As a mental health therapist, I’ve experienced firsthand how shifting perspective, changing your story, and making small adjustments can have a major impact in how people experience their reality. This blog post is all about using the tools you ALREADY have to change your reality.
The Story You Tell Yourself
Imagine you are having a terrible day. Your partner took the last of the coffee, not even bothering to consider you, so you have to go out of your way to get coffee, already running late. On the way to work, some jerk cuts you off, making you slam on your brakes and spill your coffee. When you get there, your boss makes a comment to everyone that we need to do better with timeliness. How passive aggressive, you were only a little late! Because you’ve had such a bad morning, the rest of your day is filled with little irritants and nuisances. When you get home, you’re short-tempered with your partner for messing up your whole day. Instead of picking up on this and apologizing, they just ignore you. Don’t they know emotional withholding is abusive?? You go to bed tense and angry.
Now imagine the same day this way. You wake up and realize that your partner took the last of the coffee. They must’ve been running late too! You go get some coffee on the way and are enjoying the delicious Starbucks coffee, a nice break from the normal home coffee, when someone cuts you off and you have to slam on your brakes! Aw dang, you spilled your coffee. You wonder what was going on with them where they didn’t see you. Maybe it’s a new driver? Maybe they are having a bad day and are flustered? Maybe they got distracted with the kids in the back seat? Who knows. You get to work and your boss mentions that everyone needs to do better with timeliness. Yikes! You wonder if he’s talking about you. Then again, a lot of people are late all the time. He never seemed to care before. You wonder if maybe his boss or a customer said something to him. Your day has the usual small nuisances. You get home and mention to your partner that your morning was a bit off. Your partner responds that they too had an off morning! You go to bed with a plan to leave early and get more coffee tomorrow.
Both stories are filled with the same events, the only difference is the way you perceived and reacted to them. These are small examples, but our entire lives are filled with stories we are making up in our heads. It’s impossible to have all the information all the time, so our brain is working hard to fill in the gaps. The gaps are filled in with our core beliefs and past experiences, most of which are not conscious, but they impact our behavior anyways.
This isn’t about pretending problems don’t exist, because sometimes they do. It’s about not creating more problems when that may not be reality. So how do we change our narrative?
Core Beliefs
Let’s start with understanding core beliefs. Core beliefs typically stem from childhood experiences. If I perceived myself experiencing rejection as a kid, then I might have started to become super aware of perceived rejection. Because of that, every time I thought someone was rejecting me, I marked it as just more proof that I am not loveable. Again, this core belief building is typically subconscious. However, these small experiences can create core beliefs that follow us into adulthood. Core beliefs generally boil down to the same type of statements, like “I don’t matter” or “I’m powerless” or “I’m unlovable.” They can also be toward others, like “People are untrustworthy.”
For example, if my core belief is that I’m unlovable, how often might I be painting the world with that perspective? Whenever a friend doesn’t call me after a while, I might think, “See, I knew they didn’t care about me,” instead of, “I wonder if they are busy or going through something.” I don’t know which one is true but making an assumption that is less personal can feel a lot less hurtful.
You see, if I assume my friends don’t care about me, then I might not reach out to them or I might even push them away. This might make them think, “Hmm, I wonder if they are okay,” and prompt them to reach out. More often than not, they might think, “I guess they don’t want to be my friend anymore” or “They are being really hurtful, I don’t really want to be around them.” This will then further the core belief that I am unlovable, and the cycle continues.
It is really difficult to challenge a core belief, because it can be so ingrained in everything we are doing. Step one is to bring awareness to how often your narrative is coming from a negative core belief. The way to do this is to ask yourself, “What story am I telling myself?” This is another way to recognize what details of your story you are making up. Maybe the person driving the car is a jerk, but you won’t really ever know, so you can choose to make up a different story.
Sharing and Requesting Information
The next step would be to ask questions and give feedback. Maybe your partner is emotionally withholding. Maybe if you ask them, they tell you “Oh, I assumed you wanted some alone time to cool off” or “I was nervous to talk to you, because you seemed angry.” Rarely will it be “I just wanted to punish you.”
(Sometimes there are deep toxic patterns in people, and if that is the case, it may be best to explore ending that relationship).
Personal Patterns
Lastly, explore where you may have created unintentional patterns and work to adjust them. Sometimes if you have a core belief, you allow things in relationships that you then have to reprogram. If my core belief is that I’m unlovable, then I might have allowed people to take advantage of my time or make jokes at my expense, while deep down harboring resentment that they do so. When I start to change my patterns, people might get confused, upset, or think they did something wrong. This is rarely because they are bad people, but rather because they have their own subconscious belief system that is driving their patterns. Having open conversations about these patterns is ideal. However, that may not always be possible. If the people surrounding you are furthering your negative core beliefs, and are unwilling to listen to feedback, then you may again need to explore changing the people around you.
Changing your core belief system can be challenging work and is much of the process that people explore and work through in therapy. Oftentimes, it can get more complex and complicated as you continue to dive deep. If you notice you need some guidance when trying to discover or adjust, reach out to a mental health therapist who can partner with you in changing your narrative!
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