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Core Belief

Raggamuffin

Well-Known Member
V.I.P Member
If you dig down through your thoughts, you can often tie a lot back to a core belief.

Has anyone tried this? What did you find?

I find a lot of my thoughts, worries and projections can be traced back to one core belief of mine: I'm not good enough.

How about yours?

Ed
 
If you dig down through your thoughts, you can often tie a lot back to a core belief.

Has anyone tried this? What did you find?

I find a lot of my thoughts, worries and projections can be traced back to one core belief of mine: I'm not good enough.

How about yours?

Ed
I am beginning to see that many of my core beliefs have had to do with how much negativity my family felt towards me, and how much I was left alone as well. I have been working to change, but it would be helpful to identify the core beliefs, first. Not being good enough, being unacceptable, being rude, unpleasant, weird - and doing all of that on purpose, being a disappointment, being disgusting, being "slutty". They were my mirror, and they showed me to be a nasty, pathetic thing to be mocked. I don't even know if they realized how much of this I absorbed - and I am sure they would all deny it and say I was exaggerating or being too sensitive - but yes, I WAS very sensitive, and I am not overlooking the positive things - there wasn't much there, though I will always be grateful that they fed and housed me and cared for my physically - but the psychological and emotional effects of their own reactions or projections to me had a severe effect on me. I am learning to overcome shame over being supposedly too sensitive - now that I see that many aspies are very sensitive, I have come to accept that about myself. I keep meaning to explore all of this in a blog here - to help begin to process it. But it has felt too overwhelming to even begin. But responding to posts like this helps me get my feet wet a little.
 
I think the list you gave would all tie in back to "I'm not good enough"

"...being unacceptable, being rude, unpleasant, weird - and doing all of that on purpose, being a disappointment, being disgusting, being "slutty"

Because all of the above would suggest there's room for improvement - to become acceptable, polite, pleasant, normal, praise worthy and such like.

Do you find you're still sensitive? I feel too much, nothing is ever subtle with how I think and feel. Everything feels amplified, and it can leave me feeling off kilter.

Also, when people are nasty - I wonder how much comes from projection. It's like when I get told I talk too much, or don't listen or care about others - I think this goes back to not feeling good enough either. I focus on myself to try in vein to bolster my sense of self worth etc. I find other people's woes difficult to take on board or listen to, because if I feel faulty, why and how can I process other people's hardships? It's not that I can't relate to other people's hardships - often I've experienced similar myself. I'm just struggling more and more to stop focusing and being trapped in my own world/head.

I don't know. I think it was Walking The Tiger which first drew my attention to Core Beliefs. Or perhaps it came from CBT?

Feeling overwhelmed is quite common with ASD too I think. I have so many good intentions to do things, start things and such like. I often leave a trail of half finished jobs and projects in my wake. Enthusiasm burns out and then I just quit what I'm doing and add it to the ever growing list of - "I'm not good enough." Thing is, even when I finish things - usually I'm nearing burn out, so I rush to finish. Things that begin with quality and self control end in haste and disarray.

Each and every failure I go back to that belief and I think - "Yep, told you that you weren't good enough. Here's the proof."

Ed
 
We weren't born knowing anything we were taught. What was learned can be unlearned. You don't have to be better than anyone else only who you were yesterday. Feeling just are it's what you do about them that matter. Work on becoming the person you want to be. Set the values and standards by which you want to live then live them. Be the best you can be every day for that is all you can do. Become the person you can be proud of and respect. Yes, we have limitations and challenges now what will you do with what you can do? Good enough compared to whom? Are you good enough for you? That is all that matters. Everyone will have an opinion about who you should be. They need to focus on fixing themselves rather than pointing fingers at others but that would be too hard. Be who you are and be the best you you can be. It's your life not anyone elses.
 
Insecure parents create horrible core beliefs in sponge absorbing innocent kids. We are the by products of a warped upbringing.

Can you filter thru this and be your authentic self? Because therapy helps those of us who can't.
 
