Music. Music. Mr. and Mrs. Therapy podcast. We're so glad that you're here with us today. So we've been in a series where we've been talking about negative cognitions and negative beliefs and where they come from as well as how they affect us in our current everyday life. We're using a grouping of four different categories and the first one is I am something wrong, like I am permanently really damaged or I am not good enough. The second grouping is I did something wrong.
The third is safety or vulnerability. And the fourth is control or choice. So that will be more like I'm not in control. I'm powerless. I'm weak. And these will make more sense as we go into them. But we're already a couple episodes into the series and we're still in the first grouping of I am something wrong. So if you haven't already listened to the first couple episodes, go back and listen to those and then come back over here as we finish up the first group of I am something wrong.
So today we're going to be finishing that group with I am stupid, I'm insignificant or unimportant, I'm a disappointment, I deserve to die, I deserve to be miserable, and I am different or I don't belong. And like we said in the last couple episodes, these are really important, especially if you're going to do EMDR, to recognize which of these beliefs and negative cognitions really ring true for you.
And if you're new to our podcast, EMDR is a type of trauma therapy that Tim and I just love and we've used extensively and we've seen such a big difference. And oftentimes we're working on the memory, a negative memory, a traumatic event, but really behind it is what we're looking for, these negative beliefs, because that's what spiderwebs out into the rest of your life.
And different negative events will then confirm these negative beliefs in your mind, even though they're not serving you and they're not true, they feel so real and so true for you. So it's really important to get under these beliefs of, I'm not good enough. I did something wrong. I'm in danger. Because if you don't, then it'll continue throughout your life and in different areas where you may be shocked to that it's showing up.
Maybe it was a trauma from your childhood that you can now see the effects on your relationship or in your parenting. And so we really want to dig deep and find these negative beliefs and negative cognitions so that we can truly heal them. And to add on to that, one of the things I always like to tell people is that our emotions are our reality. Not that they are what reality is, but they form how we view and how we interpret and how we experience the reality around us.
And so, for example, with this first one that we're going to be talking about, I am stupid, even though you may have things that are contrary to that, like you may have advanced degrees and you may have been the valedictorian or at the top of your class, you can still have this feeling like I am stupid, even though there's objective reality around you that says something to the contrary of that. And it's because these beliefs are emotionally motivated.
Now, an example of where I am stupid or not smart enough can come from. If you're ridiculed in academics, or maybe you were just surrounded by other really smart people, where you're comparing yourself to people who it's not fair to compare yourself to.
So, for example, if you're eight years old and you're comparing yourself to your 15-year-old sibling and their intellect, you're going to find yourself lacking a lot because they're just so much older, there's more concepts that they've been exposed to than you have, and they just had more years of education than you have. Now, again, you can look at that and think, well, okay, well, that would make sense.
You shouldn't think as an eight-year-old I should be able to match up to a 15-year-old but again just like I said earlier it's based a lot on how you feel and if you feel like man there's someone bigger and better and I'm never going to be able to match up to that you can adopt and develop this negative belief of I'm stupid or I'm not smart enough or if you had parents and even if they are well-meaning but they're constantly pressuring you to do more and to do better in school and
wanting you to exert perfection in all of your academics that can can also make you feel like you're stupid, not smart enough, even if objectively you were at the top of your class. But because your parents didn't necessarily give you affirming words for that, then all of a sudden it's like, well, even though objectively I am doing good, it doesn't matter. I'm still not getting the praise from them about this. And so you still feel like that you're at some type of intellectual deficit.
And how this can affect you is it can cause you to avoid academic or professional opportunities because you're feared of being exposed or fear that you're going to show yourself to be incompetent. Another term for that is imposter syndrome, feeling like you're an imposter and that you aren't really good enough to get the achievements that you've gotten or the positions that you've been offered, or even feeling like you could go after those positions because you feel like
you're not really this person. You really feel like I am just dumb. I am not smart enough. I can't handle this, even though you really could if you gave yourself a shot or a chance at it. And even though you might have been working in a specific area for years, you may still feel like I'm just waiting for that other shoe to drop.
