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What are Beliefs and how can you let go of the negative ones (EFT Tapping)?

How to let go of the negative belief with EFT Tapping

EFT Tapping for Negative Beliefs

In this article, you will learn more about beliefs both positive and negative. You will also learn how to get over the negative beliefs using EFT Tapping technique.

Just Imagine as a Life Coach, you have been helping clients for so long. One fine day this client walks up to you and says, “My last session did not work, I don’t see any change.”

Your first thought probably is going to be “Am I doing the right thing? Or Am I good enough? Do I have the right skills?” This is enough to create a limiting belief.

Chances are you already have a subconscious belief of “I can’t do that” or even “I’m not worthy of being a coach”. You’ve probably had it for some time now, without realizing it. In any case you are losing out. Just because of a BELIEF!

But what exactly is a belief? Well, simply put, a belief is a practiced thought grounded in lived experience.

A belief is like a little seed that is planted, deep within your subconscious and when the time is right, it emerges slowly and quietly, to sabotage everything that you’ve worked so hard for.

It is said that thoughts change to experiences and then these experiences drive your beliefs.

With an overwhelming 70,000 thoughts per day, just imagine how many beliefs can be created, especially if many of these beliefs are negative.

"Wish I had the courage to live a life where I was true to myself and did not worry about others"

Bonnie Ware


We cannot argue that there are no positive beliefs. Of course! There are. Those are the ones that push you forward to living and reaching out to your goals and dreams. However, we cannot negate the effects of negative beliefs in our lives.

Some of these negative beliefs could be:

  • I am not good enough
  • I am not worthy
  • I don’t deserve success
  • More money makes me less spiritual
  • I am bound to fail
  • I don’t have a good business sense and so many more

HOW ARE BELIEFS FORMED?

We tell ourselves stories in order to live. These stories are often based on our actual experiences- for example, believing we’re smart because we were used to be great at maths from a young age.

However, these stories don’t reflect our current reality because they are often created in childhood, are never updated since then. Those of us who might have been shy as a child, may continue to consider ourselves a ‘shy person’ even though we no longer feel or act that way.

We often tell ourselves these stories as an act of self-protection. In childhood, we thought that everything was about us and we were not mentally or emotionally capable of understanding that our parent-figures had a whole life outside of the one we know.

We were limited by what we can cognitively and emotionally comprehend based on our developmental age. Hence, we may believe that we are bad when a parent-figure shouts on us or raises a hand, instead of knowing that this person has difficulty managing their own emotions.

Also, sometimes as children, our reality is too painful to understand or process, so we make up an alternative story. For example, a child who feels neglected might end up thinking how his father/mother has an ‘important and busy job’, making an excuse for their absence without having to dig into the harder truth.

All of us have made up many such narratives (which are also called core beliefs):  I am unemotional. I am anxious. I am creative. I am dumb. Core beliefs are the many stories about ourselves, our relationships, our past, our future, and the innumerable other topics we construct based on our actual lived experiences.

Sometimes even small and trivial situations can contain messages that get installed in the beliefs that shape us.

Beliefs are built up over years of thought patterns and require both interior and exterior validation to thrive. Beliefs about ourselves (our personality, our weaknesses, our strengths, our past, our future) are filters that are placed over the lens of how we view our world.

The more we think certain thoughts, the more our brain wires itself to default to these thought patterns. Thinking a particular thought repeatedly, changes our brain, our nervous system, and the cellular chemistry of our entire body, which makes it easier to default to such thought patterns in the future. In other words, the more we think something, the more we are likely to believe it. Our practiced thoughts become our reality.

When a belief is repeatedly validated, it can become a core belief. Core beliefs are our deepest paradigms about our identity; they were installed in our subconscious often before the age of seven. These are the stories of who I am- I am smart, I am sensitive, I am outgoing, I am quiet, I am not good at math - that provide the framework of our ‘personality’.

Though it may seem as though our core beliefs are our own, but they came to us mostly from our parent-figures, home and community environments, and earliest experiences. Many of our core beliefs, unfortunately, are shaped by negative experiences and traumas.

Once a core belief is formed, you engage in what’s called a confirmation bias; information that does not match to your beliefs is discarded or ignored in favour of information that does. If you believe you’re unworthy, you’ll see a job promotion as something that happened by pure luck. When you make a mistake at work, it will be filtered through the lens of inevitability: Of course, I slipped up. I am not worthy.

We collectively lean into something called negativity bias, in which we tend to prioritise (and therefore value) negative information over positive. This is why you can see a glowing performance review and forget it shortly, though you’ll never forget the sting of a colleague’s criticism.

This subconscious filtering is the work of the Reticular Activating System (RAS), a bundle of nerves located in the brain stem. The RAS acts as the brain’s gatekeeper, using beliefs formed in our early life to shift through incoming information and prioritize evidence that supports these beliefs. In this way, the RAS actively recruits information that reinforces what we already believe to be true.

