Beliefs are psychological constructs developed early in our formative years.
They are the foundational roadmap of our journey that leads us to all of the same places.
For your beliefs will determine your thoughts moment by moment and this leads to similar feelings and behaviors.
Each one of us holds core beliefs about ourself,
Others,
And the world.
If you hold positive,
Empowering core beliefs,
Your thoughts are positive,
Encouraging,
And confident.
How would you feel each time you think I am beautiful,
I am abundant,
I am pure love?
If you had moments in which you didn't feel beautiful because you were tired or unwell,
And some days not as positive as you usually are,
At your core you can still believe that you are beautiful,
Abundant,
And love.
We can choose to rewrite any of the beliefs we were taught through our earliest conditioning.
We can rewrite and lay new neuropathways in the brain that are truly what we know and believe and this will help engage the mind in its ever-present thinking to experience positive,
Uplifting,
And success-orientated thoughts that wield confidence in how you feel and in the choices you make.
Beliefs are not always so easy to identify.
We have internalized our beliefs as a part of our reality.
To pinpoint what belief causes you to doubt yourself when you've had many positive and validating experiences in your life and many accomplishments can be a mystery.
Or why you feel extreme anxiety each time you speak publicly when you are extroverted and you love being the life of the party in other situations.
Or to think that you're not good enough as a partner in your love relationship when you truly are kind and thoughtful,
Even-tempered,
And loving.
These beliefs come from somewhere and they have made a home deep within you,
Even though it caused you to suffer,
To doubt your abilities and yourself,
And to be afraid.
The sneaky thing about core beliefs is that we don't often realize they are a part of us because they have been with us so long and are so well ingrained.
The work of eradicating a negative core belief,
An untrue belief,
Is something most people never truly get to experience unless they are doing this work inside a session of cognitive behavioral therapy.
And even then,
You need a diligent follow-up practice of recording evidence for what new core beliefs you are setting in place so that these become the new ingrained and learned beliefs that you will carry forward for the rest of your life.
While core beliefs are typically developed in your early formative years,
They can also show up as a result of life experiences at a later time that are so impactful and often traumatic that they can cause you to believe something other than what is true.
For my client Cassie,
Who was naturally curious,
The experience of condescending remarks made by her third grade teacher when she would ask questions in class taught her very quickly that asking questions was unsafe and that the result would be feeling uncomfortable and thinking that she was stupid.
Fast forward to her first part-time job at age 13,
Cassie worked at a riding stable helping with the horses and cleaning out their stalls.
Cassie was exposed to a boss who had an intolerance for questions and would become agitated and diminishing in a critical voice frequently and not only towards Cassie.
It was here that she encountered ridicule and scolding when all she wanted was to excitedly learn more.
Cassie remembers her boss telling her not to ask questions because she didn't need to know so much.
Cassie felt defeated.
She learned how to learn by watching others and going online for the answers that she was in search of.
Curiosity is a beautiful thing.
It lends us to discovering so much of what we don't yet know and it opens us to the possibility of alternative paths and the tools for how we will approach life.
Cassie learned from these earlier life experiences.
They were an example of life lessons well learned that were far from kind and loving and supportive.
They were lessons not too unlike what we learn by what we are shown and told through observing others and through the repetition of our lived experiences.
The experiences of our roadmap might seem random and yet when you follow the trail back in time what reveals itself is the journey from where our conditioned learnings began and to what is now a negative or problematic belief.
The learned messages that we glean can cause us to think about ourselves in less than kind ways and these messages can be damaging to our self-esteem and confidence.
This is what happened to Cassie.
It's likely happened to you and it is something thankfully that we can relearn and recover from.
You can teach yourself how to be kind to others how to rewrite a negative core belief that limits you that has proven to be damaging and when you do that belief no longer affects every thought feeling and action that stems from its origin.
Important to know is that we all hold positive core beliefs about ourself.
Examples of these are I'm a good person,
I'm an honest person,
I am compassionate and caring and we all have had experiences which could then become the conditioned messages and teachings that model what we adopt as problematic or negative core beliefs.
The most common of which are I'm not good enough,
I'm unworthy,
I'm unlovable,
I'm stupid.
