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What are negative core beliefs?

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What are negative core beliefs?

12 years ago 0 +0 / -0 619

Great post Vincenza. I think the most important negative core belief that I have is how to deal with stressful situations. I had a nervous breakdown last year because of this core belief. I am with this negative core belief at least from 3 years old (now I am 37) and have had many problems in my life because of it.

12 years ago 0 +0 / -0 6252

Dizzy.

One point. There is a difference between self esteem and aggression. The world teaches us to be aggressive and grab what we want. Self esteem gives us the confidence to do what we want or to accept what we have. You do not have to have self esteem to be aggressive. You can go all out to get what you want even though you have no faith in yourself. This I believe is not healthy.

I did say to watch out for comparisons. Yes my brother was a root to most of my core beliefs and much as I hate to admit it some times when he pointed out the obvious he was right. But then we are two different people. He is quite aggressive in his dealings and it colours his thinking. It does not always get him what he wants. He has only one place where he has low esteem and I won't point it out. It is a product of his dealing with people of his own type.

I have had low self esteem in one place and it has effected my dealings with people. When it was pointed out to me and reinforced by other people pointing it out it reversed. Bang, one core belief shot down. I still have some beliefs but my attitude toward them has changed making me more a person I like and increasing my self esteem.

To deal with core beliefs you have to be assertive with your self. It is your belief of the core belief that makes it true (even if it isn't) not what some one else says. There is no one to blame but yourself even if the core belief is built on something some one said or something negative that happened. It is still your belief that is the problem. This you have to deal with.

Accept it if it is true or change your perception if it is not.

Good to see you are still with us and as usual you bring up some very good points. We need this because some times we can not see ourselves. Some times we do not want to either.

Davit.

12 years ago 0 +0 / -0 517

Davit and Dizzy, I like the points you guys made. I do tend to think it's true because someone else has said it and we really would never know what it's like to be in another person's shoes.. even though I end up comparing myself with others a lot.

As a child, my sister and mother were always fighting. Watching this, I knew to never behave like sister and just say sorry for everything. So I became the 'good' child. I always observed what seemed to make people happy and I behaved in that order. I knew that if I was able to make people be pleased with myself or just never be seen at all then there was no conflict I'd ever have to encounter. I became good at this and became shy and "nice". I went to school like a good girl and got good grades and pleased my mother. I learned to suppress my feelings and not express anything and felt 'powerful' from this. Eventually I married someone who I can take care of and felt 'powerful' from this also, until I had the anxiety. Once I got anxiety disorder, I was useless especially to the husband. I was so ashamed of my anxiety because I wanted to be loved by him but it was something unacceptable for him and my childhood negative core beliefs were reinforced that my self esteem plunged. I remember thinking, I wish I can be like this or that all the time. I still do. So I have to tell myself that anxiety is my charm and I'm imperfect and unique and that I can only be me.

12 years ago 0 +0 / -0 6252

Samantha.

Dealing with negative core beliefs is very difficult because of their very nature. They are beliefs at the core of all one believes. So if you believe them to be true how do you change that belief? This is where a friend or a therapist comes in. But they have to be honest. Because as I have said beliefs can be true and still negative. Being lied too only reinforces the core belief that people can not be trusted and all therapy there after goes down the drain.

If you give a chicken two buttons to push, a red one and a green one. If the red one gives it food it will push it. Over time if you change it it will most likely starve pushing the one that used to give it food. Hopefully we are smarter than chickens. But you can see the similarity to core beliefs.

I have three conditions that I had to have before I could overcome the core beliefs. (not necessarily change them. Remember some might be true)

Perception: If you can not see they are negative on your own then you need some one to tell you they are.

Attitude: You have to want to do this even if it goes against the grain. Especially if your attitude is a condition of upbringing. Shy, low esteem or being told not to rock the boat.

Belief: You have to truly believe that negative core beliefs are negative. You have to know in your heart that the negatives are negative and the positives are positive. This is very hard to do if you have a core belief against it.

If you have a panic disorder you should start by assuming that a lot of what you believe is false, after all something has to be setting you off. Could it be the pull both ways? Believing and not believing.

So change the order of these three things. First off start with attitude. Want to do this and be willing to put in the time. Second look at what you believe and question it. Separate the true from the false. Accept the true and put the false on your to do list. Now look for a root to all the false if there is one. No sense dealing with a hand full of core beliefs if they are all related. Just work on the root. Cut off the root and the tree dies.

You will know when you are being successful because there will be a hollow spot where this belief was that needs to be filled. And it needs to be filled with positive so it doesn't come back. It can because it is still in your memory.

You need to build coping skills for this exercise because you are going to be changing a life time of belief and it can be painful. It is close to exposure and you want similar coping skills in place. You need relaxation skills too. It is hard but it is worth it.

Davit.

12 years ago 0 +0 / -0 118

I would like to address the use of self-esteem. It is true that if you have none you are likely to have problems. However I believe this drive for self-esteem in society as it is prevalent in our schools right now lead to more problems. I can remember people saying I had low self-esteem as a kid repeatedly.

How do we measure self-esteem in our current society by comparing ourselves to other. Consequently if someone told you were just average most people take offense to this statement. Therefore, if you look for self-esteem by comparing yourself to others then you are likely to want to be better than them and strive for perfectionism or some other infliction like workaholics.

