Beliefs & Thoughts: Understanding the Inner Landscape
How beliefs and repetitive thought patterns shape our experience — and how creating space in the mind restores choice and clarity.
Beliefs are thoughts repeated over time, not absolute truths. Learning to observe thought patterns creates space, flexibility, and tolerance.
Beliefs: Useful, Not True
Every belief we hold is a form of cognitive bias. Beliefs are not truths; they are patterns that were once useful to the brain.
When we assume our beliefs are true, the nervous system often reacts defensively to those who think differently. In this way, prejudice is woven into our neural biology. Awareness of our biases is the first step toward tolerance — and with practice, toward acceptance of difference.
This capacity for acceptance is not only relationally healing; it is one of the healthiest things we can do for an over-biased brain and a frayed nervous system.
One of the most common beliefs in the Western world is:
“I am not good enough.”
From a neuroscience perspective, beliefs are simply thoughts repeated again and again.
Thoughts: The Constant Commentary
Much of our human experience is invested in thought, making it essential to learn how to recognise thoughts as events or data arising — not facts.
Discursive thought is the ongoing inner commentary: self-referential, repetitive, often disconnected from intuition. It can feel relentless.
Research suggests:
We think approximately 60–70,000 thoughts per day
Around 90% of today’s thoughts are the same as yesterday’s
Thoughts directly influence body chemistry and physiology
Types of Thought:
Directed Thinking (Aware Thought)
Directed thinking allows us to:
Imagine and mentally rehearse new possibilities, a super power
Solve problems using memory and reasoning
Explore potential actions without enacting them
Undirected Thinking (Unconscious Thought)
Undirected thinking is more automatic and includes:
Repetitive, habitual patterns
Fleeting fragments that appear and disappear
Intuitive and creative processes
Learning to notice which mode is active builds choice.
Creating the Gap
One of the most powerful mental fitness skills is creating a pause in thought — a brief interruption in the stream of mental data.
Simple observation weakens conditioned responses, enhances frontal lobe activity, and gradually clears old mental residue.
Our habits are strong. The discipline to interrupt them must be equally strong — and equally kind.
Mind: The Brain in Action
The mind is the brain in action. It drives the human condition.
In 1986, Richard Neville wrote that “we are locked in a race between self-destruction and self-discovery,” recognising that understanding ourselves was the only path out of suffering — and that science carried this responsibility.
Today, neuroscience and biology offer us the understanding needed to address anger, alienation, and destructive behaviour at their roots.
We are no longer destined to be driven by raw instinct alone. Behaviour that harms self or others is increasingly understood as a sign of dysregulated nervous system function — and it can be addressed as such.
Acknowledgements
Mental Fitness is grounded in contemporary neuroscience, behavioural medicine, and the framework of Mentalization, developed by Professors Anthony Bateman and Peter Fonagy (Anna Freud Centre, London; free copyright granted 2015).
This work is also informed by the contributions of Norman Doidge, MD; Ruth Buczynski, PhD (NICABM); Peter Levine, PhD; Stephen Porges, PhD; Deb Dana, LCSW; Dr Sarah McKay (Neuroscience Academy); Dr Jill Bolte Taylor; and academic staff across Melbourne University in Pharmacology, Nursing, Social Work, Mental Health, and Psychiatry.
Special thanks to librarian Glenda Romney for her outstanding support, to my mentor Professor Peter Brooks (Melbourne University) for his continued encouragement and discernment.