I Deserve to be Punished - Destructive Beliefs

For many years of my life, I believed that something was fundamentally wrong with me. I had experienced a series of events that I perceived had an underlying message: I deserve to be punished for who I am. Now this sounds quite severe but I really believed it. There were pivotal moments in my youth, when I would express my genuine self to others and that I would then endure a horrible response.

A particular incident comes to mind in the 8th grade. Some classmates of mine would go into one of the empty art rooms to play with our Pokémon cards. One day, I was sitting down in Spanish class after having just played and was putting my cards away in my cargo shorts. One of my classmates saw the cards and asked what they were. I told him they were Pokémon cards. He then asked if they are worth anything. And my naïve-self answered honestly, “They can be”.

After class, he and two of his friends cornered me in the hallway. He grabbed me from behind and picked me up in a bear hug. I’m barely 5’8” and he was well over 6’ tall and much stronger than me. As he is holding me in the air, one of his friends tries to take the cards out of my pocket while I was trying to kick him away. No one in the hall reacted, even though there were dozens of students moving to and from class. I could see my Spanish teacher still in her classroom, but she did not notice what was happening. And calling out to her would only have made the situation worse.

They eventually gave up and put me down. But he and his friends continued to threaten and torment me for weeks after that. It didn’t end until he eventually moved out of the school district, later that year. Once he was gone, the friends didn’t really bother with me. All this pain and hardship over some Pokémon cards, that were totally worthless. Hand-me-downs from a friend to get me started.

What is a Belief?

Beliefs are our brain’s way of making sense of the world. They are mental representations of the ways our brains expect things to happen, and how things should be related to each other. Beliefs are templates for efficient learning and are often essential for survival.

From an evolutionary perspective, the brain is an energy-expensive organ. It was advantageous to evolve energy-conserving patterns. Beliefs allow the brain to distill complex information, enabling it to quickly categorize and evaluate that information and to jump to conclusions. Essentially, to recognize patterns in the world and to create an expectation that those patterns would repeat over time

But this energy-saving system comes with an inherit flaw. In order to be efficient, it will create conclusions using incomplete information. This leads to many of our beliefs being in error to the reality of a situation.

Why Beliefs are Hard to Change

Preserving Mental Energy

One notable resistance to changing a belief is that it requires an immense amount of mental energy to reevaluate the world. Biologically, we will resist using that kind of energy unless we have no choice. It is easier and more energy efficient to edit an experience we have into fitting with your existing beliefs than it is to start from scratch. Even if the experience blatantly contradicts our beliefs.

Gambling addicts are a great example of this: They win at the roulette table playing black. So, they play black again and win. And again, play black and win. They start to form a belief that black will always win (even though statistically, getting red has the same odds as black). Or they think it is the dealer, their clothing, what they did that day. All of these details being coincidences. But their belief pushes them to keep playing. Even when they are thousands in the hole, they believe that black is their lucky color and it will turn around.

Filling the Void

Another notable difficulty to changing a belief is resistance towards having no belief at all. In the same way that nature abhors a vacuum, so does our minds. We need the beliefs, aka patterns, to be able to function efficiently. Our minds hate not having an understanding of the world. It connects back to our childhood, where everything was new and unique. It can be overwhelming. And just like children who don’t understand what is happening, we get scared. Our minds try to interpret that fear and manifests into the primordial idea of the monster under the bed. The mystery of unknowing is perceived as life threating. A child will run to mommy or daddy to make the monster go away. To be shown that it is safe. But as an adult, we are not willing to put ourselves in this vulnerable situation. We would rather hang onto a belief that hurts us than have no belief at all.

How Do You Change the Beliefs that are Harmful to You?

Step 1 – Identify the belief in question, in immense detail. Discover the experiences that you can recall that reinforce the belief.

Step 2 – Acknowledge your desire to change this belief about yourself. Only you have the power to change your own beliefs.

Step 3 – Form a new set of beliefs to replace the old one. As mentioned, our minds hate a vacuum. You need to create a new framework that better suits you and resonates more with both yourself and reality.

Step 4 – Expel the old belief and replace it with the new one, simultaneously.

To do these steps you will need a guide to help you through the process. Our minds do not grant us easy access to make these changes. It is too dangerous to ourselves to meddle in the depths of our own minds.

For me, I was able to let go of the belief that I deserved to be punished when I worked with a mental health professional who utilized the Emotional Freedom Technique. EFT, also known as tapping, involves tapping on acupressure points on your own body in order to calm the amygdala, the fear center of the brain. The tapping allows for the Chi (emotional energy) to move more freely and bring a sense of relief and calm to the mind and body.

This technique helped me process the difficult experiences that I had gone through that formed the belief that I deserved to be punished. It helped me recognize that what I experienced was a serious of unfortunate circumstances, and not a grand narrative about my character. I was able let go of that destructive belief and replace it with the deep knowing that my authentic self is worthy of being shown in the world and that I could thrive.

I want to give that same benefit that I received as a gift to you. You just have to choose to take those first steps toward taking responsibility for your healing and to work towards being the person you are meant to be. To be ready to left go of the old beliefs that hurt you and to create a better life for yourself. Are you ready?