Core Negative Beliefs: What they are and the impact they have on our lives

We all have negative belief systems that impact our perceptions of how we view the world. But what are negative belief systems and how can they impact us so much?

Negative belief systems are beliefs we’ve internalized about ourselves and the world around us in the efforts of attaching to our caregivers. 

As humans, we rely on our caregivers for survival. Anything that gets in the way of this could be catastrophic and fatal, even if that’s our caregivers own shortcomings. 

Some ways that our caregivers can fall short in being able to support us are by:

Overt Trauma:

• Physical abuse

• Emotional abuse

• Neglect

• Abandonment

Perceived Trauma:

• Perceived abandonment

• Not getting our needs met

• Not feeling fully supported

• Not attending to our needs fast enough

If our caregiver is falling short in some way, our brains can’t evolutionary allow this to be the caregivers fault. The sequence our brains area is: if there is something wrong with my caregiver, that means that they can’t care for me, and therefore I will die. 

Therefore, in an effort to survive and attempts to adapt, we internalize these shortcomings as our own: 

• If my caregiver abuses me, it must mean I’m not good enough.

• If my caregiver can’t nurture me the way that I need, it must mean I’m not lovable. 

• If my caregiver can’t be present for me, it must mean I’m a burden.

These belief systems take root and fester throughout our lives, becoming so unconscious that we sometimes don’t even realize they’re impacting us. But they become our triggers or emotional outbursts within our adult relationships. 

Let’s take the belief that almost everyone can identify with “I’m not good enough”. Negative belief systems automatically generate fears. Because I’m not good enough, I fear that I will be rejected or abandoned. These fears then create ways to keep these from coming true at all costs. 

These are the symptoms that can be seen on a conscious level such as: 

• People pleasing

• Workaholism

• Alcoholism

• Perfectionism

• Difficulty saying no

• Eating disorders

• Etc. 

The emotional/illogical part of our brain says “If I can please everyone, then they won’t reject me, and therefore the belief of ‘I’m not good enough’ won’t be true” Only, this is a constant, self defeating cycle.

We engage in destructive patterns to protect fears around belief systems that were formed in our developmental years. 

This is where trauma work comes in with a focus on attachment wounding. 

By allowing the body to re-circuit the neuropathways that forged those early belief systems, we can start to decrease the intensity of these beliefs, thereby decreasing the fears, and in turn disengaging from ineffective behavior patterns (codependency, addiction, destructiveness, etc.) that protected them in the first place. 

I’m Celeste Tomasulo and I’m a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who specializes in trauma with a focus on attachment wounding. In my practice, I help clients identify core negative belief systems and utilize trauma modalities to help decrease the intensity of these beliefs.