Music. Welcome to Mr. and Mrs. Therapy, the podcast that empowers you to transform life's challenges into opportunities for personal growth and healthier relationships. We're your hosts, Tim and Ruth Olson, licensed marriage and family therapists and trauma experts. As experienced therapists with backgrounds in addressing trauma and mental health disorders, we believe there is hope and there certainly is healing.
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We're so glad that you're here with us today. So we are in our final episode of this rather lengthy series on negative beliefs and and negative cognitions. And we are so thankful that you have stuck through it with us as we walked a little deeper into each of the negative beliefs and cognitions and talking about where they could have come from, as well as how they affect our everyday life.
And so if you're just finding our podcast today, then go back and listen to the other episodes in this series. We're talking about the negative beliefs and cognitions that we experience and where they come from. Because as we look at trauma and as we look at healing our past and healing the things that we're experiencing so that we can function and we can live lives in a way that is healthy and happy and really we're being the best versions of ourselves.
We have to take care of the hurts and the things that have happened in the past. And the reason it's so important to go back and look at what you've experienced earlier is because as you have these different traumas or disturbing events or different life experiences, you begin to develop these negative beliefs. And these negative beliefs, every time you experience something similar to it, kind of digs these beliefs deeper and deeper into your neural pathways.
And then as you go through similar experiences, they're confirming in your mind, see, this belief is true. So say there's a breakup and you already have this belief of I'm not good enough. Even though it may have been for other reasons or because of the person that broke up with you and what they were going through, in your mind, it just confirmed, see, I am not good enough. And then maybe you have a job interview and you didn't get it.
And then that begins to confirm, see, again, I'm not good enough. And this belief gets dug deeper and deeper. And so as you go through negative experiences in life, which we all will go through, even though it really isn't a true confirmation of that belief, it's not because you're inadequate or it's not because you're not good enough, but we kind of attach it to that because of the trauma that we have.
And because that belief is already embedded in there, we just are digging it deeper and deeper. And so we spent a lot of time here and we talked a lot about these negative cognitions because it's important to uproot them because they're impacting your life and your behaviors and the way that you are representing yourself, the way that you're relating to other people, the way that you're parenting is all affected by these negative beliefs.
As we look at not just managing or coping with your hurts and the trauma, but that as we look at really healing it, it takes looking at these negative beliefs and which ones do you resonate with and which ones come up a lot in your life. And so today we're going to finish off with the final four beliefs. And if you've listened to the other episodes, you know that it was broken up into four different sections. Responsibility of I am something, like there's something wrong with me.
So that's like, I am terrible. I am worthless. I am shameful. I am stupid. I'm not good enough. The next section was also responsibility, but more I did something wrong. So I should have done something. I did something wrong. I should have known better. The next one was safety and vulnerability. And under that, some of the beliefs were I can't be trusted. I cannot trust myself. I can't protect myself. I'm in danger. And this last section that we're in is control and choice.
And so in the last episode, we covered I'm not in control. I'm powerless or helpless. I am weak and I can't get what I want. So let's jump into today's episode and cover the last four negative beliefs. So the first one we're going to discuss is I'm a failure or I will fail. And you can develop this if you experience excessive negative criticism. Whether it's from your parents or your teachers or your peers.
And if any of those categories put excessive or very high expectations on you that were impossible to meet, or even if you did perform at a very high standard, there's always an additional, but you could have done this, or if you would have done that, it would have been even better, where you experience very little just genuine praise for the effort or for the good job that you may have done, it's always, hey, you could have done a little bit something better.
And the truth is, you may be able to have done something a little bit better. But if you're always pressing on people that way, it is going to cause them to create this negative belief of I'm a failure, because no matter how good you perform, there's always some level of critique that comes along with it. Right. And not only regardless of how good you perform, but regardless of your effort. So maybe you did your absolute best, but then you were compared to someone else.
