What You Believe About Yourself (Your Core Beliefs) will Inform Your Path 4

What you believe about yourself, your core beliefs, are powerful and will inform your path.

I asked my teenage daughter a question a little while ago – Who do you BELIEVE you are?

Her responses were mostly positive;

• I’m funny, I think!
• I’m strong, so I’ve been told (definitely!)
• I’m tall – (absolutely – towers me now!)
• Dependable – that’s what my friends have said.
• Helpful.
• A Webb… (I liked this one because at an age when identity and a sense of belonging is so important as they navigate their way and seek to find their own path – she finds some of her identity in being one of our Webb family!)

I know some of these words have been spoken to her, or written on a note by friends, family, a teacher, a sport’s coach, her youth group leader. (How important are our words of encouragement to each other… but that’s another subject!)

What she believes about herself will inform her path.

My CORE BELIEFS about me… are really quite powerful in my life.

What you believe about yourself, your core beliefs about you, are powerful and will inform your path.

WHAT ARE OUR CORE BELIEFS?

Our Core Beliefs are like themes, they frame our view, they chart our choices, inform how we relate to others and edge our pathway.

Most of our core beliefs can be incredibly helpful.

Some are not helpful!

The thing about core beliefs is that they developed strongly in our childhood and adolescent years and then we fine-tune them over our lifetime through the experiences and people around us by;

• What people say
• How we are treated by others
• How we play and interact with our family, peers, colleagues…

WHAT COULD BE SOME OF OUR CORE BELIEFS?

Remember, what I said before, some are helpful and some are not helpful – have you heard yourself saying or thinking strongly any of the following:

• I’m unworthy – unworthy of your friendship, not good enough.
• I’m unloveable, unwanted
• I’m strong
• I’m lazy
• I’m defective, insufficient, a loser
• I’m superior to others
• I’m faithful
• I’m bad
• I’m vulnerable
• I can’t handle life’s daily responsibilities
• I’m resilient

The thing I know about my Core Beliefs are that I comfortable with them (the helpful and not so helpful ones), because they are familiar to me; like a ‘comfort blanket’ a ‘ruggy’ – they have been hanging around for a long time.

And because I am so familiar with them, I often don’t even know they are there – it’s like some hibernate, but all it takes is an unusual experience, a trigger – and oh, my goodness I have awakened a giant!!

• A friend betrays you – I’m unloveable, defective, unworthy…
• You’re made redundant at your work – I’m insufficient, defective, not wanted…
• You’re jilted at the altar…
• You’re not invited to the party…
• You didn’t get enough likes on your Facebook page… and the list goes on.

A trigger and that hibernating Core Belief awakes and we wonder why we are more than sad, we are an absolute mess!

WHERE TO FROM HERE?

Explore: I would encourage you to explore your Core Beliefs either on your own or with the help of a professional.

Ask: What do I Believe About Myself – Really Believe?!

Good Friends: Good friends will help you see some of those hibernating giants, which have on occasion awakened, and been a touch nasty or ugly to be around!

Take Courage: It always takes courage to explore yourself because you may see things you haven’t seen before, may get annoyed at yourself, or even a little sad… but there will be moments when you are thrilled at what you see and others see in you – those helpful core beliefs that have at times been a solid rock and foundation in your life.

Understand: I believe God has given us the ability to Understand ourselves; what is a good, true and helpful core belief and what is an unhelpful Core Belief.  How fabulous is this?  Most importantly we can change, modify and exchange our unhelpful Core Beliefs with true and helpful Beliefs.

This is exciting.

No regrets & Hopeful.

Penny