“As long as you make an identity for yourself out of pain, you cannot be free of it.”
~Eckhart Tolle
Do you believe things about yourself that just aren’t true?
- Did someone tell you you’re nasty?
- Did you grow up believing that you can never be good enough?
I know my mother did her best, but she often called me selfish, and it took me a long time to shake that label.
We Learn to Believe False Labels
Sometimes we’re outwardly given a label that others think describes us. And sometimes we draw conclusions about ourselves from things that happened.
Mark was the functional child in a chaotic family. He took care of his younger brother and cleaned the house the best he could. But he drew a conclusion about these experiences, which is that he could never measure up to what was expected of him. He just couldn’t fix the problems in his family. And he carried this belief about himself, of not being good enough, into adulthood.
It’s amazing how strong the conditioned mind can be—it soaks up what it learns like a sponge. And, especially when we’re young, it often can’t discriminate between what is true and what is false.
So we end up not questioning the messages we receive and take them on as if they accurately describe us.
We Live What We Project
These false messages are distorted, untrue, and don’t serve our peace and well being. It’s like we’re hypnotized, living under their spell. And when we believe these messages, we project them onto the world.
We become magnets for rejection, judgment, and unkindness, which only confirms that the messages are true. Our whole lives feel off because everything stems from these false beliefs.
Here’s what I say: these false ideas about ourselves need to go. Why? Because they’re damaging, they hijack our happiness, and they’re just not true.
Somehow the innocence of who you are and the unlimited potential that is your birthright were lost. At your core, you are effortlessly at ease, unquestionably whole and good, and boundlessly open and loving…but these truths were masked.
Rejecting False Beliefs
How to start reclaiming yourself? Reject these false messages.
First, get clear on what they are. Sit down and make a list of the ways you’ve come to think about yourself that just aren’t true.
Then, every time you notice one of these beliefs, take a breath and throw it away. It might appear a million times a day, but each time, turn away from it. Say it isn’t true, and turn toward the light of peace, ease, and presence.
- Nasty? Not me.
- Inadequate? Not true about me.
- Unlikable? Into the trash.
Your mind will look for evidence to support the distorted, programmed label, but don’t even go into that story. Throw it all away because it doesn’t serve.
Living Truth
Now, here’s the exciting part: see what’s left.
When you throw away these false messages, you’re left with clear space filled with potential. How to be? What to do? How to feel in your body?
Let the intelligence of the moment show you the way. It will feel fresh and new, filled with new possibilities now that you’re out of the tunnel vision of the distorted label.
You’re moving forward free of the messages of the past.
As a person, you are a child of the universe no different from anyone else on earth. And in truth, you are infinite, universal consciousness itself. Don’t worry if you don’t believe it. Stop living by these old messages, and the rest will take care of itself.
You’ll discover your essential goodness and your pure, open, and loving heart.
What About You?
What false labels have you taken to be true? What beliefs are you going to throw away? Please share them in the comments, and if you’re reading by email, please click here to comment. I’d love to hear…
PS: I’m excited to tell you that I’m participating in a free live online retreat called Healing and Awakening moderated by Grace Bubeck. It takes place on December 12 and 13, and I am the last speaker. There is a lovely group of teachers scheduled, and I’m sure you’ll find it helpful. It’s free, and you can register here.
ALICIA REED says
It is fairly easy to bring to consciousness that a toxic label from childhood is wrong. However, that branded background information has a way of lurking in the shadows of the mind, injecting poison into the smallest segments of thoughts.
Gail Brenner says
Yes, it can be so subtle, Alicia. And this invites our deep awareness and acceptance. Slowing things down and reflecting to find those lurking shadows in our thoughts and feelings.
Glen says
Hi Gail
I am working through the false beliefs arising from, victim hood, loss, powerlessness, unworthyness. Thanks for the uplifting truths. As we allow ourselves to be free of disempowering beliefs we open the door to the true empowerment of who we really are.
