What’s at your core?
It’s not always easy to slice into the center and uncover our core beliefs. When we do this we may find some very negative ones left over from childhood.
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Negative Core Beliefs develop as a small child tries to work out a “because” to help them cope with something they don’t understand or are troubled by in their daily life. It might be neglect, injustice, dishonest parenting, parents with addictions, abuse or just feelings of vulnerability, fear or shame. Source
An integral component of our life purpose are our “core values”. These values are those intangibles of life that mean the most to us. When we are children our core values are those transmitted to us by our parents, teachers, religious leaders and the society we live in. Our core values are at the heart of all the values we’ve been taught we “should value.”
When we are adults we can choose to uncover these core values and jettison those leftover from childhood that are negative and no longer useful to us. Then we can move forward by adopting new core values that are positively focused towards helping us achieve our chosen life purpose.
Imagine 3 concentric circles. The outer and largest circle is composed of “should values,” the next circle inside that one is our “chosen values” (should values that we actually choose to hold onto and live from). The last circle is our “core values” which are those chosen values that as adults truly matter most to us.
Since these core values are an integral part of our life purpose, when we have undertaken a core value review and made appropriate changes we begin to live a new purpose driven life. At that juncture we can begin living a “value-based” life, rather than a life based on materialism and competitiveness.
Summarized from: Dr. W. Bradford Swift, and author of Life On Purpose: 6 Passages to an Inspired Life.
When I was in my early thirties I uncovered some negative core beliefs and I replaced them with my own truths. Below is a list of my core beliefs. I’m sharing them with you and hoping that you will share yours with me.
My Core Beliefs
- I am complete, perfect and whole.
- I am capable, competent, compassionate, lovable and powerful.
- I set realistic goals and achieve them.
- I learn equally well from both success and failure.
- I see clearly what is happening both outside and inside of me, without emotional or rational attachments and distractions.
- I experience joy and peace that pass all understanding when I enter the ego-less state of harmonious balance through meditation.
- Learning is a lifelong experience that transcends many lives…and when we close our minds to learning we close our minds to life itself.
- The same life lessons will be presented to me and over again until I learn them.
- The more difficult the challenge, the more valuable the life lesson will be.
- Ideas, theories and beliefs are not necessarily truths.
- A belief is not an idea held by the mind; it is an idea that holds the mind.
- We don’t see things as they are; we see things as we are.
- Change is the only constant in life, and I am able to be flexible, adaptable and to flow with its ever-changing events.
- Life’s changes are challenges, which help me grow and become more powerful, purposeful and strong.
- Not everyone will love me nor will I love everyone but that’s okay, because at our core we are all much more the same than we are different.
- Death is a transition, a new beginning.
Related posts found in this blog:
Everyday Meditation
Mindfulness Meditation
Depression Busters: Daily Affirmations
Very impressive. Nicely summarized.
Indeed it can take a life-time to come up with these. Kudos.
@jaffer
Hello there,
I appreciate your praise but I know that like everyone else, I’m a work in progress, and as such, I acknowledge that there will be more changes. Thanks for reading my core beliefs and please come again soon.
Thanks for sharing your core beliefs. My own seem so often in a state of flux I’d have to do some serious thinking on the subject. It’ll have to wait, though…I’ve been on a major painting jag lately.
I agree with what you wrote in your comment to Jaffer that we continually change and evolve–hopefully for the better. We should always strive to reach a higher level of self; there is no ‘highest level’ because that would mean that it is possible to reach perfection and human can never be perfect.
I am not surprised that you and I share many of the same core beliefs.
My journey of recovery has allowed me the opportunity to really get to know myself and to form core beliefs. Because of the childhood and young adulthood I had, I was so fragmented that it was not possible. When I entered recovery, I was like a tree–one whose branches were twisted, deformed and rotten with disease. The process of recovery has been one of getting back to the very root–tearing down the deformed and diseased branches and allowing the original root (where my real core beliefs can take hold) to form in the direction that nature intended.
What a great list.
Melinda
Hi there TT
Sorry I’ve been away for a while. I’ve been thinking about you lots and hoping for your healthy recovery. I have great faith in you, part of me knows there will be no holding you down. I hope you’re feeling better.
I share many of your core beliefs too. I feel I will always be a work-in-progress. Perhaps I have another belief too…no, make that two! (Or even more).
The first is about learning. “Learning is a lifelong experience…when we close our minds to learning we close our minds to life itself”. Perhaps this is about getting older and a sense I have that the more I feel I know, the more I realise how little I know.
The second is about humility. Perhaps it might go that, “Only in humility is my heart and soul open to the joy of experiencing others.”
Now there’s a third…you knew there would be, didn’t you? *laughing* I have written a lot about love and the psychology of love. I suspect I have even kicked some arse in conventional academia on that subject! I do believe in love, but I believe in it as a conscious act of understanding and commitment, a combination of will and desire. This particular belief is deeply personal too. I recognize that others may not feel the same. Oh no! I have just realised that this is two beliefs so make that four now…The first belief is that the only kind of love worth anything is unconditional. I wrote on my blog:
“True love is about giving and nothing less. It is about giving love rather than desperately searching to be loved. It’s the only attitude that can begin to carry you through the agony of human limitation and mortality. Love that is based on giving, not receiving, is true and lasting. It is never fleeting and can never fly off into despair and hate.
It is a pity that true love is feared by most of us, and is hardly ever taught to anyone, children or adults.”
That is a core belief for me…But it’s not one I can say that I have realised despite a desire to do so. Last for the moment…I believe that it is only through the expression of love that we can experience ourselves as complete and fulfilled human beings.
I get a fair bit of stick for being an idealist…so be it.
I wanted to say a big thank you to you too. Thank you for introducing me to Melinda! When I first read her bio statement, I felt, “I have little in common with this woman…I wonder why?” I have come to realise that we have so much in common, it is mind-heart-boggling! Even our early troubled lives have so many parallels, albeit in slightly different milieu. Just amazing…one of the very best meetings I have made in this cyber-world, so thank you so much!
Take very good care of yourself, TT.
Geoffrey
@Lana
Paint while the muse is with you and return whenever you desire.
@Melinda
I’m not surprised that you have confirmed that we share many core beliefs. Getting to know you on the BC forum uncovered time and time again the fact that we were frequently coming from the same place.
The process of recovery has been one of getting back to the very root–tearing down the deformed and diseased branches and allowing the original root (where my real core beliefs can take hold) to form in the direction that nature intended.
What a great quote. I relate to the pruning of dead branches and getting down to the original root as I’ve done a lot of personal gardening myself.
Thanks so much for being my friend during this challenging time for me. I send you love and peace.
@Geoffrey,
Wow! I want to adopt your additional core beliefs and include them along with my own.
(1) Learning is a lifelong experience…when we close our minds to learning we close our minds to life itself.
Right on!
(2) Only in humility is my heart and soul open to the joy of experiencing others.
That’s also my truth.
(3) True love is about giving and nothing less. It is about giving love rather than desperately searching to be loved. It’s the only attitude that can begin to carry you through the agony of human limitation and mortality. Love that is based on giving, not receiving, is true and lasting. It is never fleeting and can never fly off into despair and hate.
This is also my learning.
I’d like to thank you for standing by me. What I’m going through is a rough part of my life journey. Rather than getting bogged down in despair about the symptoms I’m experiencing I’m trying to remain open to discovering more about the me within.
All of the best to you, Geoffrey.
great stuff! the quest for truth will always reward us… as long as we are honest about the truth we find!
Tons of love to you sweet lady!
jason the bald guy