Virginia Hinckley Pearce wrote an insightful book that spells out exactly where we need to explore next. She likened clearing out a cluttered closet to the process we need to undertake in our minds. She learned the value of pulling everything out from each dusty nook and cranny, then separating it all out into piles. Each item must be examined individually then put into one of three piles: keep, toss, or donate. As we do this same process with what is in our minds, we pull out all the “Belief Boxes” and one-by-one decide which of the three piles to place the contents in:
“1. Truth with a capital T,
2. truth with a lowercase t, and
3. Beliefs that are not true at all. This is quite important, because not all of our beliefs are true. Some are actually flat-out lies.
“When we clean out a closet, we examine the things we find on the basis of whether they are useful or whether they have some importance beyond usefulness that would indicate a desire to keep them---some satisfying personal value.
“Similarly, we’ll clean out the Belief Box on the basis of deciding which things in it are true, because only things that are true deserve to be in the precious recesses of our minds and hearts” (Pearce, Through His Eyes...18-19).
She goes on to describe what each pile means. She says the capital T Truths are those that are Eternal. They don’t change and remain true even if we don’t recognize them as such. “The criteria for determining whether a belief can be described as Truth are simple. The belief must pass a test:
Is it true eternally?
Is it true independent of whether people believe it or not” (Pearce, 19).
The lowercase t-truths would be described as “good advice.” They may be more difficult to detect in our belief boxes. One reason that can make them so difficult to catch is that they can rest or hinge on things that actually are eternal Truths. They may have come from parents or family members. We can pick them up from our cultures or those we hold as authority figures.
The funny thing about these t truths is that we can sometimes mix them up and elevate them to be of equal value as a T Truth. “Very often we act out of these truths. Our inner ear often hears them as ‘shoulds.’ These beliefs can get a bit tricky when we use them to interpret and filter incoming data. They are usually more specific, narrow, and limiting than eternal Truths, and if we treat them as if they were eternal Truths, they can wreak havoc with our emotions and behaviors” (Pearce, page 22).
For example, one of these truths I found when I went exploring in my mind was the belief that, “If you arrive later than 15 minutes before an event starts then you are late.” That’s good advice, right? It is respectful to be on time for things and by arriving early then you can avoid any potential delays and be completely settled before the event starts. Well, the troublesome part is that this t-truth was pushing me to get snappy or impatient with my kids. As I watched the clock tick by, I would become more frantic. Suddenly, arriving 15 minutes early was more important that obeying traffic laws or treating my family with kindness. Can you see how these t-truths can cause problems?
The third piles seems like it should be self-explanatory, right? Yet the tricky thing about the lies in our Belief Boxes is that we are unaware of them. We are completely blinded by them; we cannot usually see them right away. We believe them! That is why they are in there! Although once we find them they may even be ridiculous or have no logical backing whatsoever, it important that we go hunting for them because they too contribute to how we feel and why we do what we do. Just like a cluttered closet, they will continue to remain tucked away until we spot them and remove them (Pearce, 27).
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