No Limits | The Freedom
Blog™
Travels in Turkey- “From a Goddess to a
Belief System"
Written
by Steven Griggs | stevengriggs.com
“We Are What We
Believe We Are”
C.S. Lewis
"You
Only Truly Believe That Which Drives You To Action"
Douglas
Cheney
In ancient times the peoples of the world were pagans, they
believed in many, many Gods.
Some of these Gods originated in Greek myths, Zeus, Apollo,
Athena, Aphrodite etc.
Some of the Gods changed their names when the Romans came
along. For example, Zeus became Jupiter, Athena became Minerva, and Aphrodite
became Venus. One God, Apollo, got to keep his name.
The people of the time believed that everything that happened
to them was the result of one or more gods being upset. They weren't being paid
enough attention to. So the person would sacrifice an animal or donate
something to the offended God to appease him or her and then hopefully things
would go back to normal or at least the bad things that were happening would
stop.
A belief that has carried through from all those years ago is
the evil eye.
The evil eye originated from the myth of the gorgon, Medusa.
Medusa was a beautiful woman with blue eyes and supposedly, hair of snakes. She
had the power to turn anyone who looked at her into stone.
In the Greek myths she was slain by Perseus, who cut off her
head and carried it with him to use against his enemies.
That tradition carried forward in the form of a small Medusa
amulet that people would carry with them to ward off the evil eye.
The evil eye is called this because it refers to anyone who
looks at you in an envious or jealous way. The people believed that envy and
jealousy was evil and could create bad luck for you.
During the Christian times the authorities wanted to
eliminate any connection to the old pagan ways so they made it illegal to carry
the amulet of Medusa.
So eventually the amulet evolved into a blue eye.
If questioned the people would say it was the eye of a fish,
the symbol of Christ. But it wasn't.
Today you can see the evil eye everywhere in Greece and
Turkey.
This ancient story is a reminder of the power of belief. Over
thousands of years people have continued to believe in the power of the evil
eye.
Today many such beliefs have carried over, such as throwing
spilled salt over your left shoulder (to ward off bad luck) covering your mouth
when you yawn (so spirits can't go into your body), etc.
So if we can believe in things that we know aren't real and
don't really have any current relevancy how strong could our own internal,
silent beliefs be?
What do you believe?
As a way to get a glimpse into your beliefs, watch yourself.
Watch how you talk to yourself. Do you hear the comments you make to
yourself?
"I don't really like to socialize, I think I'll just
stay home" "I could never do what he does, he has guts"
"What do I have to offer?"
These are clues into your underlying beliefs. What do you
really believe to have this thought?
Watch yourself, watch how you operate.
The first step to working on your limiting beliefs is to
recognize that you have them. We all do.
Then you begin the work of changing your beliefs.
In the meantime it still wouldn't hurt to have an evil eye
hanging around.
www.stevengriggs.com