I'm waiting for people to finally figure out that I've just been tricking and deceiving everybody and that I'm not really smart enough to hold the position that I have now. The next one is I am insignificant or unimportant. And for all of these negative beliefs, there are a plethora of different examples or experiences that you may have had that could have led to this. But we're just giving you a couple of examples.
So one example for I'm insignificant or unimportant is just being overlooked in your family, maybe because of other siblings. You know, they always talk about being the middle child and being overlooked there. But that could really happen anywhere in the family line. Or maybe you have special needs in your family and truly just because of the significant needs of the other children, even though it wasn't your parents' intention, you feel as if you were overlooked or as you weren't as important.
But it may just have been the urgency of the situation or the magnitude of the needs, but it wasn't necessarily that you're unimportant, but there are other needs that were pressing in that moment and in that time. It could be on the playground at school where you were picked last for a game. And so it's hard for us as parents because we hear all these different examples and we're like, hey, we're doing our best over here. That was never my intention.
And really the work that we do in EMDR could come from any type of experience. It doesn't have to be a trauma, but any kind of disturbing event where you just feel like, man, that really still affects me or I think of it often and it was so long ago. Or maybe there's high needs in the family and your parents had to work all the time and so you were the one that had to take care of siblings but you never felt like your needs were met.
You never felt like you got to do the things that you wanted to do. That could also make you feel unimportant or insignificant. Or maybe in school, you were just a little more quiet, which there could be so much strength in being quiet and being able to observe the people around you and being an introvert. I think a lot of times the Western society, we see it as the strength of the extrovert. But really, there's a lot of strength in being an introvert. But a lot of times you can get overlooked.
And so maybe in the classroom, the teacher always calls on the people who are loud and they know that they always have different answers and ideas. Is, so they call on them, and you just kind of feel overlooked. And so when we look at the current life impact, it could be where you have difficulty voicing your opinions now.
You have a tendency to let others dominate in relationships or in decision-making processes, where you just have this general sense of invisibility, where you just feel like you aren't seen, you aren't heard. And I think that's a great example of a negative belief that really helps perpetuate itself. And And because you feel insignificant, then you behave in ways where you're muting yourself. But then that reinforces that negative belief and feeling of I'm insignificant.
The next one is I'm a disappointment. And this one oftentimes comes from feeling disapproval from important figures in your life. So it could be an older sibling you look up to. It could be your parents. It could be a coach. It could be a teacher. And somebody who you really care about. And then they may say you're a disappointment or they may do something that indicates you're a disappointment.
And I think this one is a sibling of I'm not good enough. And I do think this is something that actually you can develop without anybody imposing this on you either. This is something where you could have just set very high standards for yourself. And then when you aren't able to reach or achieve those standards, then you really beat yourself up about it. And then you're feeling like everybody around you feels like you're disappointment, even though they're pleased with your efforts.
But because you feel displeased, you're assuming and you're kind of projecting that feeling out onto everybody else. Well, everybody's disappointed in me. I didn't do this, that, or the other thing, versus everybody else is actually thinking, man, you did way more than I was expecting you to do. I'm so impressed.
And they may even tell you that, but because, again, you have this emotional belief system of I'm a disappointment, you believe people are just saying that and they're being nice to you, but that really inside, they're like, man, they could have done more or they should have done more, and it really can steal any of your joy from any of your accomplishments.
Now, some ways this might impact your life is you can have a lot of anxiety about meeting expectations, and then that can lead to burnout and decision paralysis. And so that burnout comes from you always putting in 100% effort, especially into things that don't require 100% effort. Are you feeling like you have to offer help in every situation, even if people didn't ask you to? And then you take over that thing because you don't want to be a disappointment.