And so even though that was your best and you put in your best effort, these high expectations, regardless of effort, created this negative belief of I'm a failure or I will fail. And so if you're operating under this negative belief, you might struggle with fear or inability to take on new challenges because you're afraid you're going to fail from it.
You might procrastinate again you don't want to jump in and do something that has to be done you don't have a choice about doing it because as soon as you start doing it then you're going to start feeling the effects of i'm a failure this isn't good enough and then you also can develop what's called a self-fulfilling prophecy where because you believe you're going to fail you start actually doing things that make it more likely you're going to fail and what i mentioned just
a second ago procrastination is a great example of that because you're afraid you're going to fail you push it off But because you push it off, you don't leave yourself enough time to actually do a good job with the thing that you're going to do. And so then your end product isn't very good. And so then that reinforces your negative belief of I am a failure. And so then what's that going to cause you to do in the future?
It's going to cause you to want to procrastinate more when something comes up because of the negative feelings of the weight of I am a failure. You want to try to avoid that as long as you can. But then you just keep perpetuating this negative cycle. The next one is I cannot succeed. seed. And this is very similar in the belief of the last one of I'm a failure. And I always think when I see these two, they are very similar.
I would say I'm a failure is more visceral, and it's focusing on the fact that you are going to have a negative outcome versus I cannot succeed is kind of a gentler version of I'm a failure. But then it's also thinking I cannot achieve up to what I want to. So I do think that the outcome of having a negative belief like I cannot succeed versus I'm a failure. I cannot succeed is a little bit more likely to have a positive outcome versus
I'm a failure. I'm a failure definitely has, I think, more hopelessness instilled in it versus I cannot succeed. It's still a pretty hopeless statement, but it's more hopeful than I'm a failure. And where this can come from is growing up in an environment where every attempt at success was sabotaged or belittled by family members or peers. And so maybe you did attempt to do something and change something, but you felt like it wasn't acknowledged by the people around you.
Or like I said earlier this feeling of being sabotaged where maybe you really are trying to get out of a family dynamic and you're trying to get healthy but you're in an environment where that's not allowed because if you change something and if you become healthy that exposes the unhealthiness of your family and so that change is uncomfortable for your family and they want to maintain that homeostasis in the family. And so you kind of get pulled down or pulled back.
Or when I said earlier about being belittled by family members or peers, and people would make fun of you and belittle your hopes and your dreams of getting out of the town or succeeding and changing things, that is really out of the norm for your family or your culture, your community. And so this can cause chronic insecurity and kind of this defeatist attitude toward new goals or opportunities.
And then that often results in underachievement. So you're not reaching your full potential, because you have this belief of, well, I can't succeed anyway. And it could be related to the crabs in the bucket analogy, if you've heard that before, where that crab mentality really is, if I can't escape, then I'm not going to let you escape either. And so if a crab starts to climb out of a bucket, the others in the group start to pull it back down, which really leads to, as a group, not succeeding.
And so if it feels uncomfortable for other people, and that's just not what the culture is, they'll pull you back down, just like these crabs in the bucket. And so you can begin to have this feeling of, I can't succeed.
Like, I keep trying. I keep having these goals and these dreams, and I want to do something different, but I keep getting pulled back and I just cannot succeed no matter what and so you've tried and you've tried to get out of this bucket and you just keep getting pulled down that's going to lead to a loss of hope in these dreams and eventually to giving up on them. So the next one we're going to talk about is I have to be perfect or I have to please everyone.
Now, this is so interesting as we are sitting here talking through these. I was looking at this one and it kind of came to my mind. This one really does have multiple other negative beliefs that are really deeply ingrained in this negative belief of I have to be perfect. I think it connects with I cannot succeed. I'm a failure, will fail. I cannot get what I want. I am powerless. I'm not in control. I cannot trust anyone. I cannot trust myself.
It really does have so many different negative beliefs that are associated with it. And I do see when I have clients who have this negative belief, a lot of times it's very overpowering to them and they really struggle with it. A lot of times they have a lot of burnout because they're getting drawn in so many different directions.
