Identifying your core beliefs, think about the negative automatic thoughts that often come up for you.
Do you notice any recurrent messages you might review some of the common themes that lead to specific
emotions and behaviors?
If you've worked on identifying and changing your automatic thoughts, you can record those thoughts
in the outer ring of the figure displayed here as you consider these automatic thoughts.
Do you find a central belief that unites them all?
If so, right in the space, in the middle, for example, Layla had a lot of anxiety about her health.
She completed the core belief diagram.
When I left you and I blame, for example, she interpreted every form of turbulence as a sign of an
imminent crash.
We might expect that many safe landings would weaken her fear of flying, since they provide evidence
against her fear.
However, core beliefs act as a filter that only lets in information that confirms our beliefs.
Each time Layla flew, she had automatic thoughts like we're losing altitude that made her think she
had escaped an untimely death rather than feeling safer.
She was left with the conviction that she might not be so lucky.
Next time,
as Layla learned, core beliefs and automatic thoughts act in a self perpetuating manner.
Each each being the cause and the consequence of the other.
As you become more aware of your own patterns of thinking, be on the lookout for instances when your
core beliefs are interfering with an objective take on reality.
This process requires paying close attention for the presence of thinking errors in specific situations,
taking care not to believe everything our minds tell us.
Keep in mind that negative core beliefs can lie dormant when we're feeling well and emerge when we're
gripped by strong emotion.
Individuals who are prone to depression are surely likely to showing an increase in negative beliefs
when they experience a negative mood, raising the risk for future episodes of depression.
Thankfully, we can train our minds to guard against relapse as individuals who have used CBT show a
somewhat smaller increase in negative thinking during low moods.
You can also use the donor technique to get to your core beliefs at each step.
Ask yourself what it would mean if your thought were true.
Um, Laila used that downward arrow technique to examine the implications of her automatic thought about
having cancer.
Um.
Throat, I have cancer, which means that there is no cure, which means that I'm going to die soon,
which means that I'm going to leave my kids without a mother you can use that don't want or to explore
your own core.