Dealing With Deep-rooted Core Beliefs

Please make sure you read the previous article before proceeding further.  In this one, I am endeavoring to elucidate the relationship between beliefs and affirmations and how you can add muscle to your affirmations in case of deep rooted unwholesome core beliefs.

A belief is something you think to be true without any empirical evidence or validation of its certainty.  For example, you may believe that all pigeons are grey because you have not yet encountered a white pigeon.  A core belief is something you very strongly believe is true about yourself irrespective of what anyone else says or thinks about you.  For example, if your core belief is that you are an extremely honest person, it is not necessary that everyone and anyone feel or think the same about you.  Core beliefs are the very essence of how we see ourselves, other people, the world, and the future.

Core beliefs could be positive or negative.  What I mean by a positive core belief is that this belief works to your advantage and a negative core belief works to your disadvantage or otherwise limits your progress.  When a limiting belief is deeply entrenced in your subconscious, it has the ability to overrule any positive affirmation that you consciously do.  Remember, the subconscious is thousands of times more powerful than the conscious mind.  No matter how hard you try, the afflicted thought patterns that arise out of a core belief are so strong that they devour the positive affirmation. 

They say one of the most common fears is the fear of public speaking.  Now the fear of public speaking is by itself not a core belief.  This fear emanates from a belief that you hold to be true, irrespective of what anyone else thinks or feels about it.  I have come across colleagues who can go on rambling incessantly with a limited audience and get tongue tied when in front of a larger group.  The core belief in this instance could be that you think you will make a fool of yourself in front of a group of people or that people will laugh at you or ridicule you.  The fear is therefore the emotional outcome of a core belief.

Let us analyse this further.  How would you use affirmations to deal with limiting beliefs? The tradtional method has been to create new, empowering beliefs that will override the old limiting beliefs.  In the above example, if you have identified that you think you lack the confidence in addressing a large group or you feel that you will make a fool of yourself – you would simply affirm that you are knowledgeable, confident and fully capable of addressing a large group.  Repeating this affirmation would enable it to ’sink’ into your subconscious and propel you to think and act in the manner you affirm. 

However, deeply ingrained beliefs which are diametrically opposed to your affirmations can prevent your subconscious mind from accepting these statements, no matter how frequently and how many times they are repeated.  For example, if an authority figure like a parent or role model has repeatedly told you very early in life that you will never amount to anything, your subconscious mind will not easily accept an affirmation that you will be successful, coming as it does from your conscious mind with a critical factor playing a crucial role between the two.  

How then would you deal with this?  A trained practitioner or therapist would be ideal, however there are still a few things you can do yourself to add muscle to your affirmations when you deal with deep rooted core beliefs, which I shall explain in the next article.