From the time we are very young we are learning to believe information about ourselves from our primary caregivers. It makes sense – they are the adults and without question, we look to them to learn, feel loved, and be nurtured.
In an ideal upbringing parents/caregivers coddle, praise, appropriately discipline, and show love and affection for their children. However, if someone doesn’t grow up receiving positivity and love from their parent, other messages are being conveyed. Perhaps it is the idea of not being important enough or being heard and valued or of being a burden.
Whatever the case, whether a caregiver directly says those things or silently conveys them, these are the perceptions we accept and believe about ourselves. So here we are as adults and our self-image and relationships are still being affected by those beliefs. What can we do now? Each one of us has the capacity to help ourselves “untie” these “knots” that keep alive our mindset of negative feelings about ourselves.
Let’s say you have the belief that you are not good enough. Maybe in your childhood, you picked up this idea as a parent or grandparent would often criticize you. Perhaps a teacher berated you in front of the class, or a sibling seemed to be the favorite child in the family. Wherever this perception came from it has become your personal belief. You have likely had others who have told you it is not true, but it is what you cling to. From the time you accepted this to be true, you have told yourself it over and over and over. Here is where the idea comes in we believe what we tell ourselves. For as long as you tell yourself you are not good enough you will continue to believe it.
This is where changing your language – your words – comes in to change that belief. It may sound simple but with well-chosen affirmations and positive self-talk you can turn that limiting belief into something that frees you to live a happier, fuller life.
In our counseling sessions, we use a format for affirmations that are strongly effective. Since the idea is to uproot the negative thoughts and replace them with positive ones we start the affirmations with, “I no longer feel” and “I feel”. When saying affirmations we are creating new neural pathways in our brain – as an ancient writer put it ‘…transforming ourselves by making our mind over.’
Here are a few sample affirmations:
I no longer feel I am not good enough
I feel I am good enough
I no longer feel I am untrustworthy
I feel I am trustworthy
I feel I trust myself
I no longer feel others view me as unlovable
I feel others view me as lovable
Use these or make up your own. The more you affirm these positive beliefs, the lighter and happier version of you you’ll be!