Glen
Gail Brenner says
Yes! We’re in true empowerment when we’re aligned with the life force and not opposing it by pretending we’re limited by these beliefs.
Susan says
All my life I’ve believed that I will never be enough – good enough, pretty enough, smart enough. Now I’d like to rid myself of this thinking pattern. Lately I seem to be attracting people who reinforce my negative thoughts.
Gail Brenner says
That’s how it works, Susan. We project out our beliefs and the world complies. Look at the actual behaviors that transmit this idea of never being good enough. Then live as if this belief isn’t true – because it isn’t.
Natasha says
I have lost self confidence and have become a victim of abuse in relationships both physically and emotionally. Been made to believe I am worthless, inadequate and unattractive. Now I find myself constantly looking for someone to acknowledge me and working overtime to improve how I look and do things so I can get that approval from men. I want to get myself back! I am a beautiful and smart woman and need to focus on being content with myself
Gail Brenner says
Hi Natasha,
These problems start from a core belief that you’re unworthy and unlovable. This is the core belief that needs to be questioned – because it’s not true. And you know that! You know you are smart and beautiful. Live in that knowing and choose people who deserve to be with someone who values herself.
Danelle says
I believe I am not strong I am flawed. I can’t have the life health and energy to do it. I am destined to struggle.
I got the messages I was not capable of achieving anything I wanted it wasn’t for me. I saw it play out with my mother father sisters I was surrounded by suffering. I am tired no doubt and feel it’s too late
Gail Brenner says
It’s never too late, Danelle, because this message is not ultimately true about you. It’s a tape playing in your head. Turn down the volume, and start contemplating the possibility that you are not what this tape tells you that you are. What would you do differently? How would you feel? Start to imagine how things could be different for you.
Zoltan says
A lot of the false beliefs I have come from negative self talk that I am not cognizant of most of the time. I started working with an energy healer and she gave me this really cool advice. As soon as I catch a negative thought, swipe my left wrist with my right hand and just say “Cancel, clear, delete”. I’ve been doing this for the past couple of days and noticed how much less negative thoughts I have and started replacing them with positive ones!
Gail Brenner says
I love that this strategy is working for you, Zoltan. I’d like to suggest an experiment for you to try, which is to question whether you really need to replace these negative thoughts with positive ones. Maybe you don’t need positive thoughts to feel better about yourself. Thinking even positive thoughts takes us away from opening to what’s here in the present moment. What if you were just here without listening to any of them??
Emily says
I have been exploring new areas in my work life and one day I was standing in the kitchen and a belief came up for me to ponder. It was a belief that I was undeserving of moving into a place of finding joy in the work and doing new things. It was interesting because it surfaced so clearly as a belief and it’s undoubtedly false, no one can be harmed by my finding joy in my work. I don’t know where the belief came from but I’m exploring that and working on letting it dissolve at the same time.
Gail Brenner says
So helpful to identify this belief, Emily, and so great that you can see that it is false. That’s the key to dissolving it.
Arun says
I love your article’s.
You’ve really cool !!
I am like easygoing in my real life but deep inside I still have my own insecurities.
Instead of facing them and turning them into a positive thing I try my best to avoid them fully and live in a completely different world like my insecurities don’t matter to me.
But I’m not sure if it’s the right thing to do though lol.
Gail Brenner says
Hi Arun,
I’m a fan of whatever works for peace and happiness. If you are able to live in a world where your insecurities don’t matter, then why not make that your inner experience as well? Don’t pay attention to insecure thoughts and don’t do or feel what they tell you to so or feel. If this identity of insecurity is so fluid, you’ll realize that your true nature is not insecure. Live here happily!
Samuel says
Oh great. I’m writing a post about how can’t see why feeling like a screw up has to be untrue….and I lose my comment. Someone is sending me a message.
