Think outside the box! It’s easy to say, but hard to do. The trouble is that it’s difficult to identify the beliefs and assumptions that box you in.
Our view of the world is built on so many assumptions that it’s impossible to be aware of (let alone question) all of them. In the book The Collapse of Belief, Kurt and Barbara Hanks give strategies for identifying beliefs that aren’t working — and for rebuilding a new belief system if your defining beliefs collapse. Through humorous images, amusing anecdotes, and visual metaphors, they illustrate how people’s beliefs affect and are affected by their relationships as well. For example, the way people’s beliefs shape their perspective is described as a “belief window”.
The ideas in this book were, in part, inspired by Kurt and Barbara’s experience questioning (and ultimately rejecting) the truth claims of Mormonism — and navigating this transition in their lives. However, the beauty is that the insights they gained can be applied to all sorts of belief structures, including social, political, relational, financial, and more.
If you’re going through a belief transition or if you’re dealing with conflicting-paradigm problems in your relationships, I recommend this book as a good source of ideas on how to rethink your situation. Even if you’re not, it’s a quick, fun read that you might want to read anyway, and it might give you some ideas on how to identify a box you didn’t even know you were in!
Looks like a really good book.