MISTAKEN BELIEFS
In your early attachment experiences, your neural nets were forming, and you began to form unconscious beliefs about yourself, others, and the world. These beliefs are part of your Matrix— the system of beliefs, thoughts, experiences, and feelings that are encoded in your neural pathways and which determine your sense of yourself and how you see and interact with yourself, others, and the world. These are implicit memories—memories without conscious awareness—that influence what you believe, how you think, and how you act. Through hundreds and thousands of experiences in your childhood, your beliefs were reinforced as you were programmed and socialized through your family and society. Beliefs often have corresponding rules that govern how you operate in the world. You are taught what to do and what not to do, what is okay and what is not okay, through interactions and experiences in your family and society. Your beliefs, and the related rules that guide your behavior, are imprinted from your family upbringing and socialization.
This week, you continue your journey of discovering your beliefs—and you become more conscious of their power in your life. Becoming aware of your unconscious belief systems prepares the way for you to consciously choose what you wish to believe—beliefs that serve you to become the best person you can be and to be the best contributor to those around you.
Mistaken Beliefs and Stinking Thinking
In order to create and experience true intimacy with others and with your family, you need to become increasingly differentiated from your family system and increasingly individuated. Challenging limiting beliefs and choosing what you believe and think creates the foundation for an increased sense of yourself and increases your capacity for intimacy.
This week, you become more aware of the thoughts that arise from your mistaken beliefs, the thoughts that determine your behavior. All of us develop “mythconceptions” to some degree that color our thinking. According to Alfred Adler, we develop mistaken beliefs in different areas—about ourselves, about the world, about what we expect from the world, and about what the world expects from us. Mistaken beliefs about ourselves can be beliefs such as: I am not good enough. I’m not lovable. I’m not worthy. Mistaken beliefs about our emotions are beliefs such as: My feelings are bad. Having feelings is weak. My feelings are wrong and must be suppressed or hidden. I’m too sensitive. And, our mistaken beliefs about the world are beliefs such as: The world is not safe. The world is scary. People are out to get me. There isn’t any support for me. There isn’t enough for me. Resources are scarce.
Our mythconceptions are just that—mistaken concepts, which cause faulty thinking. Our mistaken beliefs and assumptions spawn Stinking Thinking, which prevents conscious critical thinking, keeps us stuck in negative self-fulfilling prophecies, and limits our potential and our experience of intimacy. Stinking Thoughts are inaccurate thoughts that seem factual, but are not true. Stinking Thinking takes many forms: rationalizing, making excuses, being defensive, over-generalizing, thinking you are unloved or unworthy, labeling, blaming, minimizing, projecting, being prejudiced, mind reading, being superstitious, obfuscating, all-or-nothing thinking—all ways of fudging or denying the truth and escaping from the deeper reality underneath.
Stinking Thinking is More than Thoughts
Stinking Thinking may arise not just as thoughts, but also as visions, feelings, moods, or sensations. You might have a sense of dread, a heaviness in the pit of your stomach, an irritable mood, feelings of being ungrounded, or other sensations or moods. Be aware that these responses are from your matrix, which may be signaling beliefs and Stinking Thinking, and not accurate responses to reality.
When we feel an “unfamiliar” joyous, open, optimistic mood, our addiction to our more negative mood states activates, and we think a Stinking Thought to trigger the familiar, “down” mood. Moreover, we can become addicted to certain mood states and the neurochemical wash associated with them. When we aren’t feeling cranky or irritable, for example, we think Stinking Thoughts to trigger the familiar mood.
Tactics and Behaviors
Stinking Thinking often develops into what we call Tactics—patterns of behavior and defense mechanisms, such as avoiding, minimizing, superiority, passive aggressiveness, self-pity, manipulation, or lying. These tactics negate our need to change and keeps us in denial that thinking errors exist. These tactics keep us stuck in irresponsible thinking patterns, avoiding responsibility that prevent us from growing and becoming. You’ll find a cheat sheet of Tactics attached to this lesson. Practice “calling” Tactics and Stinking Thinking as you interact with other people. Give each other a Stinker so that you can stop and become aware of your feelings and deeper yearnings and can choose a more empowering, responsible way to interact. If you or other members get stuck in the pattern, or are unable to see clearly where you are hooked, then do a Stinking Thinking Template to unlock the pattern.
Our mistaken beliefs and assumptions spawn Stinking Thinking, which prevents conscious critical thinking, keeps us stuck in negative self-fulfilling prophecies, and limits our potential and our experience of intimacy.
