The Struggle for Self-Worth, Part IV – The Impact of the Core Belief System on Self-Worth

The story so far…

In parts I, II, and III we learned self-worth is a critical human resource we often confuse with what is known as “conditional acceptance.” It is a provisional approval requiring us to earn our worthiness moment by moment, day by day. This fragile state of acceptance also presumes that we are unacceptable because we are innately “less than.” This “less than” sense emanates from the wholeness within us that lies yet undiscovered. Inherent worth, however, assumes that we are worthy from the beginning because we are here. Self-worth is a birthright woven into our existence.

We also learned that chasing self-improvement illusions seems to be more important to us than owning the worth that is ours through the process of self-discovery. It seems that we love our illusions more than we love our worth. These illusions surround our tendency to prefer the pursuit of control and dominion. Self-discovery presupposes that instead of building something towards a state of completion, that here in this life, we are trying to uncover something that has always been complete. We also discovered that we tend to believe that authority figures outside of us are more qualified to see the truth about our identity and our worth. We are trained, it seems, to hang onto every word coming from these supposed experts, but alas! It turns out that these appointed authors are woefully unqualified. In truth we find these authority figures do not have the position nor the sight to see the truth about the worth and nature of our inner being.

What is a Core Belief System?

A core belief system consists of identity and worth—beliefs we have adopted from significant others throughout our developmental years. Whether negative or positive these core beliefs eventually become a system of beliefs from which we seek to claim independence. We eventually discover free will and our organic need to define ourselves.

A core belief system is constructed with identity and worth definition beliefs that, like trees in a forest, take root in those early years. These core belief trees were assigned to us by what are known as the four herras (meaning grey haired) or the four authorities including parents, preachers, teachers, peers. From our youthful point of view, these individuals who hold these caretaker positions are the default authorities on our purpose and worth. In the beginning of our development, we tend to believe in the conclusions drawn by these significant others with the blind faith of a child. This suggests that the potency that gives any core belief its strength is not the child’s faith in the belief itself but is rather the child’s faith in the figure who pressed the belief upon the child’s mind. The power of this blind faith in both the person and the position of qualified expert is a force that we tend to underestimate. This process then leads us to carve the authority’s face and to project the authority’s voice into the trunk of that respective core belief tree.

What makes a Core Belief System so powerful?

The enormity of the core belief dimension is a force to be reckoned with not only because of its power source (the faith of a child) but also because of the sheer number of core beliefs that we tend to keep. To get a vision of the mass and volume of this core belief forest we might apply mathematics to help us see the numbers involved in this organic developmental process. We might start with the conservative accumulation rate of four core beliefs per day. Starting the count at the age of two years old when our language centers form, (although it should be noted that we are collecting information about ourselves even in the embryonic stage of our existence here), and extending to around the age of 18 years old when we discontinue this core belief collection process, we would take 4/day x 365 days/year x 16 years. This suggests approximately 23,360 core belief trees may exist in the psyche of adult sentient beings, with each tree attended to by 23,360 inner children (younger selves). We can almost see our younger selves sitting under that tree chanting the core belief to the face of that authority that sold us that belief. What a noise that chanting must create in our psyches.

How do our core beliefs impact our struggle for self-worth?

The primary hindrance that these beliefs have on the development of self-worth is how most of our identity and worth implications declare so conclusively that we are not good enough. It is this, I am less than force that leads us to think in negative terms about our worthiness. This implies that this less than force seems to be the major reason we tend to lean towards believing in the negative about ourselves rather than the positive. Strangely, it is our deeper knowledge that our worth is so much more that heightens our drive to push back on this less than definition. Like we are all royalty who wake up in a village as paupers, we sense that something about this worth estimate has gone terribly wrong. This inner sense drives us to push others and ourselves to believe this quiet truth that we are and always have been so much more. This is the reason we are always earning and striving for the day that we will secure our true worth. This suggests that we tend to believe blindly in our core beliefs, feeling that we simply do not have a choice we must believe in this baseline estimated value that is a mere pittance of our true worth. We then spend most of our life proving or disproving this mere pittance. This is the illusion that distracts us from the truth of an inner hero that awaits our discovery.

This “I’m not good enough” message is understandable when considering how most of the core belief messages we internalize tend to be those that devalue the soul. However, considering core belief systems that are more positive, we still find that the fear of not being good enough is waiting in the shadows. This suggests that if the pastor’s daughter is told she is a perfect little angel who demonstrates above average obedience throughout her developmental years, one of her greatest fears as an adult will be to make a mistake or to do something wrong. This notion suggests that a single mistake could undo months and years of earned favor. This means that positive core belief systems may include the conditional requirement of maintaining and improving upon the behaviors and presentations that will preserve that favor. This sense that the worth is conditional may also promote the fear of mistakes, disobedience, or disapproval while at the same time promoting a dependence on approval seeking. This information supports the possibility that the core belief system forces us down a pathway of conditional acceptance.

Another way that core beliefs impede the development of self-worth is in how they require us to follow the rules and laws of external locus of control—which is to say that our worthiness needs are placed in the hands of individuals who are located outside of our soul. This implies that our worthiness training teaches us that others know more about our worth than we do ourselves. Thus, the nature of the core belief system presumes that external sources are the true experts on our value as a soul. It is in this way that these foundational beliefs distract us from the wisdom that is located within us. This leads us to look for our value in both the wrong place and the wrong person. This external control is reinforced by the way we are beholden to our authorities as we develop Herculean levels of loyalty and dependence upon these worth specialists.

Therefore, the core belief system is a major contributing factor to the struggle for self-worth. These beliefs create “less than” illusions that distract us from the truth that our worthiness exists within us. Our training in external locus of control then helps us keep these identity and worth illusions, and our fostered dependence on external validation leads us to all roads compensatory. These foundational beliefs also provide us with the motivation to continue the chase for a worthiness that we already possess.

Tune in next month when we will explore how we perpetuate the illusion of control with the notion of our own internal compensatory city.