By Christine Carey
Live a Fulfilling Life
The causes of troubled relationships are created from the stories we tell ourselves. We experience a troublesome event, have an emotional response, and then create a story to explain it or alleviate our pain. Over time we repeat the story until it becomes a script we follow.
We all make up stories based on how our parents, church, religion and teachers treated us. These beliefs get hard-wired into the limbic system of the brain and we believe them as if they were absolute truths rather than ideas put into our minds. We organise our experiences around these false beliefs and they become the filter through which we interpret and react to people and situations. If we have the belief of “I’ll always be abandoned”, then we create situations where we’ll be abandoned and forget to notice when people are loyal and friends.
Our task on the spiritual path is to stop repeating the same old stories and become aware of all the ways we keep proving our stories are true.
Stephen Wolinsky references nine false core beliefs that reflect the conclusions we come to about ourselves as a result of childhood traumas or experiences. Your false core belief has a tremendous effect on how you react to situations and who you are attracted to for friends and lovers. See if any of the following resonate with you:
There must be something wrong with me.
I am worthless
I have an inability to do...
I’m inadequate
I don’t exist
I’m alone
I’m incomplete, there is something missing
I am powerless
There is no love – it’s a loveless world
Do any of these feel familiar? Do they suggest why you’ve been attracted to certain people in your life.
One helpful technique to use when you get absorbed with negative thinking and negative self-talk is to repeat what I call a power word and focus on your in and out breathing. A few suggestions of power words are “Love”, “God”, “Om”, or “Peace”. By doing this practice we create space and are less identified by our thoughts.
Underneath our stories we often find painful memories. The key to allowing the memories into our heart for healing is compassion. We can remember that we were hurt or alone, and did the best we could to comfort ourselves. We can say to that part of ourselves I understand why you feel that way, but it’s over now, we’re grown up, we can take care of ourselves.
As we release the false core belief, or become less infused with them, we become freer to live from our essence – our true self which is creative, fun, open and spontaneous. Explore each story, carefully, tenderly, while reminding ourselves that we are now adults and able to make a choice to stop negative self-talk and re-tell the story.
• All health content in this article is provided for general information only, and should not be treated as a substitute for the medical advice of your own doctor or any other health care professional.
Christine Carey is a certified holistic health and life coach (www.christine-carey.com), partner at Liquid Nutrition (www.liquidnutrition.com) and director of Corporate Wellness at 242 Consulting (www.242consulting.com). With over ten years of coaching experience, Ms Carey works with individuals and groups to assess and define their diet and lifestyle goals. She focuses on increasing knowledge, implementing new habits and creating personalised tools for success.
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