Untangling Negative Beliefs: Why We Get Stuck (and How to Shift)
We all carry beliefs about ourselves, others, and the world. Some are helpful: “I can handle hard things.” Others quietly sabotage our confidence, relationships, or goals. These are negative beliefs—deep, often unconscious convictions like “I’m not enough,” “I always mess things up,” or “Good things don’t last for me.”
Negative beliefs shape how we interpret life. They filter our experiences, coloring what we notice and how we feel. Over time, they start to sound like facts rather than old stories—ones we didn’t choose but have been rehearsing for years.
What Are Negative Beliefs?
In Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), these are known as core beliefs—the deep structures that influence our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors (Beck, 1979). If you’ve ever noticed yourself reacting strongly to feedback or assuming the worst about a neutral comment, that’s a core belief at work.
CBT teaches that while we can’t always control our first thought, we can examine and challenge the belief behind it. Techniques like cognitive restructuring, behavioral experiments, and thought records help us test whether our beliefs are as absolute as they seem.
Sometimes, what looks like a “personality trait” (“I’m just anxious,” “I’m too sensitive”) is actually a learned belief system. When you start to question those assumptions, change becomes possible.
How Negative Beliefs Lead to Self-Sabotage
Negative beliefs rarely stay in your head—they tend to leak into behavior. When you believe “I don’t deserve good things,” you might unconsciously make that belief come true by self-sabotaging your own progress.
For example:
“Because I secretly believe I’ll fail, I delay the very things that would help me succeed.”
Or:
“If I get too close to someone, they’ll leave—so I pull away first.”
Self-sabotage isn’t about laziness or lack of willpower; it’s the behavioral echo of an old belief trying to protect you from pain. Once you start naming the belief beneath it, the behavior begins to make sense—and that’s where real change begins.
Rewriting the Story
These unhelpful beliefs don’t have to continue having the same hold on our world. Through therapies like CBT and EMDR we can reclaim our lives and connect to more accurate chosen beliefs that serve us.
CBT
CBT offers practical, evidence-based tools for reshaping negative beliefs. Some of the most effective include:
- Cognitive restructuring: gathering evidence for and against a belief, then developing a more balanced replacement.
- Behavioral experiments: testing your new belief in real life (“What happens if I speak up in the next meeting?”).
By repeatedly challenging and disconfirming negative beliefs, you build new, more adaptive ones—beliefs that feel grounded rather than forced.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
EMDR works a bit differently. It’s often used when negative beliefs stem from trauma or early adverse experiences. EMDR posits that these experiences can get “stuck” in the nervous system, along with the negative self-beliefs they created (Shapiro, 2018).
Through guided bilateral stimulation (such as eye movements or tapping), clients reprocess distressing memories so the brain can integrate them more adaptively. A person who once believed “I’m powerless” might, after reprocessing, genuinely feel “I did the best I could—and I’m safe now.”
CBT and EMDR often complement each other beautifully: CBT helps you work with beliefs cognitively and behaviorally, while EMDR helps your nervous system feel that the belief has changed. With many of my clients we implement EMDR in session and learn helpful strategies from CBT to apply outside of session.
How to Begin Shifting Your Negative Beliefs Outside of Therapy
If you want to start noticing your own negative beliefs, try this gentle exercise:
- Notice a strong emotional reaction (shame, anxiety, irritation).
- Ask: “What must I be believing right now to feel this way?”
- Write it down—no editing, no judgment.
- Test it: “Is this absolutely true? Where did I learn it?”
- Reframe it to something more balanced (“I’m learning,” “I can make mistakes and still be worthy”).
Beliefs don’t dissolve overnight—but every time you question one, you loosen its hold a little more. Over time, the groove smooths out. And you start responding to life as it is, not as your old stories predicted it would be.
References
Beck, A. T. (1979). Cognitive therapy and the emotional disorders. New York: Penguin Books.
Shapiro, F. (2018). Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy: Basic principles, protocols, and procedures (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Soho Integrative EMDR. (n.d.). Confidence and motivation through EMDR. Retrieved from https://www.sohointegrativeemdr.com/specialties/confidence-motivation
Woven Trauma Therapy. (n.d.). Self-sabotage and trauma patterns. Retrieved from https://woventraumatherapy.com/blog/self-sabotage