Most of us have negative thoughts about ourselves embedded in our subconscious mind, and I believe that these are the main factors holding us back from having the healthy, happy, loving, prosperous lives most of us desire. I call these thoughts our “personal lies”.
“I’m not good enough”, “I’m not wanted”, “I’m not worthy”, or the simple, “I’m bad” — these are common to most of us. How they get in there is that when we experience a negative or traumatic event, usually in our early, formative years, we make a decision about ourselves, the world, or both. This “event” can be as simple as a grumpy parent snapping at us after a hard day at work, and all of a sudden, it’s written as if in granite in the adamantine surface of our subconscious mind — to stay there until we decide to “change our minds”.
In the Loving Relationships Training, founded by Sondra Ray, they believe that, at the bottom of all of these personal lies is the one that has been making the greatest difference to us all this time. They metaphor they use is that of a hand holding a bunch of balloons. If each of the negative thoughts we think about ourselves is on a balloon, then the hand holding the balloon is the most important negative thought about ourselves which we hold. So, they assert, if you open the hand that holds the balloons, then they are all released. In other words, if change the most important negative thought about yourself, the biggest lie you tell yourself, all the others that have been hanging around will have vastly reduced power to affect your life.
How to do this? More on that soon. Meanwhile, I invite you to think about what is the biggest lie you tell yourself. What is the most negative thought about yourself that’s lurking below the surface of your consciousness. Because, once we know what it is, we have the ability to change it.