Anyway, can anyone show me how this works? How do I stop believing the empirical evidence that has pretty much been my life? Is it that it’s just so unhelpful, and so I’m to fool myself into believing that I’m not what my life has taught me from the first stirrings of self awareness. Some folks are different, and different isn’t always good. I mean, if you really are a beautiful swan, then finding your flock might erase some of the pain of having been an ugly duckling. But we all know that taken literally, Andersen’s fable is really kind of cruel. Our way out of our pain is to be beautiful?
And if it’s a metaphor for finding our place, or perhaps for finding our beauty even if it’s not apparent to others, many people never find that place or that unique beauty. So, cool story?
And what would be the point of believing you possessed a unique beauty no one else can see? Especially if your false belief is that a lifetime of mostly rejection in friendship and romance might, you know, mean that those aren’t exactly strengths. And here’s why—-face, body, social anxiety, peculiar interests, and so on.
Still, with all of that I feel deserving. I feel worthwhile. I root for me. I’m just so frustrated being a party of one in my fan club. Because my struggles are social, I need some cooperation from others or I’m still alone asking the internet “why?”.
And I know how this must look and how exhausting it must be to read, but it’s all I’ve got.
Gail Brenner says
Hi Samuel,
The answer to your questions lies in the spiritual understanding that who we truly are is not our thoughts, our history, our personality, body, appearance, gender, etc. These forms that we inhabit are by nature imperfect, and if we identify only as them, we are bound to suffer. I hear the comparison in the thoughts that visit you, with “you” coming up somehow lacking. In the world of this and that, good and bad, there are never winners.
But something in you is in touch with the deeper understanding. In spite of your personal challenges, something else is shining through, and this is the light of your true nature. It’s the aliveness, free of the contraction of thinking you’re a human in a body, that is at the source of everyone and everything. It’s where all forms dissolve giving space for the essential beauty of life to shine through. It’s what is looking out from behind your eyes, meeting itself everywhere.
Go beyond your personal story/beliefs and connect deeply with the loving presence of this moment. It’s the treasure that’s always here.
Samuel says
Yes, I’m replying to myself. I want to amend my comment above a bit. Years ago I realized that accepting my thoughts and emotions, or in the case of this post my beliefs, and looking “at them rather than through them” resonated with me and that this approach would be helpful. I do it in fits and starts, but then I get stuck in my thoughts and I kind of purge myself, as in the comment above. So……
It is so difficult to not see the world through my thoughts. Thoughts that are full of judgment and interpretation and which seem to occur almost automatically in a well worn event>>emotion>>thought>>emotion>>thought>> pattern that sucks me in. Then I think about and judge and interpret that process and, well, I get overwhelmed.
Under all of that I so very much want to think my way out of this. I want to think of myself and the world in such a way that I can reliably avoid being hurt or disappointed or angered or envious. I want to think my way into a sort of immunity to those emotions, rather than living-feeling-observing-living, and so on.
I’ve been reading this blog a lot the past 24 hours, focusing on the posts about acceptance and observing emotions and thoughts without judgment or interpretation. There’s such a consistent message here, Gail, and you’ve worn me down 🙂 A lot of this is stuff I know but resist, but I just now saw how for me emotion means all the crap that has always followed it; the thinking and ruminating and judging and interpreting that are the real cause of messy pain and serve as anchors that hold me back and make me reluctant to risk experiencing all that again. I mean if that was the way it had to be, who would volunteer for that?
But in in reality emotions are just sensations that signal something to us, often by amplifying what we already know. When I let myself experience them, rather than fight them or plot against them, the pain they cause is pretty endurable.
There are a lot of gems here, Gail. Many are similar ideas but packaged just a bit differently and with an added tidbit or two, and when several are read, they really do chip away at a person’s resistance. And when I say they’re similar, that’s not a criticism. How many stories are there, really? You tell a few in a variety of ways that keeps them fresh and creates a kind of unity of idea and experience that’s impressive. I’m really trying to surrender to it. Thank you.
Gail Brenner says
Beautiful path you are on, Samuel. Sending much love…