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RTF WEEK #07 - THOUGHTS and BELIEFS

Updated: Oct 24, 2024

If you have been working through the RTF session of ASSERT YOURSELF has it caused static from outside sources? Are you aware of your internal chatter? How is that going?


Things sometimes get worse before they get better.  Changing yourself requires dedication and can cause your personal strength to rise.  Change can certainly be difficult but it certainly is worth the effort in the end.

It is human behaviour to avoid pain and seek pleasure.  We all want to be happy and feel good.  Happiness really is an inside job but many are stumped as to how to create happiness.  It is your responsibility to make yourself happy, no one can do it for you.  While creating happiness is complex issue, one must start somewhere. 

Your beliefs can be instrumental in making you unhappy.  Statements made since you were a child by family members, siblings, friends and enemies, etc. can sink into your subconscious making you believe you are ugly, fat, boring, stupid, useless, weak and the list can go on and on.  Your belief system starts in childhood through your life experiences, basically what life handed us in our past.  Our mind records our history in our subconscious mind making it easy for automatic retrieval.  When something similar happens to us that reflects something stored in our subconscious mind, our emotions will rise with pain or pleasure.  This is done on autopilot.

Our emotions are our feelings.  Most of us are uncomfortable with negative emotions/feelings.  Many create their own personal coping strategies often reflecting in their behaviour, which in turn, reinforces your thoughts as reflected in this diagram:



It would only stand to reason if you change your beliefs it could help change your thoughts.  If you change your thoughts, your emotions will change.  If you change your emotions to pleasure, you can be happier.  If you are happier, you feel good.

Many decades ago, while journeying through a difficult passage in my life, I created this mantra to repeat when in the depths of despair:

I want to be happy

I intend to be happy

I am happy

I am happy

I am happy

This was a way to change my focus from the situation at hand, thereby, changing my focus and helping my emotions. Your self talk is largely responsible for how you feel about yourself and/or life.  I like to refer to this self talk as the “Chatterbox”.

Your Chatterbox is your internal self critic.  It is actually part your thinking process.  It is you, having a conversation with you.  Some often feel a bit crazy when they tune into this Chatterbox.  It chatters to you from the time you wake up, until you go to bed.  It can certainly be destructive because it constantly finds fault within you, it beats you up for making mistakes, it self-judges by using rigid standards of good and bad, it can cause your fears, your anxiety, and your hopelessness all of which can lead to depression.  The Chatterbox consistently feeds you lies and helps convince you that you can read the minds of others and how they are judging you.

Your Chatterbox was created in your childhood from well intended people trying to mold you into a good person, a fine upstanding citizen of our society.  These people are everyone in your life (family members, siblings, friends and enemies, etc.) and society as a whole.  How often were you punished for your mistakes? 

Were you shunned for being a unique individual? 

Do you remember every being shamed for doing something viewed as wrong?

These well-meaning adults unintentionally damaged your self-worth with a great deal of negative feedback about your actions, or lack of actions.  It was how they were raised, thereby, what they were taught.  They truly  meant well, try not to judge them. Contrary to popular belief, shaming does not make anyone do better but it does do a good job knocking a person down.

Surprisingly, the main job of your Chatterbox is to keep you in a safe place. It wants to keep you safe in your comfort zone.  It doesn’t want to you to take risks just in case it backfires and causes you grief.  The Chatterbox is instrumental in creating your unhealthy fears.

Lets look at an example of self-talk causing unhealthy fear.

Someone is at a social gathering and notices a stranger they would like to meet.  The feelings of anxiety rise when the Chatterbox begins with possible thoughts of:

I want to reach out and meet that person

No way that person would want anything to do with me

I am too short/tall

I am too fat/thin

I am too stupid

I am too ugly

I will be rejected, that will be embarrassing and hurtful

At this point the potential pain most probably is viewed as greater than the possible reward.  If so, the choice will likely be to remain in their comfort zone where safety is found and anxiety subsides.

All this self-talk is raised by lack of self-worth due to prior life experiences and can become a repetitive habit without even realizing it.  Chances are, until you begin to pay attention you likely do not know what is happening in your thoughts.

Truth is, your Chatterbox has a very complex function in your life.  It is complicated because it remembers everything.  It programs you to keep you safe.  It can constantly remind you of your past failures and mistakes telling you not to do that again.  The Chatterbox means well but will create within you fear, fear, fear and more fear to (again) keep you safe. 

Fact is, it is only you, judging you.  You are actually rejecting yourself.  The Chatterbox can become extremely toxic to block you from living your life to its highest potential.  Although the Chatterbox is trying to protect you, it is a psychological assassin.  It attacks you, breaks you down, takes your good feeling and blows them up.  It is like a bully treating you like a child. 

The self attacks can seem reasonable and justified because you have been living this your life, its become a habit on auto-pilot.  You become so accustomed to the attacks it seems normal, believable, and true.  These thoughts can ignite feelings of shame, embarrassment, incompetence and much more.  These feelings warn you not to go where you want to go, thereby keeping you in a safe place and/or your comfort zone.  After some time, you might even be relying on your Chatterbox to keep your safe (without your awareness).

