Where do self-sabotaging thoughts come from?
While the thoughts we have are not conscious choices that we make, they are subconsciously derived from the whole of our life experience.
As children, we absorb everything around us, and our brains code experiences as part of a vast collection of data. This especially includes experiences damaging to our self-image. A traumatic event or even a careless word can become a core memory, filed away on our hard drive, always within reach.
When we have thoughts, we ‘activate’ this host of memories and data points. By activating the same data points again and again, we can form a thought pattern or a belief.
Self-sabotaging beliefs are hard to shake because they incorporate into our identity. But we don’t have to let them stay in control. We have the power to change them.
How?
The first step is to spot them and identify where they may have started, because we can’t change what we don’t notice. That can involve digging back into our memory banks a bit.
“The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice.” —Peggy O’Mara
How a Belief Forms from Childhood
When I was 12 and struggling with bad grades and confusion, my sixth grade teacher called my house and told my mom, “She’s just not very bright.”
Oooooof.
Those five words landed squarely in my hard drive and seeped into my inner dialogue for many years to come. They echoed above the excellent grades I achieved in high school. They overshadowed the accomplishment of graduating college with honors. No matter what I did or what good things happened, I couldn’t shake my harsh, judgmental inner voice.
Those words were sticky.
That’s how humans are wired, isn’t it? It’s our old enemy, the negativity bias. Negative experiences tend to stick around for much longer, and in much clearer detail, than positive ones.
Why? Because that’s how humans have survived as a species. We had to remember the bad stuff just a little bit better (i.e., where the tiger lived) to protect ourselves.
For years those words shaped the way I saw myself, and I truly believed I was “not very bright.”
It sounds crazy, doesn’t it? That 5 words could do so much damage?
But that’s often how self-sabotaging beliefs start. We believe a false narrative as a child, and carry it into adulthood.
Retracing Thoughts Like Data
Just as my self-deprecating thoughts traced back to a moment in my childhood, your thoughts also have a history.
All of our early life experiences and memories are like bits of data on the vast hard drive of our brain. We reach into that drive every time we have a thought, sometimes to recent files, and sometimes to very, very old ones.
Our brain may not be aware on a conscious level that those old files are getting “activated,” because the memories are lodged so deep in our nervous system. But those old files come into play every time we fall into a self-sabotaging thought pattern.
When we’ve lived with a thought for so long, how do we start to change it?
→We have to give ourselves permission to NOTICE our reactions so we can identify triggers and situations that leave us feeling reactive without us knowing why.
→ Next we can trace those thoughts and reactions back to their origin…the file(s) buried deep in our hard drive.
→Once we understand the data fueling our problematic thoughts, we can reframe them and choose to think and act differently.
As we replace our default self-sabotaging patterns with positive thoughts, we build new neural pathways in our brain. And eventually, with practice, we can start reaching for a ‘file’ that empowers us instead of one that steals our joy and confidence.
It starts with one thought. What thought can you start replacing?
Every thought is a possibility.
