Questioning What We Believe: Coming Home to Ourselves Through Belief Exploration
- Alexandra Albert
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
As I write this blog, I’m in my luteal phase, days away from the holiday season and the Sagittarius New Moon; a natural turning inward. Lately, I’ve been sitting with questions rather than answers—wondering why certain traditions feel automatic, noticing which beliefs still feel true, and which ones I may have simply inherited. This reflective stance has opened a deeper inquiry into how beliefs shape who we are, how we relate, and how we move through the world.
Beliefs are rarely neutral. They are formed through family narratives, cultural context, social expectations, personal experiences, the collective unconscious, and inherited meaning systems that become internalized as truths we rarely pause to examine. Some support our well-being, while others quietly limit our capacity to live in alignment with ourselves. Internalized beliefs subtly inform how we interpret ourselves, others, and the world—often beneath conscious awareness (Teemsma, 2025).
From a transpersonal lens, this questioning can be understood through archetypal energies.
Sagittarius, often associated with the Philosopher and the Seeker, symbolizes our innate drive to look beyond the surface of things—to ask why, to seek meaning, and to orient toward a larger truth. Its ruling planet, Jupiter, represents expansion, wisdom, and the search for coherence and purpose.
Together, these archetypes invite us to widen our perspective while staying rooted in inner guidance—an invitation not to abandon what we’ve known, but to come home to what feels true now.
Why Questioning Beliefs Matters in Therapy
In psychotherapy, exploring beliefs is not just an intellectual exercise—it is central to how we come to know ourselves more deeply. Across therapeutic orientations, helping people notice and evaluate their beliefs is a key mechanism of change. Cognitive models, for example, focus on identifying and revising maladaptive thought patterns that contribute to emotional suffering (Grodniewicz, 2024).
Yet therapeutic work often goes deeper than simply changing one belief for another. It involves understanding how beliefs fit within a person’s broader sense of self, relational history, and lived experience. This exploration brings into awareness the assumptions we carry—about ourselves, about relationships, about what is “normal” or “right”—so they can be felt, understood, and thoughtfully engaged rather than unconsciously reenacted (Moorey, 2023).
Psychodynamic therapy extends this inquiry by exploring how early attachment experiences shape our internal expectations about love, safety, and belonging. From this perspective, beliefs are not just ideas we hold, but emotional conclusions we formed in response to our earliest relationships that become encoded in our nervous systems.
Therapy offers a relational space to gently examine these patterns, allowing new meanings to emerge and supporting a deeper sense of emotional freedom and self-trust (Lemma, 2016).
Belief Exploration and Individuation
This process resonates strongly with the psychological concept of individuation—a term often associated with depth psychology and the work of Carl Jung—which describes the lifelong journey of becoming a more integrated, authentic self. Individuation involves differentiating one’s own values, desires, and beliefs from the social and familial systems that initially shaped us. It is a movement away from automatic internalization and toward conscious ownership of inner life.
Therapy can be one of the places where we safely explore these internalized narratives.
Through therapeutic reflection, relational attunement, and ongoing curiosity—sometimes gentle, sometimes challenging—individuals begin to notice not only what they believe, but why they believe it, and whether those beliefs still serve who they are becoming.
This aligns with contemporary research on belief systems in psychotherapy, which acknowledges how multi-layered and context-dependent beliefs are, and how challenging it can be to revise them in meaningful ways. Rather than assuming beliefs are singular or easily replaced, current scholarship understands them as complex and locally adaptive—highlighting the importance of a personalized, relational approach in therapy (Grodniewicz, 2024).
Reflection as a Practice of Identity Formation
As we learn to question what we believe, we open a space for reflection—to notice where beliefs originated, how they shape our reactions and choices, and how they may align (or misalign) with who we want to be. This reflective stance does not demand certainty or quick answers. It asks only for honesty, presence, and a willingness to stay with discomfort, resistance, and the stories that guide us.
In this way, questioning beliefs becomes a practice of coming home to ourselves—not by erasing cultural narratives or dismissing tradition, but by becoming conscious participants in how we interpret and embody our values, relationships, and sense of meaning.
Reflection question:
What belief or internalized narrative feels most alive for you right now—and what might shift if you approached it with gentle curiosity rather than certainty?
Coming Home Through an Integrative Therapeutic Approach
An integrative approach to therapy recognizes that belief exploration does not happen only in the mind. Many of the beliefs we carry live in the body—in patterns of tension, contraction, and protective responses shaped by past experiences. Somatic therapy, paired with mindfulness-based strategies, invites us to slow down and listen to these embodied signals, helping us cultivate a sense of safety within ourselves before asking anything to change.
As we learn to feel more regulated and resourced in our bodies, we become better able to sense what feels true, aligned, and authentic. From this place, belief exploration becomes less about effort or correction, and more about embodiment—allowing our values and inner knowing to be lived, not just understood.
Equally important, this work unfolds in relationship. Therapy offers a relational space where safety, attunement, and trust can be experienced over time. When we feel safe with another, we begin to risk showing up more fully, speaking more honestly, and exploring parts of ourselves that may have once felt too vulnerable or unsafe to name. In this way, therapy supports not only an internal sense of homecoming, but also the possibility of relationships that can hold our truth as it emerges.
Together, integrative, somatic, and depth-oriented approaches invite us to gently come home to ourselves—to inhabit our bodies, values, and relationships with greater presence, care, and authenticity.
For those drawn to this kind of reflective and embodied work, I offer integrative, holistic, experiential, and depth-oriented psychotherapy that supports coming home to yourself—in your body, your relationships, and your inner life.
~ Thank you, merci, miigwetch.
Alex Albert-McCoy, Of The Wild
Alex Albert (she/her) is a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying), Registered Yoga Teacher, and Counselling Astrologer based in North Bay, ON. She weaves together trauma-informed, depth-oriented, experiential, and holistic approaches to walk alongside people on their journey home to their true selves.
References
Grodniewicz, J. P. (2024). Belief revision in psychotherapy. Synthese, 203, 1–22.
Lemma, A. (2016). Introduction to the Practice of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. Wiley-Blackwell.
Moorey, S. (2023). Cognitive therapy and meaning-making in psychotherapy. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 51(4), 385–397.
Teemsma, L. (2025). How internalized beliefs shape mental health. Refresh Therapy NYC.
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