Cassie and I uncovered one of her negative core beliefs.
It was this if I ask a question then I'll be perceived as stupid.
Another of her negative core beliefs was if I ask questions then the other person will be offended or annoyed.
As she described her struggle to ask questions of someone that she had recently met online and wanted to know better Cassie's adversity to questions made it difficult.
She was fearful that this person might be offended or get angry with her or stop talking to her altogether if she asked questions of them.
It wasn't until she brought up this dilemma in our session that we began the conversation of how her automatic thoughts and her fears were being triggered by a belief that she had internalized much earlier in life and that continued to negatively impact her.
Core beliefs are adopted as early as ages three,
Four and five.
Still we can learn at a time in our development what becomes ingrained as a belief or schema if we are repeatedly exposed to certain patterns of behavior,
Messaging and from what we witness and observe in our environment.
What we uncovered in that single session of therapy has become life-changing for Cassie.
Not only did I help Cassie challenge her problematic core beliefs and give her the tools for how to do this for herself so that she could challenge any negative core beliefs that she may uncover in the future,
Cassie now had the missing pieces to why she had always felt such an inner turmoil when she wanted to ask a question and also how to pose a question that would be clear and concise and to ask it with confidence.
It was these negative and untrue core beliefs that if I ask a question I'll be perceived as stupid and others will get upset with me built upon what Cassie had unfortunately been exposed to that limited her,
That deterred Cassie from asking questions in other situations and settings and that caused her to feel insecure and anxious whenever she thought about the idea of questioning someone or asking a personal question that most others would not think twice about.
If you struggle with a behavior or series of thoughts and you recognize that your action or inaction is limiting you,
Take a look at what your beliefs are about whatever you are struggling with.
When you challenge your belief you will see that it is untrue or mostly untrue causing you to doubt yourself and your abilities.
This holds you back from realizing all of your potential.
You can have a core belief about almost anything.
The question to ask yourself is my belief limiting me?
Is my learned belief causing me emotional discomfort or suffering or an inability to act or limiting me in the way that I want to act and be?
And that's where you and I deep dive as I help you identify the precise limiting belief and then to challenge and change it to what is true and accurate.
The original and problematic core belief that you have unknowingly been living with and that has been ruling your thoughts and how you feel is now extinguished,
Replaced by an accurate and healthy new belief.
What this meant for Cassie was having a space and some assistance with deconstructing her old core belief which had prevented her from communicating and in a way that was concise and clear and important to her.
Cassie did not want to remain afraid to ask the questions that she wanted answers for.
This helped Cassie develop a direct style of communicating.
Before,
When she wanted to ask a question,
Cassie would not be clear nor concise.
Rather,
She would sidestep and somewhat avoid what she was really asking because of her fear of being scolded or made fun of or someone becoming angry with her.
Whilst difficult at times,
Cassie's new behavior of being clear and direct in asking a question was so rewarding.
She learned how to speak her truth,
To ask the important questions that she wanted answers for,
And she felt her confidence build as she felt successful in this new habit and practice.
Cassie had uncovered the Achilles heel of what had always hindered her from having the confidence to ask questions and to become better at clarifying what she wanted to know when in conversation with another.
With her new core beliefs in place,
Something that we also formulated together in that same session,
Cassie would now have the tools for communicating with clarity and confidence.
Now,
And as a part of her ongoing life curriculum,
Cassie would begin to practice this first with the people she could trust,
Who she knew would not diminish her questions or make demeaning or critical comments.
And as she formulated in her mind and in advance what questions she wanted to ask based on knowing what information she needed,
Cassie would learn what it meant to be clear and concise.
When you uncover the problematic core beliefs that hold you back,
And as you rewrite your beliefs,
They in turn affect your moment-by-moment inner dialogue.
Your new,
Accurate core belief will make it easier for you to choose the positive and proactive behaviors that will lead you in the right direction.
Let me help you make the change in what you believe and how you think so that you will no longer be limited by a learned belief that was never honest,
Nor true,
Nor helpful to you.
It's about discovering what has been limiting you from living your authentic self so that you can be unstoppable.
Thank you so much for joining me here.
This is Dorothy Sonora Uchuno.
Namaste.