We are not our thoughts; we are also not our core beliefs. This is often difficult to accept, as our core beliefs are so deeply ingrained, such a part of our identities, that they are hard to let go of.

A parent-figure who is feeling overwhelmed by and uncomfortable with their own emotions, when seeing their child distressed, might say ‘You’re such a drama queen’ or ‘Be strong! Stop being so sensitive’. The child, whose main objective is to receive love and affection, will suppress or hide their emotions.

If this pattern continues, the child might ‘toughen up’ or detach, ignoring their authentic Self and presenting a false self, which emerges from a core belief that parts of the identity are unacceptable. For some who grew up in families where men are discouraged or shamed for expressing emotions, even accepting that they have an emotional world may be challenging.

Often small consistent messages become internalized as core beliefs. Some of you, when helping your mom to take care of your siblings, might have been told ‘You’re so helpful. You’re going to be such a great mother someday.’ Having heard repeatedly enough, your core belief may then become ‘I need to care for others in order to be loved.’ Over time you may find yourself feeling selfish for caring for yourself or even acknowledging your own needs.

Alternatively, you may have been consistently told ‘I wish you could be more like your sister.’ That core belief-that you are not as good as your sibling-might translate to a sense of low self-worth. It might make you more likely to compare yourself with others, never believing that you are good enough as you are.

Or you may, receive appreciation without doing too much active work, which made you internalize a belief that I enjoy only things that I’m naturally good at and will quit anything that challenges me or is not immediately easy. For example, wanting to play only if you were going to win.

It is important to point out that though parents do create the bulk of our core system, our beliefs are also influenced by the surrounding wider environment. Our educational system, which lacks the ability to customize its approach to individual children, engages in a ‘one size fits all’ kind of teaching that forces them to adapt to the larger institution in order to achieve and be validated.

The pressure is compounded by peers, who validate certain behaviours, styles, or parts of our appearance. We are often placed into categories such as ‘nerd’, ‘slut’, or ‘jock’ that create narratives around identity. A young girl who finds herself struggling with math in a culture that believes women under-perform compared to men at hard sciences may cultivate an inaccurate truth about herself. Once we’ve internalised the belief that we aren’t pretty, thin, or smart enough, our RAS will continue to look to find a source of information in our society to confirm this.

Even in adulthood, we tend to view the world through the filters applied by our core beliefs- often negative-that we developed during these absorbing years of childhood.

Our beliefs are incredibly powerful and continue to shape our daily experiences through our subconscious minds. 

Let go of negative beliefs with EFT Tapping technique

HOW TO CHANGE NEGATIVE BELIEFS WITH EFT TAPPING?

Here are two simple exercises you can do to work on your negative beliefs:

Spend some time reflecting on and journaling about your core beliefs. If you feel intimidated by the word belief or are unsure of what yours are, it’s okay. Remember, a belief is simply a practised thought.

You hold core beliefs about yourself, others, the world around you. The future, and many other topics. Begin to pay attention to and notice the themes and narratives that run through your mind all day. Notice and write down any and all themes that arise. To help you reflect, feel free to use the following journal prompts, adding any other areas or themes that you notice.
  • About myself:
  • About others or my relationships:
  • About my past:
  • About my present:
  • About my future:

Creating a New Belief:

Now that you understand that beliefs are just practised thoughts, it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to learn that in order to create a new belief, you will have to begin to practice a new thought. From the themes and narratives you just noted in the Belief’s Inventory, pick one to begin to change. Not sure which one to pick? Go with your first instinct. If you’re still unsure, think about the one that would have the most impact on your life if you believed differently.

Once you identify the belief you’d like to change, think about what you’d prefer to think. This could be as simple as noting the opposite of your currently held belief. For example, if you find an ‘I’m not good enough’ theme in your thoughts, as many of us do, you will want to believe that ‘I’m enough.’

  • Old Belief:
  • New Belief:

When you shift from this old belief to new belief, how does it feel to say "I am enough and I love myself" when you've always looked down upon yourself? Strange? Uncomfortable? As if it's a lie! 

To avoid this contradiction, EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) has a brilliant solution. Instead of saying: "I am enough", say this: "Even though I feel that I am not good enough, I choose to feel enough and complete."

But apart from this, what if this your beliefs could be changed quickly and you could truly dream big and achieve them too? What if you were to substitute these negative beliefs with positive one’s that could change your life forever?

The Belief change process taught by Rangana Rupavi Choudhuri (PhD) at the Breakthrough Coaching with NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Practitioner) Training is so unique as she teaches you to change your belief’s using so many different modules.