And you can develop this negative belief from being in a high pressure family where love and attention are conditional on the fact that you perform well and that you do well. And whether it's with behaviors or academics or sports, it's all about you got to make sure that you're presenting this way. And on top of that, it also just like I said, presenting it's how do you present to people outside.
So the behavior inside of the house might be a little bit different than that very, very high expectations or meticulous presentation you're supposed to put to the outside world around you. And so this might come from if your parents really press on you, you got to put on this facade to everybody outside of the house, you need to present this way, you need to look this way, you need to be accepted by these groups of people.
Otherwise, that's going to cause a major problem. And the impact this can have on your life is it leads to obviously perfectionism, extreme levels of stress. It's very easy to get burned out. And it can be very hard to create authentic relationships with other people. And the reason why is because you really are putting on this mask where you're pretending to be this person because you're trying to present yourself as somebody who you believe people will accept.
You're trying to look perfect because you believe that's the only standard by by which people will accept me, or people will like me. And whenever I'm talking to people who are struggling with this negative belief. I always like to ask them this question, hey, listen, what if people like the real you better than this presentation you're putting on?
What if actually you're hindering your relationships by trying to be this perfect person versus if you just let yourself be who you are, you might be more accepted? Because this really is a two-edged sword where people who have perfectionism, they're terrified of letting people see who they really are. But then when they do create a relationship with somebody, they also have this negative undertone of, well, they're only accepting the mask that I'm putting on. They're not really accepting me.
And so that relationship doesn't really feel that fulfilling to them because they know that they are putting on this facade of perfectionism to these people and that that's not really who they are underneath. And so they're not really getting that benefit of having that connection with people. And so I've asked my clients in the past who struggle with perfectionism. I say, hey, hey, is there anybody in your life who is like, you just have this super deep connection?
And they're like, yeah, I got like one person. And I'll be like, okay, tell me, what does that one person know about you? And they'll be like, everything. They know all of my deepest, darkest secrets. And they say, and then they still accept you knowing all those deepest, darkest secrets, right? And they're like, yeah. And then I'll ask, what would you give to have two, three, four more people like that? They're like, oh, I'd give anything.
And then I tell them, I say, well, you have to give up that mask. You have to let other people know who you really are. The reason why you're so connected to this one person is because they do know all your deepest, darkest secrets, and they still accept you and they still love you. The only way to get that feeling with other people is to not pretend to be perfect all of the time. Now, again, that's a very tall order. It's a much easier thing to be said than it is to actually be done.
And a lot of times people have that deep connection with this one person because they've been with them so long and they've seen the person who struggles with perfectionism go through these very difficult life experiences and they've seen the mask come off because they can't keep it up all the time. And then they were still loved. And so it wasn't an action that the person who struggles with perfectionism chose to take.
It's that person just happened to see all these different events that showed the friend who this perfectionist really was, and then they're still fine with it. And so a lot of times this is a jail of the perfectionist's own creation where it's like they won't let other people in because they're so terrified. But most of the time people don't care nearly as much as they do.
And I think sometimes this can come from a compliment from a parent at a young age where then you begin to feel that pressure of, oh, I always have to be this. So if they say, Oh my gosh, you were so responsible or I'm so thankful that you're so helpful around the house Even though they were complimenting you you've taken it on as okay.
This is what makes them happy. I have to continue this and I have to function at this level in order to continue to make them happy or in order to be seen as responsible. And this feeling of I have to be perfect or please everyone, that's exhausting. I know Tim had mentioned like there's some extreme stress and burnout that happens. And I could totally see that because it is exhausting to always feel like you have to perform and to always feel like you have to be perfect.
And I think this even jumps into when you feel like you have to do everything for everybody. Somebody asks for help or they need help and then you jump right in and you always have to be the forefront of assisting people or even taking things off of people's plates when they didn't need you to. too. And I always like to tell people who are struggling with perfectionism, you're going to have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility over helping people with their problems.
