Investigating Core Beliefs, The Invisible Architects of Your Mental Health Stories
Insight and acceptance along the path towards empowerment
How do you know who you truly are? You learn by pulling at the root.
Core beliefs are the central ideas we have about ourselves. Most often these ideas are the result of a process of meaning-making we do to process things we’ve experienced. These core beliefs go on to form the basis for a sense of Self, as I explored in this recent post.
I found myself reflecting on the idea of core beliefs more acutely recently, following a day of practice as a therapist that left me thinking more about the beliefs I hold as central to my sense of identity and being.
How do we become who are?
To form core beliefs two things generally have to happen:
we experience some sort of event/incident which produces feelings, and
we start to make meaning of those experiences.
Both steps help us craft our own personal narratives. These internal stories not only create a filter by which we see the world, but also how we think and feel about ourselves.
These beliefs help us develop a sense of self.
Investigating Core Beliefs by Pulling at the Root
A lot of my work in mental health is insight-driven, meaning that it helps people develop deeper personal awareness. Insight is incredibly helpful in behavior change because it’s hard to change your behavior if you don’t understand why you’re engaging in the behavior in the first place!
You can imagine how precious the application of this insight can be. If you have a deep understanding of the underlying motivations, and needs of your actions and choices, you can go on to better meet your deeper emotional needs. In turn, those new actions would likely be better choices and in healthier fashion.
If this sounds like hard work, then you’d be right. Developing conscious awareness is hard work. Humans are complex creatures and learning deeper truths about ourselves requires time, energy, self-compassion and patience. It’s emotionally taxing labor, but with the hope of moving forward with greater clarity and inner peace. I think that’s worth the effort.
This work can also illuminate some parts of ourselves that we’d rather keep hidden. These personal shadows: thoughts, feelings, and experiences that exist just outside of consciousness, can be difficult to face. It’s important that, as we start to pull at the root of those core beliefs, we have tools, strategies, and maybe even people, that help us reorient and then integrate the insights we uncover.
How do you explore core beliefs?
One of the images that comes to my mind when exploring core beliefs is that of a tree.
At the top of the tree you have the leaves and branches. You can think of these as the most conscious parts of our thoughts and experiences. These leaves and branches represent the most conscious thoughts and feelings we have about a situation.
Moving down, the trunk represents the depth of our consciousness, where we might more readily experience feeling and the call of meaning-making. Those thoughts and feelings are more deeply felt, and we start to understand how these things may interact with our daily lives.
And finally, we get down into the roots that reach deep underground. These roots represent our innermost thoughts and feelings connected to our foundational, and transformative, life experiences. In those roots lies deep, visceral feeling, intuition, and a sense of understanding that is sometimes difficult to put into words.
In both trees and humans, these roots provide the rest of the tree with the stability it needs to live. When there are unhealthy, desiccated core beliefs at the root, the health of the person suffers. All the thoughts, feelings, and actions are informed by nutrients the roots provide.
It’s our job to ensure that what’s at the root feeds the rest of our tree well.
How to pull at the root & dig deeper
Personal insight is tricky territory and often many of us need help to fight through our conscious defenses to dig deeper. Sometimes we need a guide, like an advisor or therapist, to help us look beyond our current conscious awareness to get to the root.
But here are some questions that you can ask yourself as you begin to do your exploratory work:
Which feelings come up after this experience I’ve had? And how does it make me feel about myself?
If I feel this way, what does that say about me? What could that mean for my sense of self?
Has this experience changed how I see myself? How I see others?
What’s the story I’m telling myself about this experience (thought, feeling, etc.)?
How does this story, or the meaning I’m making of this experience, guide some of my choices?
An example:
Julian thinks he has fairly good judgment in most situations. He does well at work and has a social network of friends he generally enjoys and feels like he can rely on. When it comes to more intimate relationships, and dating, he often feels anxious and insecure. Before he goes out on a date, he thinks it won’t go well. When he takes his time to explore more deeply on his own, he has the thought, “Maybe I’m just not lovable.”
In this example, Julian engages in self-exploration to understand himself so that he can finally find some ways to work through this anxiety he’s always had about relationships. As he continues to explore, he might learn what experiences from his personal history helped him, and his brain, create this core belief of being unlovable. Maybe his path forward includes more self-compassion, forgiveness, or deep processing about how he got to where he is today.
He’s gotten to those roots and now must figure out how to adjust his unwanted core belief. The next stage of his journey begins.
The Impact of Core Beliefs
Sometimes core beliefs can be positive and affirming like “I am a good person” or “I work hard to get the things that I want.” But when beliefs are less than positive, they may lead to a lot of internal self-criticism, exacerbating anxiety, depression, and a host of other mental health conditions.
Other potential consequences:
Limiting your self-expression in relationships because you feel your needs are unimportant
Staying in work environments that don’t fit or respect your mental health because you doubt your ability to find something more aligned
Accepting disrespect and poor behavior in relationships because you don’t believe you’ll find someone better
Not pursuing outlets of joy and creative expression for fear of being embarrassed or judged
If you were to think like Julian in the example above, or something like “I don’t deserve good things” think about how much harder it would be to move forward in your life, going after the things that you want and developing more satisfying relationships. It would be hard to consider any of those as reasonable options for your life moving forward. This is why it’s incredibly important to investigate, and sometimes challenge, our core beliefs.
Human beings have a lot of different thoughts throughout the day (about 6,000 per day according to some research). Given that, we’re bound to experience a range of thoughts, some positive and some negative, especially when it comes to how we see ourselves.
When it comes to mental health and understanding your core beliefs, having a singular sporadic thought that’s negative isn’t something to necessarily be concerned about. We all have them from time to time, and they may not be truly indicative of what we believe about ourselves.
However, when you start to notice patterns in those internal stories or find yourself thinking in similar ways across time and situations, it’s best to spend some time in self-reflection. Consider the frequency, intensity, and duration of those troubling core beliefs so you can have a better understanding of how to challenge them.
Then you can go on to construct new core beliefs, and new stories for your path forward. It doesn’t get much more empowering than that.