Free Yourself from Anxiety (19 page)

Now you can see how anxious thinking is a vicious circle, with your core beliefs as the source of the energy that drives the circle round and round. Remember there are three elements to the thoughts – your surface (or automatic) thoughts, your underlying assumptions, and your core beliefs.

For instance, here’s how the circle might work for someone whose core belief is ‘I’m useless’:

The internal logic that drives the vicious circle clearly isn’t objective, but it can be very difficult to tease out the twists and turns of the belief. There is no difficulty in understanding the effects of negative core beliefs
– they undermine your self-esteem and sense of self-worth. If you are always measuring yourself against your core beliefs and finding yourself lacking, then you will never rate yourself very highly.

These kinds of beliefs are self-fulfilling – if you believe that you can’t cope, then the chances are that you won’t cope. Counsellors have a saying ‘if you do what you’ve always done, then you’ll get what you’ve always got.’ In other words, if you keep telling yourself negative things, then you’ll keep failing in the very ways that you don’t want to fail.

Negative core beliefs are often related to achievement, acceptability, trust or control.

People with OCD often have core beliefs around perfection, responsibility and punishment that are linked together. A core belief around perfection might be ‘I must be perfect’ which turns into ‘I must be perfect or I’ll be punished’ or ‘it’s my responsibility to make myself perfect.’ Responsibility produces ‘I have to stop bad things happening’ and ‘if I don’t stop bad things happening I deserve to be punished’.

OCD rituals are sometimes a way of stopping bad things from happening, and sometimes they are the way the person punishes themselves for failing to be perfect or failing to stop the bad things happening.

In the quest to be perfect someone with OCD can blame themselves for any thoughts they have which they judge to be ‘bad’ thoughts and may feel they should be punished for having those thoughts. Research suggests that most people have thoughts concerning harm or other bad things but that they pay very little attention to them. Someone with OCD may also come to believe that just by having the thoughts they can cause bad things to happen.

Although the thoughts and rituals may seem quite strange, psychologists believe that they developed for good reasons – usually as ways for a child to get through a difficult situation. They are not appropriate for an adult, but they persist even so, or emerge at times of stress – see Chapter 41 for an explanation of this.

Challenging your core beliefs can make you feel very uncomfortable, so be kind to yourself while you are doing this work. If you already feel ashamed, guilty or inadequate because of your core beliefs, then telling yourself that your world view is all wrong will only make these feelings worse, as if you’ve only got yourself to blame for your difficulties.

This simply isn’t true. Core beliefs develop for very good reasons that make perfect sense at the time. Small children usually accept the ideas that are suggested to them by adults and by their culture, because they need to believe that the people caring for them are right and know best. And as we’ve already said they often work out their own ideas based on their life experience, so that some core beliefs arise because you need them at the time to get through a difficulty.

You can see for instance that a child who loses a parent might comfort themselves by thinking ‘it’s not my fault, all adults go away sooner or later’, or they might take the exact opposite view and blame themselves – ‘it’s all my fault that they went away’.

The trouble is that the beliefs dig themselves in and hang on into adult life like bad habits that are hard to change. And yet they can be changed, with patience and determination. (Anyone who has reached this stage in the book can credit themselves with plenty of both.)

If you approach this with an open mind, and accept the possibility of change, you have every chance of success. You can’t undo the past, but you can bring your adult mind to bear on the situation, and write new rules for yourself and test them out.

You have already started on the first step, which is identifying your negative core beliefs. This may take more than one try before you get to the heart of the matter – hitting on the key belief may be quite painful, or may bring a sense of relief as you recognise it for what it is. Once you have found a belief that seems to be important, examine how you feel about it at the moment. There are three possibilities:

If you are ready to give the belief up, then doing the exercises below will help you reach that goal.

If you can still feel the emotional pull of a belief that you know is irrational, then you may have to work harder to shift it.

If you still believe in it totally then you will need to work even harder. The most important thing is that you want to shift it, and that you have the motivation to do so.

Once you have identified your core beliefs, you can subject each one to a series of questions. Rather like putting Anxiety on trial, this is a way of shining a light onto it and understanding how it works.

Questions to ask:

Is this belief always true?

Does this belief have any benefit for me now?

Does this belief contribute to my well-being or my peace of mind?

Did I choose this belief myself as a way of surviving?

Did this belief come from the adults around me?

Example for someone whose core belief is ‘I always fail’.

Is this belief always true?
No, I can think of times when I haven’t failed, but they don’t seem important.

Does this belief have any benefit for me now?
It stops me getting bigheaded.

Does this belief contribute to my well-being or my peace of mind?
It keeps me from taking on risky challenges because I know I’ll fail at them.

Did I choose this belief as a way of surviving?
Yes, because I was the youngest and I couldn’t compete with the others.

Did this belief come from the others around me?
No.

Straight away you can see that the belief is not true all the time and that it only brings negative benefits – it stops the person from being adventurous. Above all you can see that it is no longer relevant to their adult life – they were the youngest, but they’re not any more.

Changing negative core beliefs is a slow process but worth the effort. Some people cherish them as an essential part of themselves, but if something is making you unhappy, isn’t it best to get rid of it?

One of the simplest techniques is also one of the most effective – countering. Once you have established your main negative core belief you can create a statement that counters it, and use it regularly. Write it in your diary, stick it to your bathroom mirror, remind yourself of it at every opportunity. Gradually the counter will come to seem more true than the original.

You could also record your counter statement and play it back regularly.

Another good technique is to work with another person and ask them to repeat your counter statement to you, while you return the favour and repeat their counter to them. (You don’t have to find another Anxiety sufferer to work with, just someone who is also trying to make changes.)

I’m powerless –
I can control my life.

If I take a risk, I’ll fail –
I can learn to take risks, step by step.

If I fail, others will reject me –
I can cope with failure, and I can cope with rejection if it comes.

I mustn’t make mistakes –
I can learn from my mistakes.

I’m not important –
I’m a worthwhile person.

I should always look and behave in an acceptable way –
It’s okay to be myself.

If I worry enough things will get better –
action makes things better, not worrying.

I can’t cope with anything difficult or frightening –
I can do anything I set my mind to.

The world is dangerous –
The danger in the world is manageable.

I must stay within my comfort zone to keep safe –
I can create my own safe zone wherever I am.

Treat yourself as a project and set out to discover as much about yourself as you can. Start with the negative core belief, for instance ‘Nobody likes me’.

Then do research into the truth of this. You might look for evidence that you are liked – for instance:

Evidence that you are not liked – for instance:

You’re likely to get some good surprises when you’re researching your negative core beliefs. You’ll find that some people do like you, and are astonished that you thought otherwise. There will always be some people that don’t like aspects of your character, but that doesn’t mean you’re unlikeable as a person.

With a core belief such as ‘I’m useless at everything’ or ‘I never get anything right’ you could well find that other people see you quite differently – as competent and reliable for instance. While you may find this hard to believe, it will help you to chip away at that core belief.

You may also find that people are more aware of your Anxiety problem than you thought, and you may find this painful. Even those people who haven’t been told about your problem may make remarks like ‘we would ask you to our parties, but everyone knows you don’t like parties’. In other words, they’ve misinterpreted the fact that you avoid socialising because of your Anxiety.

It’s not only Anxiety sufferers who jump to conclusions, and you may hear remarks that you find quite hurtful, such as ‘I know you don’t like coming to my house because it’s so small and scruffy’. At this point you have to choose whether to tell the person the real reason you don’t visit them.