The Art of Neuroplasticity: Using Working Affirmations to Rewrite Maladaptive Core Beliefs
A powerful thing can happen when a person experiences attachment wounding, especially when it happens repeatedly or in a traumatic way. We end up concluding why these painful things happen, and usually, the conclusions need to be corrected. For example, “I’m horrible, and that’s why people reject me,” or “People won’t be there when I need them, and that’s why I can’t reach out,” or “Nothing I do will ever make a difference, and that’s why I will always be abandoned.”
Once these conclusions are drawn, our brain creates neuropathways that reinforce these core beliefs. The maladaptive core belief activates when our wound is bumped and emotions are released. Depending on how long we have accepted these core beliefs as accurate, it becomes more challenging to debunk them.
One way to initiate reprogramming is through affirmations. If you are familiar with Saturday Night Live’s Stuart Smalley’s Daily Affirmations (“I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!”), that is an example of a positive affirmation. For some people, positive affirmations work amazingly well. They can tap into that positive feeling inside, pumping them up. They tap into the fantastic endorphins the positive affirmation makes, which brings joy.
It had the opposite effect on me. I’ve had therapists encourage me to do positive affirmations in the past. I hated them for many reasons, mostly because I felt I was lying to myself. It turns out that research backed me up. A 2009 research study published in the Psychological Science journal discovered that for individuals who did not believe the positive affirmations they were saying about themselves, it made them feel worse. It reinforced those maladaptive core beliefs instead of removing them.
One of the complaints people make when they are struggling with positive affirmations is that they feel fake and inauthentic. If I have a negative core belief wired into my nervous system and tattooed on my heart, saying a positive affirmation feels like a bald-faced lie. Now, because it feels like I am just lying to myself, instead of feeling better, I feel worse.
Never fear! All is not lost. Neuroscience has revealed that our brains can change and reprogram themselves with positive affirmations if we make one small adjustment. We have to tweak the positive affirmation a little bit to make it feel aligned with our core truth. This small adjustment is called a “Working affirmation.”
Here’s one way to do that. We say this out loud to ourselves, “Even though my negative core belief (fill in whatever your negative core belief is), I’m open to the possibility that one day I will believe (fill in the opposite).
I’ll give you an example: “Even though my negative core belief states that I am not enough, I’m open to the possibility that one day I will believe I am enough.” When people use this formula for a working positive affirmation, it feels more authentic, and thus, they feel like they are being honest with themselves.
When I say, “I’m open to the possibility that one day, I’m actually going to believe that I’m enough,” it creates a sense of positivity, authenticity, and realness that the other affirmation did not. As I started using these working affirmations, I felt more comfortable, allowing me to lean into the possibility that it may be true one day. As I continued to say it to myself, I slowly rewired my brain and erased the negative core belief from my heart.
If you have tried positive affirmations and they didn’t work for you, don’t allow your shadows and shame to beat you up and tell you why you’re not doing it right. Make a minor adjustment that feels more honest, and say that to yourself ten times a day for a month. See what happens.
Negative core beliefs have derived from trying to explain to ourselves why we have attachment wounds. This is part of how our brains try to cope with the trauma. Once we can erase the negative beliefs, imagine the peace we can experience.
Most people who participate in the programs offered by Finding Peace Consulting have been carrying around some hefty negative core beliefs like iron chains weighing them down. We replace these negative core beliefs with empowering truth.
We often ask participants to check in with their bodies to notice where these negative core beliefs get stuck. This activity feels foreign to many. Yet, seeing where the distress exists is the first step to developing skills to live freely in peace. It opens the door to using movement, breathwork, meditation, connection, and other modalities that rewire their neural pathways.
With practice and consistency, our minds and bodies shift automatically. Instead of focusing on the pain of attachment wounds and the associated core beliefs, we remain in peace and joy. And when that happens, we won’t need to recite positive affirmations because they vibrate from within at our very core.
