Dissolving Beliefs: When an Old Statement Sounds Like the Truth

A belief is a conviction about oneself that feels like a perception: something often heard, often repeated, or drawn from one’s own experiences. I'm too much. Or: When I cry, I'm weak. Such statements come across as facts. Often, a statement like that once explained a situation that a child otherwise wouldn’t have been able to make sense of. It helped make sense of the world. Yet it has remained, long after the world has moved on.

Let Go of Old Beliefs

At this point, opposites are of little help, however understandable the desire for them may be. Anyone who simply covers up an old statement with a friendlier phrasing is just sugarcoating it: the underlying feeling remains unaddressed and may resurface as shame once the new phrasing fails to live up to one’s own ideal. A more viable approach is to test the old statement against today’s experiences and try out an alternative that is true. A statement loses its power when the feeling it manages is understood; and this is most likely to succeed if the situation it comes from is allowed to be remembered again.

Where a Statement Comes From

Where such a statement comes from and what it once had to manage can be understood in counseling via video or phone.