Where Negative Core Beliefs Come From
Children Form Conclusions Before They Can Reason
Children begin forming beliefs about themselves and the world at a very young age.
The problem is that children do not yet possess the knowledge, experience, perspective, or reasoning ability required to accurately explain many of the things they experience.
Yet they must explain them anyway.
Every child eventually asks questions such as:
Why did that happen?
What does that mean?
Why did they do that?
Why do I feel this way?
The problem is that children often attempt to answer those questions long before they are capable of answering them accurately.
As you begin to think about that idea, you may realize that many of the conclusions children reach are based upon limited information and limited understanding.
Unfortunately, those conclusions can influence a lifetime.
Children Must Explain Their Experience
Imagine a five-year-old boy with an abusive alcoholic father.
The boy does not understand addiction.
He does not understand trauma.
He does not understand adult problems.
He cannot reasonably conclude:
My father is responsible for his own behavior.
Instead, he experiences anger, criticism, rejection, and emotional pain.
And because children naturally seek explanations, he asks himself a question:
Why?
The answer available to him may be:
I’m not good enough.
Now imagine a completely different situation.
A little girl has a loving mother who works two jobs.
Her mother loves her deeply.
Her mother wishes she could spend more time with her.
Yet the child experiences:
I don’t have enough Mom.
The child does not understand economics.
She does not understand bills.
She does not understand adult responsibilities.
All she knows is that she wants more time with her mother than she is getting.
And because children seek explanations, she may conclude:
If I were a better little girl, Mom would spend more time with me.
No abuse.
No neglect.
No villain.
Just a child attempting to explain an experience she is too young to fully understand.
It Begins With A Single Event
According to The Four Overriding Negative Core Beliefs, every negative core belief begins with a single emotionally significant event.
The event may be painful.
It may be traumatic.
It may be embarrassing.
It may appear completely insignificant years later.
It may even be positive.
A compliment.
A teacher’s comment.
A misunderstanding.
A moment of rejection.
A moment of disappointment.
What creates the negative core belief is not necessarily the event itself.
It is the meaning a child assigns to the event.
For example, a parent may tell a child:
You’re amazing. You can do anything.
An adult hears encouragement.
A child may hear:
I’d better not disappoint them.
Or:
What if I can’t?
Or:
What if they discover I’m not really that amazing?
The event is not the issue.
The meaning becomes the issue.
Because once that meaning is accepted by the unconscious mind, it begins shaping how future experiences are interpreted.
The Filter Is Installed
Once the conclusion is accepted, it becomes a filter.
As discussed in Negative Core Beliefs as Filters, the child does not experience the filter as a belief.
The child experiences it as reality.
They do not think:
I have a belief that I’m not good enough.
They experience:
I’m not good enough.
as though it were simply true.
Over time, the filter becomes invisible.
And when a filter becomes invisible, it begins influencing every experience without being noticed.
You may begin to realize that the most powerful filters are often the ones we do not know are there.
Life Begins To Validate The Filter
Imagine what happens next.
The child receives criticism.
The filter notices it.
The child experiences rejection.
The filter notices it.
The child makes a mistake.
The filter notices it.
Meanwhile, experiences that do not support the belief often receive far less attention.
Compliments are dismissed.
Successes are minimized.
Acceptance is overlooked.
Praise is explained away.
Over time, the unconscious begins filtering and distorting reality in ways that validate what it already experiences as true.
Not because the belief is true.
Not because life is proving it.
But because the filter influences what is noticed, remembered, emphasized, and emotionally experienced.
As discussed in How Negative Core Beliefs Shape Your Experience of Life, the unconscious does not merely observe reality.
It interprets reality.
And those interpretations are heavily influenced by the filters through which life is experienced.
The child grows up.
The filter remains.
And life continues appearing to validate what already feels true.
Why Logic Doesn’t Fix It
Many people spend years trying to reason their way out of these experiences.
They read books.
They attend therapy.
They gain insight.
They understand exactly why they feel the way they do.
Yet the feelings remain.
Why?
Because the original conclusion was not created through adult reasoning.
It was created by a child who lacked the ability to reason accurately about what was happening.
Years later, the conscious mind may fully understand that the conclusion is false.
Yet the unconscious mind continues experiencing it as reality.
As explained in Why Understanding Your Anxiety Doesn’t Always Resolve It:
The conscious mind understands.
The unconscious mind experiences.
And because the unconscious mind cannot reason, reason alone rarely changes the experience.
You may begin to recognize that understanding and experiencing are not the same thing.
Why This Matters
Many people spend years trying to understand what happened to them.
Others spend years trying to understand why it happened.
While those questions may be interesting, they are not always the most important questions.
The more important question is:
How are you experiencing it today?
Because the past cannot be changed.
What happened cannot be changed.
Why it happened may never be fully known.
What can change is the way those experiences are being experienced today.
If you continue to experience life through filters created by a child who lacked the ability to accurately explain what was happening, those filters may continue influencing your relationships, self-esteem, confidence, happiness, and emotional well-being.
As you begin to consider that possibility, you may find yourself looking at your own experiences differently.
And if those experiences are being shaped by unresolved emotional filters, then perhaps the answer is not more coping.
Perhaps the answer is Emotional Resolution vs. Coping.
Because when the filter changes, the experience of life can change as well.