One of the most devastating things about trauma is that it changes how we feel about ourselves ourselves
and about how we feel about the world. And these negative thoughts and feelings can become
our core negative beliefs.
So stick around and I'm going to show you how you can identify what your core negative
beliefs are and how to transform them. For videos designed to help you recover from anxiety
and trauma and live a more joyful life,
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when I release a new video every Tuesday. I'll walk you through some simple steps to
identify what your core negative beliefs are and then some steps to transform them.
First, I will walk you through an EMDR visualization that will help identify what your core negative
beliefs are about yourself and or the world.
And then I'll walk you through a visualization to begin to transform them into positive,
more adaptive beliefs.
I'd like to ask you to bring up an event that's upsetting, but not the most upsetting thing
you've ever experienced.
So some things say about a five in a scale of zero to 10. So just take a moment and identify
what that event is. And then as you bring that event to mind, feel whatever physiological
feelings come up with that event. It might be a little bit of nausea.
It might be an increased heart rate, it might be some feelings of anxiety.
But try to notice the physical feelings that go with that event and the emotional feelings
that go with that event.
As you bring that event to mind, identify what the negative belief about yourself is
that goes with that situation.
And we're really looking for something that's in very basic language.
So if you know your thought is, um, I shouldn't have done that, well then why?
What's the core underneath? I shouldn't have done that is the core.
I'm stupid, I'm bad.
Uhm, if the core is simply I did something wrong.
Did you actually do something wrong?
So just explore into it a little bit.
So core negative beliefs tend to fall into one of three categories.
One would be personal defectiveness: something wrong with me.
Another would be a lack of safety.
And the third: lack of choices.
So for personal defectiveness, often the statements are something like, I'm bad, I'm defective,
I'm lacking.
Um, I'm unlovable.
Generally it's a strong negative adjective about the self and it's pervasively applied.
So not like I did something wrong, but I'm bad.
I am at core bad.
So those would be the types of statements that would fall into the category of personal
defectiveness. In the category of lack of safety,
there would be, I'm in danger, I can't trust others.
In the category of lack of choices, there would be, I'm trapped, I'm helpless, I'm powerless,
I'm vulnerable.
So just take a moment and see if any of those negative statements go with this event you
brought up
that's about a five on a scale of zero to 10.
And as you bring that statement to mind, just see if it feels familiar.
If that statement feels familiar, that's probably your core negative belief.
Fairly often people will have core negative beliefs that fall into two of the categories,
either the lack of safety or lack of choices.
One statement from that grouping.
And then one statement about personal defectiveness. And trauma often will cause people to have
a negative statement about themselves and a negative statement about the world and their
safety.
If as you listen to me read those statements, you feel that you have many, many, many of
those statements,
my guess is that you have fairly complex PTSD, complex trauma, and probably early childhood
trauma, in which case, definitely this kind of work is best done with a therapist.
Now usually when I work with a client and they identify a negative core belief about
themselves and I asked them if that feels familiar, they will generally say yes,
it feels very familiar.
And if I ask if there were childhood events that connect to that feeling, they often will
say many.
So if that's the case, then you clearly know that that is your core negative belief about
yourself.
So the EMDR process helps to go back to some of those early memories and reprocess them
so that that core negative belief can be shifted.
And if you'd like to understand how that process works a little bit more, please watch my video.
How does EMDR work?
Today I'm going to stay a little bit more on the surface and hopefully give you a tool that
can begin to transform your negative belief into a more adaptive, more positive belief.
So taking your core negative belief, I'd like you to come up with what you would rather
believe about yourself.
Kind of the opposite of positive belief, but we always need to phrase the positive beliefs
in a realistic way.
Let me explain a little bit further.
So if the core negative belief is I'm bad, the positive would be I'm good enough.
The positive would not be, I'm a saint.
I'm the most wonderful person in the world.
I'm the best person in the world.
Nothing absolute, because our mind is very tricky and it will argue against positive
absolutes.
That's why people have a very hard time with affirmation sometimes if they're expressed
in too strong a way.
If your negative belief was, I'm stupid, the positive could be, I'm smart enough.
There's probably a lot of evidence in your life that you're smart enough.
There may not be evidence or your mind might be able to argue against like, I'm brilliant.
I'm the smartest person I know.
We don't need to go there.
I'm smart enough.
Or if the core negative belief is something like I'm different, I'm less than, I'm lacking.
The positive could simply be I'm okay as I am.
And then in the lack of safety and the lack of choices categories, if your negative statement
was, I'm in danger, the positive could be I'm safe enough now.
If the negative belief is I'm trapped, the positive could be, I can make my own choices.
So that gives you some examples of coming up with a, let's say reasonable positive cognition
and I just would like you to bring that positive cognition to mind and think about where, how
true that feels.
So not just how true your mind knows it is, but how true your mind, your heart, your body,
your whole being, feel that statement is, and give it a number on a scale of one to
seven, seven, it feels totally true.
One, it does not feel true at all.
So I'm safe enough now.
How true does that feel?
I'm a good enough person.
How true does that feel?
So just take a moment to notice that.
So the tool I'd like you to think about in terms of gradually changing your negative
core beliefs is to begin to think about those situations, um, and circumstances where the
positive cognition makes sense to you.
So bring to mind those situations in which you are safe enough, bringing to mind those
situations where you do feel smart enough, secure enough, feel like you can trust people.
And these could be situations you're remembering from the past, they could be current day situations,
but bring to mind some evidence that that positive cognition is true.
And if you have a memory that goes with that positive cognition, I'd like you to do a little
bit of butterfly tapping.
So bring the memory to mind and just put your arms on your, your hands on your shoulders
and giving yourself sort of a little bit of a self hug and then alternate the tapping.
And you can close your eyes and bring to mind the memory that goes with the positive cognition.
And just gently tap yourself on the shoulders.
And this is an exercise you can do regularly for yourself.
So that would be one tool to use to gradually change your core negative beliefs into more
adaptive, more positive beliefs.
Let me say there is no miracle cure for this.
You've probably been developing these negative core beliefs about yourself for a long time
and have probably been using whatever evidence is in your world to reinforce these negative
core beliefs for a long time.
So there's no magic pill that's going to work that's going to transform this.
It's going to be some work and part of that work could be as you go through your day,
look for the evidence that supports the positive belief, not the negative belief.
So look for the evidence that supports I am safe enough, look for the evidence that supports
I am a good person instead of looking for the evidence that supports the opposite.
And there is a third technique to use particularly for people who are having a hard time accessing
any kind of feeling of that of the positive belief.
And that is called the movie technique.
And I am going to release a video on that next week if you'd like a pdf that walks you
through the process of identifying your core negative beliefs about yourself, as well as
the techniques and tools that you can use to begin to transform them.
I have a pdf, it's for free.
Link is below, and I'd really love to know what you think about this video, about transforming
your core negative beliefs and about how EMDR can help with trauma.
So please put a comment below.
I will do my best to answer and respond and I'd love to know any questions you have.
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And thanks for watching.
I look forward to the next time.