Lies I Have Believed

I had an exercise once outlined for doing
work on increasing confidence and ridding
yourself of old 'tapes' and ideas.

It said to make a list of all the outmoded,
incorrect messages you had running around
in your brain.

Obviously, this would mean doing soul-
searching in order to be in touch with your
feelings, patterns, etc and be able to articulate
what was behind the self-destructive
tendencies.

Identifying at least some of these was not
the problem.

The problem is that all the tapes playing
appear to be bad, and that after identifying
them I have had little or no success with
eliminating them.

These are pretty pervasive. Pretty all-
encompassing. Having worked on
changing them for 20 years, I still don't
know that I believe them to be 'lies,' to be
quite honest.

"LIES I HAVE BELIEVED"
 
(aka "Wrong Ideas to Purge")


I AM NOT GOOD ENOUGH

I AM NOT SMART ENOUGH

I AM NOT ATTRACTIVE ENOUGH


MY IDEAS ARE STUPID


I DON'T MEASURE UP


I DON'T DESERVE NICE THINGS


I CAN'T DO ANYTHING RIGHT


I CAN'T ACCOMPLISH THINGS BY MYSELF


I "CAN'T"....(fill in the blank)


I DON"T UNDERSTAND THINGS


I HAVE NO TALENT OR ABILITY


RUNNING AWAY ELIMINATES PROBLEMS


I NEED SOMEONE ELSE TO FEEL WHOLE


I HAVE NOTHING TO OFFER


*****************************

Many people probably would read
this and remark "I've thought that
from time to time." It's natural enough
depending on how you were raised.

I just seem to be unable to turn it
off from being a full-time looped tape.
No good thoughts survive in the
quagmire within. It certainly isn't
from lack of effort.