SELF-ESTEEM-CORE BELIEFS

Throughout our lives we can form negative beliefs about ourselves, so we all develop rules for living that protect us from our core beliefs, these rules guide how you live your life and as long as your rules don't get broken your core belief stays dormant, often having rules that are rigid.

Core beliefs almost always result in rules by which we live our lives, most of these rules are self-protective, they are designed to help us avoid pain, trouble and catastrophe, if you say you believe that you are a failure your rules could include:

Never try hard at anything.

I.e. if there is a danger that your rules might be broken you may make anxious predictions about what might happen, fear the worst, maybe you'll be rejected if you can't do everything that is expected of you, speak to yourself in a critical way.

Although your safety strategies can make you feel good in the short term, all of them can keep your core belief from changing and your self-esteem does not improve.

We don't choose core beliefs, we adopt them in our early years which can be so long standing and deeply ingrained, self-perpetuating data rather than a bi product.

What are your rules for living, we all live by our own unwritten and unconscious rules everyday of our lives. All our actions and reactions are determined by these rules by which we live our lives.

You may not know you are doing so, but you are interpreting the world you are living in and everything that happens in it through the filters of your own personal rules which are like your own moral code.

Two people can have the same experience but interpret it and react to it in completely different ways as they are each following their own personal code. Getting to know what your own personal rules are can be immensely liberating.

You will find you do have options in how you deal with what life throws up, learning to understand your own rules opens so many choices to you.

One way is to think about some experience in your life that was bad or uncomfortable, often early negative life experiences can be very useful for this, now think about what negative conclusions you have come to about yourself because of those experiences.

Our core beliefs are the most basic assumptions about our identity and place in the world, they are deep seated beliefs of being loveable/unlovable, worthy/unworthy or bad/good.

We generally develop our core beliefs during childhood, and it is precisely because they develop in such a formative time in our development that we rarely think to question these beliefs as adults, they are beliefs we regard as true.

From these beliefs or concepts, we create rules to regulate our behaviour, if the concepts are positive the rules telling us how to live will be realistic and flexible, the reverse is also true, negative concepts yield negative rules that are restricted and fear driven.

Key characteristics

Deeply held – central to our identity, like our name and feel like absolute truths

Subconscious influence – they operate like tinted glasses, affecting how we interpret every situation

Impact on life – leads to rules like

I must please everyone

I’m unlovable

I must be perfect

I’m

not good enough

drives emotions, fuels insecurity, self-doubt, low moods

changing them

awareness is key, recognising these patterns in your automatic thoughts and experiences is the first step

challenge the evidence, challenge these beliefs, realising they aren’t facts

therapy helps to identify and reframe these core beliefs to foster healthier thoughts and actions