Breaking the chains of Shadow Beliefs by Bernard O Antwi

Paperback: 83 pages

Language: English

ISBN: 978-0-9558082-7-2

Publisher: Lion Press Limited

Review - Part One

Whilst dreamily reading Playing for Pizza by John Grisham and eagerly awaiting the delivery of Many Rivers by Chris Mlalazi, I received a pleasant surprise through my post box. It was the paperback advice book by Bernard Owusu Antwi called Breaking the chains of Shadow Beliefs.
Once I’d taken out the book from the brown envelope, I instantly liked the cover design – a silhouette (shadow) of a man running and breaking through a link of chains. From the title of the book I immediately had the question – what is a Shadow Belief? This was obviously enough ammunition to turn the pages and begin to read the 83 page book. From a brief overview I discovered that the book is divided into three parts, with an introduction at the beginning. The introduction explains what a Shadow Belief is. Part One looks at the Characteristics of Shadow Beliefs. Antwi outlines 9 characteristics. Just to name a few - Sin, Fear, Pride, Procrastination, Self defeating attitude etc. In Part Two, Antwi outlines 7 consequences of shadow beliefs. Then Part Three, I’m glad to say, is the perfect resolution to his work – 7 Keys to Resolving the Predicament of shadow beliefs.
From my general overview of the book I realised that simply doing a single review of this thoroughly, biblically, researched work would be unfair. Therefore, I decided that a series of reviews of each part of the book would be interesting to do. It then made me think of a previous book that I have reviewed – The Laws of Thinking by Bishop E Bernard Jordan. I will be revisiting that book and reviewing each of the 20 Laws in Bishop Jordan’s work and probably cross reference with Antwi’s work.

What is a Shadow Belief?

Antwi says, and I quote, “Shadow beliefs are the unconscious negative thoughts in our heads that can manipulate our whole lives, decide our abilities, what we can do and what we cannot do and drives our behaviours.”

He says that shadow beliefs are a problem as they seem to cause pain, damage and prevent the progression and success of the individual. Antwi, I believe, is on the right track by making reference to the fact that negative thoughts can have quite a harmful effect on our lives. My understanding is that thoughts as a whole i.e. whether positive or negative have a great impact on the shaping of our personalities - or the shaping of who we are as individuals. The bible clearly states this in Proverbs 23v7 –“For as he thinks in his heart, so is he…” (New King James Version). Therefore we are a sum total of our thoughts. With this in mind, shadow beliefs can be quite destructive. Therefore, Antwi’s calling to help us to erase shadow beliefs from our minds is a great one.

Antwi quotes Napolean Hill as saying “What the mind of a man can conceive and believe, it can achieve”.

This again is true as the bible says this in James 1v13-15 “When tempted no one should say, ‘God is tempting me.’ For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin when it is full grown, gives birth to death”

That scripture is, as Antwi outlines, saying that thoughts when they are conceived, crystallise into actions. The scripture above talks about negative thoughts however, if you have positive thoughts they eventually crystallise into positive things happening in your life. Shadow beliefs crystallise to negative and painful things happening in your life.
In the midst of these powerful truths that Antwi was sharing I was struck by the following statement that Antwi made: “Beliefs are more powerful than thoughts”
My first question was - are they? Then I looked at Napoleon Hill’s statement which seems to contradict Antwi’s statement. Hill says conceive, believe then achieve. There seems to be some sort of order there i.e. conceive is birthed from thoughts, then believing precedes the action. Anyway, who is to say that Napoleon Hill is the authority on these things? So let us look at the English dictionary:

Belief: something that is accepted as true
Thought: an idea, a consideration

Just from those definitions alone, before you have accepted something as true, you have first been presented with the idea or the concept of it. Therefore thoughts have a direct influence on beliefs. My question was then should the statement not be – thoughts are more powerful than beliefs?

As I looked through the bible searching for scriptures, what Antwi meant dawned on me. Antwi is right when you look at it from a different perspective. I realised that we may have many thoughts that run through our minds however, the only ones that have an impact on our lives are the ones that we brood on, conceive and then become a part of the battery of our beliefs. Until a thought is conceived, it just remains a thought that can evaporate, disappear and have no impact on our lives whatsoever.

Therefore, yes, beliefs are more powerful (influential) than just mere thoughts that can evaporate. However, it must be realised that beliefs were once mere thoughts. Thoughts are the culprits of the shadow beliefs that Antwi talks about. So to get rid of a shadow belief you are going to have to get rid of the original negative thoughts that were conceived to become a part of the belief system. In the bible Romans 12v2 says, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…” In other words – change your thoughts – change your thinking to positive and you will transform your life!

The subtitle of Antwi’s book is – Discover What Stops Your Progress. In the current climate where people all over the world are experiencing financial hardship, affected by wars and rumours of wars, affected by natural disasters and planes falling out of skies – it is refreshing to hear a word from someone to help you to get out of the rut, progress forward and live a victorious life.

I will discover Antwi’s teachings as I go through page by page, review by review.
In my next review we will look at the first instalment of Antwi’s characteristics of Shadow Beliefs – Sin and Fear. I look forward to sharing it.