And so how do you choose if you should or you shouldn't help people? Even me saying that right now, should or shouldn't help people might cause you to feel wildly uncomfortable. What do you mean? Maybe there's a time I shouldn't help people. I always have to help people. But the truth is sometimes you need to manage yourself. You need to take care of your own tasks and you need to not worry about helping so many other people when you have too many other things on your own plate.
And so I always like to tell them, listen, if you have any feeling of resentment or lack of desire of doing it, you probably shouldn't do it because that's about as strong as a feeling as your brain is going to allow you to have about not doing something compared to somebody who doesn't struggle with that negative belief. I actually have the opposite problem where it's so easy for me to say no,
like, oh no, I won't do that. Or, oh, I can't help with that because of this, that, that or the other thing. And so my thought process is the exact opposite, is if I have any inkling or any feeling like I should, I need to make myself do it. And so you have to stop and think, where are you on that spectrum? Are you somebody who is very easy for you to say no to things? Or is it very difficult for you to say no to things?
And I think people who are struggling with perfectionism, it's so hard to say no to things. But honestly, you'd be a lot happier, you'd have a lot less burnout, you'd have a lot less resentment. If you follow that simple little strategy where it's like if you had any inkling where it's like, I really don't want to do this, don't do that thing. Spend that time doing something that's on your checklist or something that benefits your own life.
And that will help you be much more balanced. It's not a perfect standard to go by. But when you're struggling with that negative belief of I have to be perfect, it will help you to be a lot more in balance than if you just keep giving into that negative perfectionism belief all the time.
And sometimes this can be at the expense of your own family where you are reaching out and trying to please everyone else and help everyone else and maybe serve at the church and serve on the PTA and do all these things. And your family suffers for it because you're overextending yourself rather than choosing really what is healthy for you and for your family. And so I have a quick story where the other day we went tubing as a family on the river. and we had four tubes hooked up to each other.
Our two oldest weren't attached with us and they were going down the river. And then Tim and I had the three younger ones on these tubes with us. And we're kind of going down this little mini rapid area and there were two pretty big rocks sticking up out of the water. I saw mom and daughter that looked like they were stuck. And so I held out my paddle to see if they wanted to grab on and I could pull them over the rapid.
But at the same time because I was doing that on offering help to another family Tim was having to really hold the weight of our family to avoid these rocks and so when you look at that analogy with this idea of you saying yes to helping everyone else and pleasing everyone else could really put a strain on your own relationship or your own family because if you are offering all of this to everyone else and you're saying yes to something else, you have to say no to something.
And so sometimes it's your family that suffers, whether it's the time spent with you, whether it's them having to pick up extra work around the house because you're not there or whatever the case. And so there is kind of a give and take. And as much as you are helping other people around you, you have to know that it could also be affecting your own family and your own relationship.
And so I'm thankful on that mini rapid that Tim bore the weight of our family, and he was able to navigate and steer. But it took a lot of extra strength and a lot of extra stress for him, because it felt like I wasn't necessarily paying as much attention to our family. Although I was aware of it, I was also focused on this other family. And so my attention was split.
And so you have to be careful that even though I truly did want to help them, I didn't feel like I had to be perfect or I was people pleasing, but I truly did want to help them. But it also took away from helping and navigating our own family. And so just so you know, we did get over that rapid safely, thanks to Tim. And we had a great time on the river. And I think another place where this is a very common thing that happens is for pastors.
So if you're the pastor of a church, you may not go into being a pastor struggling with perfectionism. But then a lot of times people who are in the church will kind of press the pastor and then say things or push them into a place where they're not just another human being, but that they have to be this perfect representation of God and they have to be perfectly available for the congregation.
