I would have thought there would have been more interest and comment on this subject. The object of this whole program being to get people free from anxiety and panic to the point of functioning in society and living happy healthy lives. People talk of finding the triggers to there panic and eliminating them. Of doing exposure to eliminate them. But our core beliefs are the root of them. Core beliefs dictate everything we do and think in our lives and as life progresses they change with it. Not always to the good and since they change so slow it may not be noticeable. A person may start life off thinking they have a right to smile and laugh and be happy but as life goes on and one crisis after another happens this belief may change to one of life is so hard and I can't do this, I can't be happy or worse yet I am too busy to be happy. There is a silly belief that once a person grows up they have to be serious and earn a living. This sort of negativity grows changing our beliefs to the point we are doing things because we have to not because we want to.  I have been lucky in that every job I did I did because I wanted to not because I had to. Some days were hard but for the most part most days were happy. But still there were things all the way back to events in my childhood that coloured my thinking and built negative core beliefs. Things that made me think I was not good enough or handsome enough. Things that made me think I had to be better just to be good enough. Over the years these things grew into very negative core beliefs. It has been very hard to change this pattern. How many of you have these sort of beliefs? How many of you think you are not good enough and don't have a right to be happy? Now if you think like this and you accept these beliefs how are you to pick out the triggers they cause? They will be invisible. I went for years looking for a trigger that I knew was there but I couldn't find it. It was not till my therapist changed how I looked at myself that I found it. A belief that had taken me from a happy child to a sad adult. A core belief, and a very negative one. How many of you know that this is probably the root of your OCD or the root of your perfectionism. It certainly was the root of my drive for perfection. Changing it has certainly brought peace into my life. I still strive to be the best I can be but no longer do I try to be better than I can be and I am no longer unhappy when I do not attain that goal. Good is good enough. And often good turns into great.

Members,

Before you can start to challenge your negative core beliefs, it’s important to understand the relationship between negative core beliefs, assumptions and negative thoughts.

One way to think about it is to distinguish that negative thoughts & assumptions are often the symptom or result of negative core beliefs.

Because all three work together, it can be hard to tell them apart but the following rules generally apply…

•    Negative core beliefs often stem from early loss of failures experienced at school, work or personal relationships
•    Assumptions are often the motivation for negative thoughts. Ex: If I say something I will be judged. The assumption is judgment. Assumptions often take the form of “if” and “then”.
•    Negative thoughts tend to dominate the individual’ thoughts. Ex: Nobody cares about me, I should be happy…

Have you ever experienced a negative thought tied to a core belief?

Samantha, Bilingual Health Educator