And now you're doing all this extra things and you can't say no to stuff. And then also when it comes to making a decision, it's like, oh, that's scary. I don't want to make a decision. If I make a decision on this, then I may make the wrong one, then it might make people disappointed.
And then you sit on it for longer. And then oddly enough, similarly to what I was saying to the last one, this one perpetuates itself also in this type of scenario, because then you don't make a decision, but then not making a decision does make people disappointed. Versus if you just told them earlier, you a lot of times could actually avoid that disappointment, even if you gave them an unfavorable answer. If they ask you to do something and you can't do it, and you tell them right
out of the gate, hey, I'm sorry, I can't do that. They might be a little bit disappointed. But if you wait all the way up till they need the answer right now, and then you tell them no, they're much more likely to be disappointed than if you gave it to them earlier. This next one is, I deserve to die. And this can come from survivor's guilt where maybe you were in a situation and other people around you died.
So veterans who have experienced the loss of their brothers and sisters in arms, and they just feel this weight and feel like, oh, I came back alive and they didn't. Or maybe there was a misstep or a mistake that happened and you just carry the weight and the guilt of that. Maybe you were in an accident and you took the life of someone else, even if it was unintentionally. Maybe you were driving a car and it hit someone and they passed away.
You could feel that weight and that guilt, like I deserve to die. This could also be from just cumulative trauma over time, where you have experienced significant abuse in the past. And maybe there is victim blaming, where people just said it was your fault or you were asking for it. Or if you didn't do this, then I wouldn't have hit you. Or if you have severe depressive episodes over the years, you could really struggle with this belief of I deserve to die.
And so how this can all kind of play out in your current life is you might struggle a lot with suicidal thoughts and severe depression. You might feel hopeless or have lost purpose and feel like life's not worth living. And this is one of those beliefs where you definitely want to seek help and support. Because this is a hard place to be in. This is a scary place to be in. But when you feel hopeless, it really does feel like there's no place to go. There's nothing I can do. What's the point?
And it's important to surround yourself with people that will support you and help you through these difficult times. And so definitely reach out for professional help. Surround yourself with a supportive community so that you aren't walking through these dark times in these valleys alone. The next one we're going to talk about is I deserve to be miserable. Now, this oftentimes comes from long-term exposure to toxic relationships.
And so whether this is a long-term relationship because they're your parents or a long-term unhealthy friend, or if you're in a romantic relationship with, for example, a narcissist, that's where you develop this negative belief of I deserve to be miserable.
And going along with this idea of being married to a narcissist or being in a long-term relationship with a narcissist, no matter what you say or no matter what issue you bring up, they're masterful at twisting and turning it around to be back about you where it's you're the problem it's your fault I did this thing that you didn't like but it's actually your fault I did that to you so what you end up coming to the conclusion is that my feelings don't matter and if I'm
unhappy that's what I deserve I deserve to be miserable because any of the complaints you lodge are always turned back on you it's your fault that's why you're getting these things and so then your brain settles into this position of learned helplessness of there's nothing I can do I guess this is just my lot in life. I deserve to feel this misery. And if you believe I deserve to be miserable, you're not going to try to change your life circumstances at all.
So you're going to just hunker down and stay in this unhealthy toxic relationship. You're not going to go out, you're not going to seek any mental health to help you overcome your negative feelings because you believe, well, this is what I deserve. And then on top of that, you may exert some self-destructive behaviors and reinforce your negative situation because again, I deserve this.
And so doing those negative self-destructive behaviors are bringing about this pain that you ultimately should be having. And the last one is I am different. I don't belong. And this can come from so many different things. This can be an internal thing where you just feel like I just don't fit into this group. Or maybe you've been ostracized from a group and not welcomed and not included. And so this belief kind of gets set in place and into motion.