Not being good enough was the theme of school (where my mum also worked) and it was echoed by parents and teachers alike.

I had so much "potential" but apparently I never lived up to it.

Parents showing love when I succeeded, or when I broke down in tears. Other times - they were in their own world, doing their own thing. Quite a lonely upbringing. Became self reliant from an early age in terms of how to spend my time etc.

Knew what I wanted to do when I grew up but was shot down very quickly as I would never make it as an artist as the teachers and parents said.

Now, with the growing amount of unsold work, and increasing amount of money spent trying to make a go of things with my art and photography - I feel like they were right.

Everyone seems to agree that a career in art is very difficult. I'm sure with enough time, dedication and motivation I could make it. Probably an excuse to say I'm burnt out at this point.

It's no coincidence that substance abuse and depression/anxiety coincided with being railroaded into college subjects and jobs I had no passion for.

As Cheech comically put it "Responsiblity is a heavy responsiblity."

Not too sure how to address core beliefs though. Books and therapy only get me so far. Feels like they scratch the surface, but they don't get anywhere near the core.

Same with good advice from people, and therapists - it often feels uplifting and rejuvinating. But it doesn't take long before it's shot down by all that negativity that's swimming around inside my head.

A book I read put a lot of blame on upbringing with regards to complex PTSD. But it felt somewhat 2 dimensional to say - bad parents cause trauma. I get that, but then if you look to these parents - what was their upbringing like? Perhaps it's just a snowball effect. To say bad parents create mental health issues is probably true, but isn't the parent's mental health suffering too?

Ed
 
I highly recommend the book The Four Agreements. Also after you have read it there is a very nice reading of it on YouTube.

I recognise the artwork on the cover of that book. It was one I'd looked at but hadn't bought at the time. I'll take a look now.

Thanks for the reminder.

Ed
 
how-do-you-like-your-pizza-with-pineapple-meme.jpg


;)
 
"Not being good enough" has been a key theme in my upbringing as well. I still relive those moments where my family drilled it into me that I'm only a worthy person if I'm well-spoken, have a high-paying, high ranking job, and good-looking. Then I remember they don't really know any better. They're still stuck on the same superficial loop and in order to validate themselves, they have to push their lifestyle views on others.

However I only see this as a recurring theme. My core belief has remained the same throughout: Treat others the way I want to be treated. I don't even know if I can call it a belief because it just feels more instinctual. The treatment by certain family members only reinforces it because I don't want to end up cold and calculating like them. And I don't want others to feel the same pain and stress.
 
I don’t think I have any. I don’t really spend time ‘believing’ things - I know them or I don’t know them. Belief isn’t relevant.

As for the experiences people have related in this thread, I worked past most of the assumptions that I began with - that my parents gave me - when i realised they were flawed or useless.

My mother used to say I was lazy, and that I should get out more. Shock horror, it turns out I’m (most likely) autistic and have serious issues with executive function and processing noise - and my primary response to overstimulation is to become unable to organise myself and unbelievably exhausted.

So that crazy theory got scrapped. lol.

I used to think that I was smarter than everyone else - because I could see other people do such monumentally stupid things that I couldn’t understand the reasons for. So I assumed that they were trying to make logical decisions, but failing. Then I realised (long before the autism revelation) that I thought differently to other people and learned some humility in understanding that my way wasn’t always the best way, or even a good idea. Logic wasn’t the only route to reason, decisions or life choices - and that people who made decisions using other types of information and reasoning were often some of the most interesting and exciting people to spend time around.

So that crazy assumption got scrapped, too.

I’ve shed most of what doesn’t make sense. Also, I can’t really settle on my ‘core’ anything, except in my essence of self, because my way of looking at the world is subject to change as much as anything else that exists.

So… none? Unless it is ‘monogamy doesn’t make sense’. LOL.
 
Core belief? In my experience it's what you have after everything else crumbles away and dies. Had that happen years ago. Hopes, dreams, confidence, gone. Destroyed in an instant. All I had left was as you say a core belief. My faith. Beyond this there was nothing. No reason to exist or move forward. No hope, no dreams, nothing. Just faith. Nothing more.
 