Challenge Your Stinking Thinking
Your assignment this week is to deepen your work on family rules, myths, and beliefs by seeing how these spawn Stinking Thinking and how your Stinking Thinking helps to show you your mistaken beliefs. Watch for your Stinking Thinking as Tactics and behaviors, not just your thoughts.
And, as you catch your Stinking Thinking and Tactics, challenge your thinking to choose an alternative, more empowering thought or way of being. Engage in new behaviors that challenge your Stinking Thinking. Stretch into new behaviors that fly in the face of your Stinking Thinking!
When you learn to recognize your Stinking Thinking for what it really is—thoughts masquerading as truth—you can see that it stems from mistaken beliefs. This false thinking keeps you from achieving what you could and discourages you from trying new things, taking risks, and creating MORE. You may use these thoughts to talk you out of pursuing MORE before you even get a fighting chance. Stinking Thinking lowers motivation and kills hope. And yet, it’s how most of us think and talk most of the time.
Falling into the loop of Stinking Thinking, you embrace a false reality. Consider how you continually revisit your Stinking Thinking litany: I can’t. I’m too old, young, poor, fat … to do that. If only I were thinner, richer, or more attractive, everything would work out. It’s his fault. It’s her fault. I’ll never be able to have MORE in my life. I already tried that and I failed, so it’s no use trying again. I’m not smart enough. It’ll never happen. This always happens. It will never get any better. I’m not okay. My brother is the lovable (talented, gifted, smart, worthy…) one, not me. No one will ever love me. All the good men are taken. Women only want partners who are rich and successful. My boss is just taking advantage of me; he really doesn’t want me to succeed. This is too hard. This is hopeless. I’m hopeless. I’ll start my diet tomorrow. I’ll never learn. When I win the lottery, I’ll make my One Decision…
None of this thinking is valid, and all of it keeps you mired in nonproductive patterns.
Stinking Thoughts may creep up on you, but you can learn to watch them rather than invest in them. You can even have a sense of humor and compassion about them.
What you don’t need to do is entertain these thoughts or accept them as real.
Learn to reality test. Ask yourself, is this true? Does the data support this assessment? Is there another way to view this? What am I projecting here? How would someone with a clear perspective see this situation? Also, test your stinking thoughts by acting contrary to them and see what the results are.
Use this week to focus on envisioning the Empowering Thoughts that you would like to have. As you work to minimize the negative in your thoughts, work on replacing them with empowering thoughts that will help move you closer to the vision of you that you are becoming. Aligning your thoughts and behaviors to more true beliefs—accepting yourself as a magnificent being, worthy of all the good that life can bring—keeps you from the negativity of Stinking Thinking.
Follow Rule #2: Minimize the Negative
Catching your Stinking Thinking means you are orienting to the second Rule of Engagement: Minimize the Negative. The more you catch your Stinking Thinking, the more you give yourself an antidote to defensiveness or other patterns and tactics you may use to avoid responsibility. And bringing light to these negative thought patterns can help you orient toward more positive beliefs.
Minimize Stinking Thinking and your tactics to avoid responsibility—and all the unconscious behaviors and ways of being that stem from them. Research shows these negative patterns tank our relationships:
Neutral/Destructive: Disengaging, avoidance, withdrawing, stonewalling, the silent treatment, being smug and superior, passive-aggressiveness, keeping secrets, lying, zoning out
Misengaged: avoiding conflict, being careful/making nice, walking on eggshells, zoned out in Soft Addictions
Pseudo-Engaged: Blame, shame, and justification, Drama Triangle, superficial conversations
Active Destructive: criticizing, contempt, hostile humor, eye-rolling, insulting, being defensive
See stinkers as an act of love– interrupting the pattern of limiting thinking so that we can think positive, empowering thoughts instead.
Catch and Change Your Mistaken Beliefs and Stinking Thinking—
and Minimize the Negative!
Main Assignment
Your main assignment this week has two aspects.
PART 1: Catch your Stinking Thinking and challenge it. See how your Stinking Thinking stems from your mistaken beliefs about yourself, your feelings, and the world around you. Once you catch your S.T. (short for Stinking Thinking), think again! What else could you think that would be more empowering? Engage in new behaviors that challenge your stinking thoughts and note the results. Attack your Stinking Thinking by acting counter to it!
