Latest / Internal Insights / Why Your Beliefs Keep Proving Themselves Right
Transcript
- Ted Thao: Welcome to Internal Insights, a quick, honest conversation about mental health in about five minutes or less. I'm your host Ted Thao, a licensed professional counselor, and the owner of Internal Insights Therapy in San Antonio, Texas. Every episode, we take one idea from therapy, trauma, anxiety, relationships, identity, and talk about it plainly. No jargon, no fluff, just something real. Let's get into it. Have you ever caught yourself in the middle of a fight or a spiral and thought, here we go again? Like you already knew exactly how this was going to end before it even started. That feeling isn't a coincidence. It's usually a belief doing its job. And beliefs are strange things. Because we tend to treat them like facts, like something we discovered about ourselves or the world. But most beliefs are more like a pair of tinted glasses we put on a very long time ago, maybe in childhood, maybe in a past relationship, and we forgot we're even wearing them. Everything we see gets filtered through that tint. And because everything looks like that color, we assume that that's just how the world is. And here's the part that people don't always realize. Beliefs don't just sit there quietly in the background. They actually shape what we do next. And what we do next often ends up proving that belief is right. Which makes that belief feel even more true the next time around. Let me walk through an example. Say someone feels disrespected in a conversation. Maybe a co worker cuts them off, or a partner uses a certain tone. That feeling of being disrespected hits an old belief underneath it. Something like, I'm not good enough, or I don't deserve to be heard. Something along those lines. Now that belief is awake and it needs to respond. That same urgency and that same threatening feeling that comes when someone disrespects you. So the person yells, they get loud. Maybe they say something sharp or condescending to the person, or maybe they even just shut down completely. And what happens next? The other person pulls away or gets defensive or the whole thing blows up. Now that belief, that one that said so you're not good enough, got what it wanted all along. Proof. See? I really am too much. I really am not good enough. That's why this keeps happening. But notice what actually happened here. It wasn't the belief that got proven true, it was the action, the yelling, the shutting down, that created the outcome that looked like proof. The belief picked the reaction, and the reaction built the evidence. This is the loop that keeps the belief alive far longer than it probably deserves to be stuck around. Not because the belief is accurate, but because the response it triggers tends to recreate the exact situation that makes it feel true. You know, and the funny things there's usually a question that tends to follow right after this one. And it's something like, okay, but if this belief keeps getting confirmed over and over in different situations with people, doesn't that mean it's true? And I get it. I get why that logically feels solid. but repeated confirmation doesn't actually tell you a belief is true. It tells you the loop is still running. The action is still feeding it. If someone's automatic response to feeling disrespected is always to yell, they're going to keep gathering evidence that supports it. I'm not good enough. Not because it's true, but because yelling tends to push people away, and pushing people away looks exactly like rejection. The real test, though, isn't whether the belief is to be proven again. It's whether you actually chose your response or whether the belief chose it for you before you even had a chance to think. That tiny gap between the trigger and reaction, that's really the only place any of this can be challenged. Not by forcing someone to think positive. Just by Pausing long enough to ask, is this belief about to write my next move for me? So here's something I want you to sit with. A belief can feel completely true and still be running on autopilot from somewhere far to the past. The goal isn't to win the argument with it in one sitting. All it is is just to notice it. And the cool thing is. The next time you feel that familiar pull to respond that same way, you can decide if you want to do something different. I believe you can choose how you respond. That's it for this episode of Internal Insights. If this gave you something to sit with, or just made you feel a little less alone, that's the whole point. This isn't a replacement for therapy, but if you're looking for support, you can find me at Internal Insights Therapy in San Antonio, Texas. Thank you for spending five minutes I'll see you next time.