If you dig down through your thoughts, you can often tie a lot back to a core belief.

Has anyone tried this? What did you find?

I find a lot of my thoughts, worries and projections can be traced back to one core belief of mine: I'm not good enough.

How about yours?

Ed
I am selfish and would rather put my safety above others and keep evil acts quiet so I do not get attacked.
I carry a lot of guilt.
I don't deserve.
I like being honest, and want to rectify all of the dishonesty in my life, and fear the consequences, as I want to live long, share my latent talents and be an asset to the world.
 
Neuroscience suggests that we react physically with our neurons and then go back at light speed to make sense of things. I no longer think of beliefs as much as what is going on in the brain.
 
"I'm not good enough"
"Lack of relational value"

These are not your core beliefs. There are deeper beliefs beneath these that still need to be found. The ones that gave you the idea that you have these beliefs.

It is really hard to discover core belief, as there are beliefs above it that can easily appear to be this. I like how DK's_Ghost has dealt with it. He's clearly done much work.

Digging down takes a lot of time, and having the right tools helps enormously. How do you know you've gone far enough? Many times you won't go further until you've understood what you've already found. And before any of this can even begin, you have to know that you need to look.

As has been said, many beliefs are given to us/ imposed upon us by our parents and family (later our teachers and peers), when we are at our most impressionable. Most have no idea they do this. So to unpack all that requires focus and discipline. The practice of meditation is essential for the journey.

Many years ago I started doing this without realising I was. I'd only just begun to practice meditation, but quickly began to look at my beliefs, which made me want to understand what lay beneath them. In fact nothing else seemed to matter at the time once I realised how important this was for me to do.

I became able to look at specific experiences of my life, only this time not as the original actor who had experienced them, but as an objective director, who not only could see what had taken place, but could imagine how it could have been different had my beliefs been different. This allowed me to alter what took place in my imagination, see a different outcome from this different perspective, and at the same time release those beliefs that had not been helping me. It was quite the revelation. I saw that I was not being my true self. I realised I'd been wearing all these masks of protection, and I knew I wanted to find out what it was that had been wearing them.

While there are core beliefs, for me that journey showed me there was something beyond belief. Before belief. And this you could say is what has to be found. Call it Soul. Essence. Inner being.

So in a sense, just like the scientists who bombard particles into one another looking for ever smaller bits so they can determine what the universe is actually made of, will continually find smaller and smaller particles because something is always made of something else, so as I looked for beliefs, I continually found them, and how will you ever be sure you have found them all?

It seemed better to find a way of not creating them in the first place. Not an easy thing to do. Yet it is essential we go beyond belief, if we want to know who we really are.

Excellent thread by the way.
 
I carry a lot of guilt.
I know you do.
I don't deserve.
You do deserve. You are not a bad person. You just hold a powerful belief that makes you feel that way. You hold many such beliefs.

I like being honest, and want to rectify all of the dishonesty in my life, and fear the consequences, as I want to live long, share my latent talents and be an asset to the world.
Here's the thing... you cannot rectify all dishonesty, only recognise that you are willing to do things differently in the present and act that way.

It is very commendable you should want to rectify previous dishonesty, but it is my opinion that focusing on this idea only keeps you connected to, and in a state of, resistance from what you do not want to be.

You can go forward, from here, being the person you know you are, without judging or insisting that your life situation has to look a certain way to confirm you are. If you are truly sincere, that is enough. It is time to let go of carrying all that past.

Whether you live long is not relevant. You will always share your talents in moments when you are able to, but to want to be an 'asset to the world', puts too much pressure on who you would have to be. It is an idea of yourself you simply cannot live up to, and do not have to in order to BE such an asset.

That's the point...it is all in your head... a belief, and a very powerful one at that. It does not help you to move forward by having it. You will feel like yourself more easily if you let it go. Besides, the cream always rises to the top...it doesn't have to try to do so.
 

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