I do not know if this is factual for Davit it is just what I am interpreting from what he said based on his post. It seems to me that most of Davit core belief came from comparing himself to his brother, the rest of society, or believing that it is bad from being different from everyone else. I wonder why it seems that our negative core beliefs come from comparing ourselves to others. Does someone have another answer other then the search for self-esteem. By the way, if I trace most of my negative core beliefs to their root they come from comparing me to others.

I believe that Davit has it right when he says that you have to accept yourself for who you are above average in some areas and bellow in others. The problem with looking for self-esteem if it is goal oriented, is that when we fail our self-esteem takes a nosedive. It waxes and weans with the ups and downs of life.

The antidote to this is self-compassion if you can show yourself self-compassion and you are on a down part of life your mood you will not be as exposed to the ups and downs of self-esteem and comparison to others.

Basically what Davit has said is correct in my opinion if you accept yourself for who you are right now and show yourself compassion in a hard times you will not be exposed to the negative core beliefs. You can be your best friend and not look to others this would be the one constant you will have all your life if you can develop compassion. It will never leave you and is not be subject to examination.

It probably does help to know where your negative core belief are so that when they show, you can show yourself compassion, so finding them is still a good exercise in my opinion. You do not have to like where you are right now in your progression toward mental health and a sensation of panic attacks. Can you accept yourself for the panic attack and anxieties and all the other faults right know and write yourself a letter as if you were talking to a person who is going thought the same problem you are right now. Does showing yourself compassion and accepting how you are right now scare you.

One of the reasons this works well as that even thought we are suffering from the same problem mentally, we will never know what it is like to be exactly in the other person shoes. If I say think of a yellow lemon in your head assuming that no one is color blind I do not think anyone can see the exact color or shade you are picturing. Although we all know what the lemon is (panic attacks and anxieties) you will not know the shade of another person lemon.

Don’t misunderstand me I think it is equally important to have someone who you can have a connection to and this site offers people with similar problems can certainly give you a different perspective then someone without a mood problem.

I forgot if you feel like righting yourself a letter try putting it away for a few days and read it latter it will blow your mind (no literally just joking).

Dizzy

12 years ago 0 +0 / -0 2606

Davit,

I wanted to let you know that I really enjoyed reading this post of yours. I appreciated the way you explained your outlook on negative core beliefs and how you deal with them. I really think this post will be helpful to others and that there are a few really interesting conversation topics from this post. I am glad you have been able to challenge your own personal negative core beliefs and hope that your fellow members will be inspired to begin tackling theirs.

How did you approach challenging and dealing with your negative core beliefs?

Samantha, Health Educator

12 years ago 0 +0 / -0 6252

We all have negative things happen to us in our lives. We build "tendency" from early child hood and how people around us react to us and how we react to them.

Low self esteem or even just being shy can make us believe things about ourselves and our life that are either not true or just plane damaging.

Core beliefs are either negative or positive. This is not the same as true or false. Core beliefs can be true and still negative depending on how you treat them. A true one could be that you are short and your facial features are now what you would like and maybe you don't like your hair. What makes this negative is believing you are lesser for these things instead of accepting that this is how you are because this is how you were made.

The list goes on.

Where "tendency" comes in is if you have been told something you don't like over and over till it is ingrained. It could be true or it could just be spiteful, but it will become negative if you let it.

It can be something you tell yourself not necessarily from others but from others is more damaging since it must be true. Wrong.

So you have a negative core belief. So what! Are you going to let it rule your life? As you can see there is more to dealing with a negative core belief than just knowing you have one.

One of mine is that I'm ugly. Not so, I just am not handsome. My brother was the handsome one.

Watch out for comparisons they feed the negative.

Another was that I would never amount to anything. Now this one I did not do to me, I was told this. I believed it and worked hard to prove it wrong but every failure fed it. Truth of the matter is that I did what I wanted to do with my life and I am self sufficient and happy. I would say that amounts to something.

The worst though was believing there was something wrong with me because I was different than other people. That was before I discovered oranges and apples. There are people like me doing their own thing not doing some one else's to fit in. I've developed an ability to do both with out losing who I am. The people I really like are like this. Oranges but capable of visiting and dealing with an apple world.

Be yourself, you are special.

I would like to spend more time with core beliefs since they are little understood and so influencing. Something this simple can be the thing that changed you into what you are now.

Barring medication induced anxiety I believe they are the biggest cause if not the only one for anxiety.

If you look at yourself you will find them. Just some times you block them so that although they influence you, you don't know they are doing it. Having a negative core belief is not damaging in itself. How you deal with it is.

Davit.

12 years ago 0 +0 / -0 1853

Members,

Core beliefs are what you believe about yourself, others, the world and your future. The formation of our core beliefs begin when we are young and are rooted in our experiences as children and adolescents.
Our core beliefs are usually unspoken or outside of our immediate awareness. They are often accepted as 100% true and rarely examined for accuracy.

Negative core beliefs are associated with many issues such as low self-esteem, self-worth, depression and anxiety.

A negative life event can activate negative core beliefs about the self, others, the world & the future.

A lay-off from work or a break-up could result in feeling unlovable or useless.

Have you ever experienced a negative core belief? Where do you think it stemmed from?

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What are negative core beliefs?