What you believe depends on your values, beliefs, life experience. Your beliefs come from where you get your information from, your confidence, social and community beliefs and – to some extent – what you want to believe.
Two examples I can think of where my understanding, and what I believed, were changed:-
First – when we fostered, and I started working for a domestic abuse charity, I was exposed to the darker side of life. Prior to these experiences, I hadn’t wanted to believe that humans could do such horrific things to adults and children. But I bore witness to the consequences to some human actions, time and time again. I understand things a lot differently now and it isn’t always pleasant. I see things that others maybe won’t see. I believe that things are possible, where others may not be able to believe such things. It’s impacted (positively and negatively) on my parenting, relationships, life choices and to some extent at times I lose trust in the human race.
Secondly, the other one is mirrors and weighing scales. I have two mirrors and two weighing scales. Both mirrors and both weighing scales offer two different perceptions and readings. In one mirror, I look taller and slimmer. In the other mirror, I look shorter and wide. One weighing scales displays different weights every time it is stepped on, and the other is consistent with its readings. So which one do I go with? I choose to go with the consistent one, because that makes more sense to me than a scale that jumps 2lb in a split second. It has changed how I look at my body and my body confidence – now I can challenge what I see and what I believe.
These two different life situations offering different learning experiences, teaching about choice, reality and influence how I look at myself. I can learn more about my beliefs, the world, my choices. I can understand my future, my present and my past. No one knows how I physically or emotionally experienced any of my life experiences, nor do I know how others have experienced their life. So in the same way, I have no right to judge others, and no one has the right to judge me. What we do have the right is to understand our world, our way.