And then every party or everything that you aren't invited to, this I don't belong or I'm different gets dug deeper and deeper into your neural pathways. And I definitely see this a lot with students that we see, and I'm sure you have too, Tim. But middle school, high school, you know, that's a really hard age where you're trying to find your people, you're trying to find your group. And a lot of clients that I've have seen have really struggled with this belief,
just feeling like I'm different. I don't belong. Oh, for sure. And I think especially in school age, kids will find anything to make you different or point out how you're unusual. And actually, it's kind of funny, the way people used to poke a prod at me about being different, they would kind of make fun of the success that I had, where I was good in athletics, I was good in academics, I was also in band. And so I was doing basically everything.
And I was pretty good at all the different things that I was doing. And so no matter what, people will look for ways where they can identify that you're different from them. And especially in a school setting, I think it's extremely common. It gets less and less common, I think, as you get older. But kids in elementary school can be particularly cruel, not even necessarily meaning to, but just blatantly pointing out the differences between people.
And then definitely as they get a little bit older into middle school and high school, some of those pointing out differences ends up being a little bit more malicious than when it's in elementary school. But I think even if people aren't being malicious when they're pointing those things out. The way that is pointed out and the setting that is pointed out in can really make people feel very uncomfortable and feel like they don't belong.
And so how this can impact you in your current life is you can just feel isolated. You can feel alone, ostracized. It kind of sets into motion, like Tim talked about before, that self-fulfilling prophecy where you feel isolated. So then you don't really talk to people. You don't try to connect with people because you think, well, they're just going to leave me out anyway, or I'm different and I don't belong. And so because you don't put yourself out there, people don't connect with you.
And then that confirms that same belief. Another way this can play out is that you over conform so that you can fit in because you've been hurt by not belonging. And so you change so much about yourself so that you can fit in. Or it can go the other way where you just withdraw socially to to avoid that rejection. And so you can over-conform or you can just withdraw to avoid all of this altogether. And yet you are still feeling that isolation and feeling like I don't belong.
See, I'm not a part of any group. And I think one thing to note is we are all different and not everyone is going to like you. You're not going to be a part of every single group. So it's okay. I think this is a lesson for kids, but it's also a lesson for us as adults. It's okay for people to have close friends outside of your friendship. It's okay for you not to be invited to everything.
Obviously, it does feel good when you are invited and you're included, but coming to a place where you are okay with who you are and you are solid in your worth and understanding and knowing that your worth is not dependent on people including you. I think as we look at different groups and we're like, oh, I want to be a part of that group or that group, you can also form your own group and look around for other people that you can connect with.
Even though you feel like I am so different from every single person, I'm sure there's someone else that feels the same way and maybe you can connect with them. Well even to just jump in on that you can be different from people and then they could love that about you. They don't necessarily want a carbon copy.
As a matter of fact people oftentimes get triggered by people who are too similar to them and they notice qualities in the other person that they don't like in themselves and then they can get irritated by that. And so wanting to fit in or be just like everybody else isn't necessarily a way to connect or get people to gravitate to you.
And this one particularly is one I think as parents, as you watch your kids go through things, it's so hard to explain to them like, hey, this isn't going to be a big deal later on. Because I look at my high school classmates and I see what they're doing and I think, oh man, all the popular kids and all the other different groups of kids that there were, really it all kind of evens out. And it's not as important as you get older.
But when you're in the midst of it, whether it's at work or at school and you feel like I'm so different, I don't belong. I know and I understand that that feels so bad. And so it's hard as parents to be able to watch that and try to explain to your kids that it's not gonna matter down the road. But that's the thing with these negative cognitions and these negative beliefs is that cognitively we can know and we can understand that that's okay, but we still feel it and it plays out in our life.
And so it is important to look at and address these negative beliefs. All right, you guys, we're going to end there for today. But make sure you join us as we continue this series. In the next episode, we're going to talk about I did something wrong, that category of beliefs. And so the things that will fall under that is I should have done something, I did something wrong, I should have have known better. And so tune into that as we continue through this series.
Have a great day and remember, your mind is a powerful thing. Music.