Intimate moments in a former foster youth's life after foster care, healing generational trauma and becoming a mother.
How to Overcome Negative Core Beliefs to Improve Mental Health
Healing From Trauma
How to Overcome Negative Core Beliefs to Improve Mental Health
Our brains pick and choose which information it accepts. Core beliefs are inflexible beliefs maintained by focusing on info that supports the belief and ignoring evidence that contradicts it. To improve mental health, core beliefs need to be challenged. Find out how!
Healing From Trauma

How to Overcome Negative Core Beliefs to Improve Mental Health

There is a mode a few among us have been living in. A sort of unwritten code etched in our souls that underwrites our hearts, changing the narratives of our core beliefs. For me the change was gradual, having taken place over the course of about two decades. Feeling automatic, all-consuming and as though I would never be able to shake it, survival mode had taken over just about every fiber of my being.

At an early age, I learned not to trust the world around me. If adults were around, chances are they weren’t coherent enough to acknowledge my existence, leaving me to my own devices to navigate the world. This included school (I stopped attending around 1st grade and later dropped out of high school), eating (my diet consisted of stolen candy from the corner store), and basic hygiene. The more I learned to make sense of this world, the more I developed thoughts and ideas about how it worked that would unknowingly become my governing rules.

Core beliefs are strongly held, rigid, inflexible beliefs maintained by focusing on information that supports the belief and ignoring evidence contradicting it. Our brains are so awesome they can literally pick and choose which information it accepts. Simply put, a core belief is quite literally something that over time you’ve come to believe as true, not necessarily because it is but because your own experiences have taught you it is. Core beliefs are only true to you. It becomes the filter you view the world, what guides your behavior, how you see yourself, how you perceive situations, how you relate to others, how you feel and how you fare in life and love.

Typically stemming from childhood, core beliefs are so deep-rooted they tend to feel so deeply entwined in your soul; I imagine that is why they are so resistant to change. Add some trauma to the mix and those core beliefs become even more distorted, especially if this trauma also occurred during childhood. Pain, rejection, and neglect will leave a child viewing themselves as unworthy. I needed my parents to mirror my worth, but they couldn’t and so I failed to see it in myself and this spilled into every area of my life.

I dated men just as aloof as my parents, unknowingly perpetuating the cycle of trauma. It hurt to face it, and so I didn’t. Instead, I distracted myself. If I didn’t keep my brain busy, the mental chatter was fierce, so I buried it instead. I thought I was making myself stronger by doing this, by forcing myself not to feel but instead, it just hardened my heart. I was a ticking time bomb that finally ignited when my mother died.

Uncovering core beliefs opened the door to reflection. How much of my thoughts were actually true?! Could I challenge the ever convincing thoughts of me being ugly, inadequate? Not being able to do anything right? Was there actual truth to any of those things or am I simply a human trying to do her best in this life? Do the best you can until you know better, then when you know better do better. Though those core beliefs once helped me, they no longer serve me and need to be let go so I can do better for myself. With my core beliefs in check, I am able to understand that it’s not just I, but everyone around me is doing the best that they can until they know better.

There is an epidemic going on in the world today and it isn’t just the coronavirus. It’s a virus that has been passed down from our families, generation to generation. It comes with the grief that addiction or abuse or poverty or injustice brings and it’s time to start recognizing that perhaps the things we’ve learned in our childhood, the things we’ve experienced, weigh more heavily than we’d like to believe.

So, how do we change core beliefs?

  1. Start by paying attention to your thinking and any themes that arise. When I started paying attention to my thoughts I noticed they were often in regards to feeling inadequate and worthless.
  2. Consider how those thoughts are contributing to your life. Feelings of inadequacy and unworthiness kept me trapped. I didn’t believe I deserved good things and so I often chased the bad instead.
  3. Challenge those thoughts; create a positive alternative. When I was plagued with thoughts of unworthiness, I challenged it by saying to myself, I am worthy. I am loved.
  4. Practice challenging the belief each time it comes back. The thoughts come up often, especially when I’m already down. So I find myself having to stop the core belief mid thought and replace it with the positive alternative.
  5. Know that change takes time! Unfortunately you cant undo a lifetime of damage in one healing session. Healing is a lot like an onion, it happens one layer at a time.

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