PART 2: Embrace the Second Rule of Engagement— Minimize the Negative. Catching your Stinking Thinking provides a great pathway to minimizing the negative. Catch the ways in which you use your Stinking Thinking to disengage or misengage or to be actively destructive. Raising your awareness on the tactics you use in this way can help you make a new choice—to follow your yearning, embrace your emotions, and engage more creatively.
Begin to see how your Stinking Thinking and Tactics or behaviors are a part of your Matrix and how these ways of being skew your perception of reality. Keep track of your Stinking Thinking throughout the day—what you can think instead, and what actions you engaged in to challenge your stinking thoughts. Continue filling in your Rules, Myths, and Beliefs sheet as you gather more information from tracking your Stinking Thinking. To help you identify your Stinking Thinking, the beliefs that they stem from, the thoughts you could have instead, complete the Stinking Thinking Template at least once a day.
Very-Able Assignments
See Your Stinking Thinking, Feeling, and Acting That Come from Your Limiting Beliefs—and Change Them!
Stinking Thinking isn’t just about your thoughts—we have stinking feeling and stinking acting, too! Use the worksheet, “Stinking Thinking, Feeling, and Acting,” to track your limiting beliefs, your stinking feeling/thinking/acting and determine new, empowering ways to think/feel/act.
Complete the Stinking Thinking Template
Complete the Stinking Thinking Template as often as you can this week, but at least once per day. Pick a demeaning, judgmental, rationalizing thought you have about yourself, your feelings, or your world and fill out the template to see what the belief could be underneath. Every time you blame another, shame yourself, or justify yourself, you are indulging in Stinking Thinking related to your mistaken beliefs.
Another way to track your Stinking Thinking and mistaken beliefs is to use your soft addictions as an indicator. Stinking Thinking often leads to indulging in a soft addiction. So, every time you reach for a soft addiction, be aware that you are having a stinking thought right before you indulge.
Act to Test that Stinking Thinking
Challenge your Stinking Thinking in a specific area of your life where you feel stuck or want to move ahead more effectively. Learn by doing—do something counter to what you think is true. Complete a Stinking Thinking template on that area or problem. Then share what you have learned with another person.
Categorize Your Stinking Thinking
Watch for the different categories of your Stinking Thinking. Do you use emotional reasoning—when you feel bad, you think you or the situation is bad? Do you use mental filtering and screen out positive things only seeing the negative? Are you guilty of magnifying and seeing the worst or exaggerating the positive? Do you use terms like always or never or can’t or won’t? If so, your Stinking Thinking is showing. The categories are part of the Stinking Thinking Template where you will also see examples.
Identify Your Tactics
Become familiar with the Tactics to Avoid Responsibility so that you can identify them in Yourself. When you see or hear instances of tactics like superiority, obfuscation, avoiding, passive aggressiveness, self-pity and inferiority, manipulation, and defensiveness and lying, name them to call attention to them! This gives you the chance to then be more responsible and choose a more satisfying and empowering thought or behavior.
Continue to Fill in Your Rules, Myths, and Beliefs
Continue to fill in the columns (in the worksheet from Lesson 1) about your family rules, myths, and beliefs with the information that you discover from your Stinking Thinking. Tracking your Stinking Thinking will also help you see more of your False Self—how only certain aspects of yourself seem safe for you to show the world.
Use Stinkers!
As you catch Stinking Thinking, give yourself a Stinker. Explain Stinking Thinking and set it up to play with Stinkers with friends, family, even coworkers! Send virtual Stinkers to your teammates if they whine, blame, complain, show stereotypical or limiting thinking, etc. See it as an act of love—interrupting the pattern of limiting thinking so that we can think positive, empowering thoughts instead.
Watch a Movie or TV Program and Hold Your Nose
Watch a movie and pick out Stinking Thinking. Create a scorecard with a hash mark for every one you catch.
P.U. Alert—Watch Yourself
Use the same scorecard for yourself. Set up a recording device in your house near your phone. Switch it on the next time a friend calls and record your part of the conversation. Listen to your conversation and keep score of your own Stinking Thinking. In what ways do you limit yourself?
It’s Everywhere, It’s Everywhere
Watch for Stinking Thinking in everyday conversation—yours and others’. Better yet, if you are feeling adventuresome, point it out and discuss it with friends. Be prepared to deal with their initial defensiveness.
Shift Your Stinking Thinking
This week, as you are noticing your Stinking Thinking, start to explore what empowering messages you would like to hear in place of your stinky thoughts. Use the worksheet to track back when you used Stinking Thinking and vision what positive messages you would like to program into your matrix instead.
