eleveno.
The mind when it is running on track is very efficient. It does things for us without conscious thought. Unfortunately if you program it with a negative core belief it will run along fine controlling your life in a way you don't want. Over time it starts to seem normal. Comparison is the best way to challenge them. Since they control your life, compare your life as it is to what you would like it to be. Then Question: Why, are you like this, when did this happen, where did this happen, who might have influenced it ( you or some one else. And finally what can you do about it.) You may have more questions but these are the basics.
You can't challenge a core belief unless you know it exists first. Second you have to find the root of it which is what the questions are for. You may find that what you think is the core belief is only a core thought built on another deeper belief. Most go back to childhood. Others that are more recent are often built on one of these older beliefs. An example would be thinking you can never hold a job because you failed once at it. But in truth this might be built on the fact that as a child you were told to smarten up or you will never amount to anything, or why can't you be more like so and so. Innocent enough things in themselves until you find a reason to use them for an excuse and build a core belief on them. And since they might well be from very early childhood they might not be obvious. If you go into a situation believing you are going to fail it only reinforces the belief that you are not capable. You can find a job you like very much that suits you and you can still fail because of this hidden core belief pushing you to fail because you subconsciously think you will.
This is why the three things, perception, attitude and belief are so important. You have to break the pattern before you can succeed. Exposure is a good tool to help with these three.
If you have trouble wrapping your mind around this it is normal. It took a few therapy sessions to understand it for me.
So you compare your life and find the core belief that is blocking you. Then you do exposure to see if it is really there and what influence it is having. The exposure should also show you if the core belief is true. It could be. Not everyone can do the things they want to. After all this examination you may actually find that you need to do something different with your life than you want. Believing you can do anything when you can't is a negative core belief too. How bad do you want something and what coping skills can you build so you can do it? Is it worth it? and finally, are you doing it for you? See another core belief that is common is that you have to do something or you will let someone down. So you try and well, some times you fail. Do you see how you can build core beliefs so easy without even some times realizing you are doing it. Some times they are stacked just like building blocks.
Now here is the interesting part. You don't have to do anything with them. You can start right from scratch building new positive ones on the knowledge that they are there. Is this complicated? Not really. So you know you have a core belief. Fine accept it and build another that says you will no longer let the others influence you. A few successes and the negative ones will be buried.
Ha. I'm trying to get in in a few lines what took a lot of therapy to understand.
Davit.