And a lot of times those demands that can come from the congregation start to instill this negative belief in the pastor of I have to be perfect because a lot of times they might get very heavy criticism if they're not doing things perfectly or if they're not perfectly following or perfectly representing Jesus the way that the congregation thinks that they should. And so a lot of times what ends up happening is the pastors end up being drawn into being too focused on the congregation.
And then that's where kind of the stereotypical idea of a pastor's kid comes in, this kind of rebellious kid who then doesn't want to follow God or is always causing problems in the church because the pastor got too caught up in dealing with all of the affairs of the church, but then didn't spend nearly enough time working with their family because it was so hard to say no because people would guilt them all the time into,
hey, you need to pay attention to the congregation and do everything that the church asks and wants of you. And so this negative belief really can cause you to go down negative and unhelpful paths. And a lot of times these things feel like and seem like positive things. They seem like good things. But again, if you get wrapped up in too many good things and you can't do any of them well, it's a bad thing.
And the last one we'll talk about is I cannot stand it. And this can come from a lot of different things. But one of the examples is living through intense and sustained stress. Maybe there's severe illness in your family, or you have caregiving responsibilities, and there's no support or relief. Another one I'd say probably would go along with this is chronic pain. So if you have some type of injury that's long term, that would definitely strike this negative belief, I cannot stand it. Right.
And I think a lot of this also is related to the other beliefs in any of the other beliefs feeling like I cannot stand that feeling. So I cannot stand feeling weak or I can't stand feeling powerless. I can't stand not being in control. Maybe it's overwhelming emotions that you've had.
And how this could affect your current life is it may cause you to have a lot of avoidant behaviors where you don't want to be in situations because you feel like I can't stand it or you have emotional numbing because you don't want to feel the anxiety. You don't want to feel the stress that comes with it.
And sometimes this can lead to using different substances because you're trying to numb those emotions or you're trying to get away or cope with situations that you feel or you perceive as unbearable, and I can't stand this. And I think that's a really good point about the substances. I think so many people are using substances because they don't know how to cope with their emotions, and they cannot stand those feelings.
But then they use the substance, and while they're under the influence of that, they get some temporary relief from that. But unfortunately, all that tends to do is it builds up more and more negative feelings, because while you're avoiding more negative feelings built up, and then if you stop using the substances, then you have this tsunami of negative feelings and unresolved emotions and experiences that then become too much to deal with. And then you want to run back to the substances.
And I can also see how as parents, this feeling of I cannot stand it can feel overwhelming when maybe you have so much on your plate, or maybe you just have sensory overload at that time. And there's too many moms help me with this or mom, can you do this? And you feel I just can't stand it. Or maybe at work, you have a lot of stress and pressure on you and you feel like, oh, I can't stand it. Or maybe there's someone frustrating in the office or just in your life.
And anytime they talk, you have this feeling or this sense of, oh, I can't stand it. And so as you're listening to this, if you resonate with that feeling of, oh, I do feel that a lot, I do feel like I can't stand it, then you know that there may be something to be worked on here. And so that is the last belief that we're going to go into and talk about. And we have been in this series for quite a while. So thanks for sticking with us through this.
And if any of these negative beliefs really struck you or they resonated with you, again, that means that that's something that is operating in your subconscious of your mind. And if you want to alleviate yourself from these negative feelings, we have a link in our description below where you can set up a free 15 minute consultation and we can chat you through the process. We'll take you through.
Or if you just feel confident and you're like, I just want to get started and I want to start working on it. We have another link where you can just set up an appointment and we can get hammered away right away. All right, guys, thank you so much for listening. And remember, your mind is a powerful thing. Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of Mr. and Mrs. Therapy. We hope that you enjoyed today's episode and found it helpful.
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If you are struggling with persistent mental health issues, chronic marital issues, or feeling hopeless or suicidal, you are not alone. Help is available. Please seek professional help or call the National Suicide Hotline at 988. Thank you again for joining us on Mr. and Mrs. Therapy. Remember, there's always hope and there's always help. Music.