If you’re someone who is on the journey of understanding yourself – your emotions, thoughts and actions, you are continually trying to grow and improve.

Sometimes however, no matter how hard you try, you may find that there are some unhealthy or unhelpful actions that you struggle to stop. These actions are likely caused by a negative core belief you are unaware of.

Although these core beliefs may be deeply rooted in your subconscious mind, there is a way to free yourselves from them. The information posted by the Centre for Clinical Interventions guides in this process.

To help you understand how you can uproot these negative core beliefs, let’s start by understanding what a core belief is. It is a deeply held belief about how we see ourselves, other people, the world or the future.

These develop over time from childhood and through the experiences of significant events in your life. During these childhood experiences or big life events, the mind is constantly processing information and learning, using the knowledge learned to help you navigate through life.

These learned lessons then drive our thoughts, which in turn determine our actions. Core beliefs often lie in our subconscious mind. This is the part of our mind where memories and the lessons learned from them are stored.

We can access these through self-reflection. The conscious mind, in contrast, is the thoughts and feelings we are fully aware of. The subconscious mind is always actively running, many times contradicting what we are actively trying to do in our conscious mind.

That is why sometimes, even if you are intentional and you fix your mind on a goal, you may struggle with consistency. How do you manage such situations? You must practice self-awareness to uncover and be aware of your subconscious thoughts and feelings.

Different situations you go through ‘activate’ the other beliefs you have. For example, whenever Gabriel receives negative feedback about work that he has done, he feels sad, upset, and unmotivated for a long period.

He cannot shake it off for a long time, even if he tries to focus on positive thoughts. When Gabriel investigates this over time, through self-reflection, he realizes that this response is because of a negative core belief that he is not intelligent.

This core belief developed because of a class teacher he had in Class 1 who constantly told him this. Hearing those words over and over again at that tender age, from someone whose opinion mattered very much, led to him believing that he was not smart.

From this analysis, he understands that the issue is not the negative feedback by itself, it is any situation that he perceives as proof of that negative core belief he holds in his subconscious mind.

What does Gabriel do once he has uncovered this negative core belief? It is an opportunity for him to remove it and develop a new and positive one to replace it. He starts by examining the evidence for and against his current negative belief.

Those doing this should think broadly to see the different ways they can think about the evidence, even asking other people who are positive and objective what they think. Through this process, Gabriel will slowly chip away at the negative core belief.

Notably, he then should begin to develop a different core belief that is positive but balanced. He can use the same process as above to find evidence that supports this new belief. The new belief Gabriel has is that everyone’s intelligence is not fixed, but it is something he can increase.

By believing that, he doesn’t take negative feedback as evidence of his lack of intelligence but rather as an opportunity to identify the areas he can improve on. He also realizes there are those subjects he is strong in and those he can seek help on without feeling that he is not intelligent and that he is incapable.

To ensure that the new positive belief can be strengthened to stay true in different challenges, Gabriel continues to evaluate evidence that his old belief is false and prove that the new belief is more accurate. He appreciates that good things take time and patience. Choose to be like Gabriel and live unshackled.

Written by Betty Maina, Program Office, CBF.