Have you ever compared yourself with others?  In doing you, you might begin to create scenarios in your mind of those other people are thinking about you.  The judgement begins with thoughts of your lack in achievements and abilities in comparison to someone else.  It can create within you an impossible trait of perfectionism.  These self judgements can make you feel like you don’t measure up and an internal war of beating yourself up ensues. 

It will not tolerate any mistakes you make and will begin to make demands on you. Do this, don’t do that.  The Chatterbox wants you to live by the rules imposed upon you since birth.  It cleverly punishes you with feelings of guilt, shame, etc. It might also create within you a desire to be a high achiever but in the end you are never quite good enough.  You will never measure up unless you are the best of the best, which is likely an unreachable goal.

  It will feed you thoughts of never measuring up to anything. 

It makes you believe you can’t.

Your mind is a powerful tool, good, bad or indifferent. 

If you think you can’t, you can’t.

If you think you can, you can!

The good news is, today is a new day! You can begin to challenge your internal critic, your Chatterbox.  It’s a victory to just become aware of its existence.  It had a free ride up until today, attacking you whenever it wanted.  It has diminished your self-worth in the name of keeping you safe.

Do you feel it is time to take your life back?

Is it time to feed good?

Is it time to break free?

You can decide to make a commitment to break out of your comfort zone.  This is where a new life begins.  Remember your unhealthy fear is a figment of your imagination.  Fear, stress, anxiety, beliefs and thoughts are all intertwined. 

IF you can change your mind, you can change your life!

The first step, is to become aware of your Chatterbox.  It will take work to really listen because it is a habitual behaviour on auto pilot.  It helps to become aware of your emotions.  When you begin to feel anxious, stay alert for your self-talk.  The Chatterbox is likely feeding you negative dialogue creating feelings of worthless and unhealthy fear. 

Anytime you are feeling depressed or down on yourself, be aware.  The Chatterbox will use this against you feeding you negative chatter.  The worse you feel, the worse the chatter gets.  You might even become obsessive compulsive about the thoughts which can cause a heavy, downward spiral into anxiety.


Here is a process for really becoming aware of the Chatterbox.  It is best done while sitting alone, in a safe place:


Deep Breathing

Get comfortable, close your eyes and repeat this deep breathing cycle 3 times:

Take a deep breath into your diaphragm, hold for 3 seconds and release through your mouth. Feel the tension leaving your body when you are exhaling.


Now, feeling relaxed and calm, become aware of your body:

  • Are you tense in a specific spot of your body?

  • Do you have an uneasy feeling in your body?

example, is your stomach upset?

is there tension in neck/shoulders?

do you have a headache?

  • Listen to your thoughts

can you connect the thoughts to the problem area in your body?

what are you saying to yourself?

  • Now, try to remember how the feeling began

what was the Chatterbox saying then?

The “Onion Effect”:

Let me introduce the “Onion Effect” process to help you get to the root of all thoughts. This tool can be used throughout your entire life. There is always another layer to pull back, when you learn to deal with one issue, another appears until you actually get to the real root of the problem. This is a good thing, you can become stronger and more confident one step at a time. If you like this process you can make it a good habit.


While sitting quietly (after deep breathing) ask yourself, "What is the truth? Listen to your self talk statements, what is your critic saying to you?

  • Ask yourself why you believe this

  • Is it really true?

  • Has it become a habit to believe this?

  • Hear and feel the negative judgments


You can get to the base problem of the self talk statement by asking “why” statements

  • Keep asking “why” until you discover the base issue

  • It’s like removing a band-aid and looking at the real issue


You might feel anxious but stay the course. You will know your final answer, the base issue, when asking "why" again is not necessary!

Lets use the onion effect on the example above. You are at a social gathering, see a stranger you would like to meet, you begin to feel anxious because your Chatterbox convinces you that you are not worthy:

  • Your thought is, “You are not worthy enough to meet this person”

    • Why do you think this?

    • Perhaps because you feel you are too fat, ugly, short, boring, etc.

    • Ask yourself why do you think this?

      • Be patient for the answer, it will come

      • Lets say you discover you were made fun of in grade 5 causing a major embarrassment in front of the entire classroom

      • Ah ha, this is your base problem!

  • The key here is to continue asking, "Why?" until your get to the root issue

The good news is, once you have found your belief you can begin to challenge it. This process helps you see the truth much more clearly. The reality is you created your own fictitious monster. If you created your Chatterbox, you can re-create it into a more positive form.

Can you allow yourself to be open to change?

Can you keep your mind open?


Just because someone says something does not make it true. The same goes for your Chatterbox, just because your internal critic is beating you up does not make it a fact. Learn to defend yourself by talking back to yourself. This will absolutely feel like an internal war but keep doing it anyway. It is the only way to recovery and healing.


You can use affirmations to reverse your believe system.:

  • Helps focus on a positive outcome

  • Instrumental in removing unwanted beliefs

  • Helps create what you really want in life

  • Aids in the power of positive thought

  • Can transfer negative emotions to positive



Feel free to review previous WEEKS of ROADMAP TO FREEDOM posts:


Friendly reminder… continue with your Daily Affirmations

Experiencing a bad day? 

Review your Dream Life Story.  It can fill you up with much needed faith, hope and determination.  Above all else, never, every, give up…tomorrow is new day that can bring you new possibilities.

The Roadmap to Freedom personal growth series is a unique, one-of-a-kind program created by Ali Shilo. All rights reserved. Copyright 2024

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