
layer. The other person hears what we have to say through their
interpretation layer. They respond to what they thought they heard, and
they respond, which we hear through our interpretation layer. “That isn’t
what I meant!” Is it any wonder that communication goes so wrong so
often?

Those who believe in the “Law of Attraction” learn that our repeated
thoughts create a “vibration” that attracts specific experiences to us. If this
theory has any basis in fact, our old beliefs, which operate like tiny reality-
creating machines, continue to operate in the background, attracting specific
circumstances and experiences to us. Regardless of how many affirmations
we attempt to lay on top of the old beliefs, the old beliefs keep operating,
and keep attracting the same kind of experiences. Change your beliefs,
change your interpretation, change the machinery, and change your
circumstances. It all works together.

The Ecosystem of beliefs also needs to be considered. We operate in the

world through our belief filter, but the world around us has its own belief
structure to consider. There are family beliefs, group beliefs, community
beliefs, religious beliefs, political beliefs, cultural beliefs, government and
country beliefs, and marketing-induced beliefs, all operating at the same
time, competing for your attention, attempting to control some aspect of your
reality. These widely-held beliefs are sometimes called “memes.”

The Clean-up campaign begins with you and your own personal beliefs, but
extends throughout all these other belief systems to the collective, which is
an accumulated result of all individual and group beliefs that make up our
culture. It’s a rich mixture. The more we understand that beliefs create our
reality, and that beliefs can be tried on and changed, the more compassion
we will have for others, and more peaceful our world will be.
In The BeliefCloset Process, the following viewpoints are used to
remember, experience, feel, describe, and sense a belief:

 Body View  Karmic View

 Emotional View  Historical View
 Psychological View  Linguistic View
 Parts View  Energetic View
 Experiential View  BeliefCloset View

In Collective Belief Work, an advanced form of The BeliefCloset Process,

two additional viewpoints are utilized as well:

 World-centric View  Cosmic View

The reason that The BeliefCloset Process is so effective at eliminating

beliefs from the psyche is because every belief creates effects in all of these
human systems. A one-viewpoint approach is like chopping a weed off at
the surface, leaving the root. The BeliefCloset Process gets to the root of a
particular belief. For a particular person, one aspect may prove more
powerful than another, so by using the multidimensional approach, we
always can get underneath the belief where it was planted initially. The
process works regardless of the type of person, their orientation to the
world, their intellectual prowess, emotional intelligence, level of education,
cultural background, or physical age.

For additional information about The BeliefCloset Process, visit

www.BeliefCloset.com.

Entire Contents © 2010 by Lion Goodman.

Do not distribute or reproduce without express written permission.
 Viewpoints of Experience
The Meta-Map
Cosmic/Mystical View: Trans-
personal view from outside
Body View: A physical human nature or viewpoint.
sensation or fixed pattern Emotional View: An
in the body. emotional feeling such as
sadness, anger, joy, etc.

Energetic View: The flow

of energy (or blockage of Psychological View: A
flow) through the body. psychological pattern of
thought or behavior.

BeliefCloset View: A belief-

outfit as seen in the Imaginal The Experiential
Mirror during the BCP. Belief Matrix: Parts View: Inner voices, sub-
An Infinitely Complex, personalities, or identities with
Multidimensional their own beliefs, strategies, etc.
Human Experience,
generated by a Belief.

Linguistic Systems View:

Interpretation through words
and concepts. Experiential View: A
completely unique experience,
impossible to put into words.

Historical View: All past

repetitions of the experience
throughout this lifetime.

World-centric or Collective
View: All past, all present,
all beings’ experience.
Karmic View: All past repetitions
of the experience or belief
throughout all of one’s past lives.

Intellectual/Logical View: Beliefs

are conclusions or delusions that
can be logically taken apart.

Viewpoints of Experience: A Multidimensional Meta-Map

© 2010 by Lion Goodman