  1. Negative Event Belief to Positive Belief
  2. Presuppositions
  3. Belief Change
  4. Sub-Modality Belief Change
  5. Parts Integration
  6. Timeline Belief Change

Dr. rangana rupavi choudhari


“We always have a choice, and sometimes when you have a choice coming about, you may have a tingle in your body. And you know there’s something more, something greater that you’re destined for.”

This is the choice that you need to make for yourself. To be stuck in the same place that you are or to clear that limitation and achieve greatness.

The intuitive voice is when you think from the place of your higher self. It always helps you to make the right decisions. It guides us. The voice that lets us know what to do and how to begin. It’s the critical voice that is like a fog that gets in the way of the intuitive voice. It’s the voice that tells you. “I don’t know what decision to take.”

Bruce Lipton who many of you know, shared with everyone that beliefs create a chemical reaction within the body. If you say you can’t, you can and if you say you can, then you can. That is why his book is called ‘The Biology of Beliefs.’

This book talks about the concept of 'epigenetics', which states that genes and DNA do not control our biology; instead, DNA is controlled by signals from outside the cell, including the energetic messages emanating from our positive and negative thoughts.

Hence, our experiences shape our beliefs and our beliefs shape our biology. Our nervous system stores all our memories, and beliefs. 

Our thoughts, either positive or negative, have the ability to literally change our bodies and alter our physical health and well being.

This is great news, because it means that we have the power to change our beliefs and our lives for the better!

Just because our parents were emotionally reactive or had diabetes doesn’t mean that we will inherit it too.

Our emotions influence our cells and the placebo effect is a perfect example! Placebo effect is a phenomena where the mind can sometimes trick you into believing that a fake treatment has real therapeutic results. 

If you believe that it will work, it will give you positive results even if it's a fake treatment. On the other hand, if you believe that it won't work, it will not yield any positive results even if the treatment was genuine. 

That is the power of belief!

It can sometimes be overwhelming to know which belief change process to use when and which one will give the quickest results.

The best thing to do at such times is to go with your gut. It is also recommended to get an intake form filled in by your client so that you know exactly how to proceed.


"I can believe things that are true and things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not"

neil gaiman


One of the processes that works very well with clients is to use Timeline for a belief change. You can use this process below:

  • Create a safe space for your client.
  • Uncover a limiting belief, elicit your timeline and step on the now and associate with the feeling of the belief.
  • Walk on your timeline to the sense of the event associated with the belief and then just before the belief and test that the belief feels more distant.
  • Keep walking away into the past and notice the belief fades away and come back to the moment just before the event associated with the belief.
  • Float above your timeline to the present and turn around and face the past.
  • Ask what was the highest purpose of the benefit of the belief back then? What is the opposite of the belief? What do you want to do with the belief now?
  • Ask them what resources they needed at the time and change memory is needed.
  • Test the old belief and then float back to the past when the belief was created and press delete and then install the desired belief and face the future.
  • Breathe in the new belief and install it in the body mind and walk to the now.
Future pace and congratulate.

New to EFT? Learn how Emotional Freedom Technique Tapping heals.

Emotional Freedom Techniques (tapping) is clinically proven to lower stress, tension, anxiety, past-trauma to enable health, happiness and vitality.

Amrita believed that every time she made a little progress to establish herself, her momentum stalls and she doesn’t do consistently what she wanted to do. She did not feel safe to work hard anymore.

And after the belief change process…

“I feel a little raw but good. I had to forgive myself. I’m no longer associated with the old belief as before. It feels far away. The process was like an eye opener for me.”

Sudha had a limiting belief when she questioned herself, “What if I fail and let people down?”

Sometimes a belief can even be formed when you are in your mother’s womb and that is okay. It is important to uncover when the belief was formed.

“It’s ok to be free and alive.” says, Sudha, Life Coach and Healer.

Just a couple of things to bear in mind is sometimes, the client might not be aware of an underlying belief. In such cases you may want to dig a little deeper with questions and check for any patterns.

Continue to learn and explore!

Love,

Dr Rangana Rupavi Choudhuri (PhD)

P.S. Want to discover if EFT Tapping is right for you? Book a Complimentary Discovery Call.

How To Self-Heal & Become An EFT Practitioner

Discover how EFT Tapping can help you to self-heal or to become professionally qualified as a Certified EFT Practitioner. Emotional Freedom Techniques (Tapping) is clinically proven to lower stress, tension, anxiety, past trauma to enable health, happiness and vitality.

In summary, limiting beliefs can occur at any time, considering that an average person has around 35-48 thoughts per minute. Sometimes not making a decision because of a belief can make you feel like you’re in a cage. You can earn your freedom through Timeline to get ahead of your limiting beliefs. The choice is up to you. Stay caged or decide to be free.


Disclaimer: The information on this website is purely for educational purposes and does not in any way replace the requirement for medical and psychological diagnosis and treatment. Please seek professional medical and psychological diagnosis and advice for all medical and mental health conditions. It is advised to always book any consultations with qualified professionals.


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