The Major False Core, False Selfs

False core belief False self compensation

1. Something wrong with me … act "as if" perfect, ok, hip

2. I am worthless … act "as if" indispensable

3. I cannot do … overachiever, perfectionist

4. I am inadequate … act "as if" super capable

5. I don't exist … notice me'', see me, find me

6. I am alone … act "as if" connected, popular

7. I am incomplete … act "as if" together, whole

8. I am powerless … prove power, dominant, roar

9. I am unlovable … act "as if" lovable, charming

10. I am stupid … act "as if" smart, brainy

adapted from Stephen Wolinsky's Quantum Psychology

1. As an Adult, imagine or recall any of possibly many times when you failed to achieve a goal, keep a relationship, or accomplish a dream. Your performance, effort, ambition, or whatever just wasn't good enough. Recall being divorced by a spouse or abandoned by a partner, and assuming that there was something about you that wasn't simply "good enough". There's certainly disappointment, grieving and recovery. After all, as an adult, you have resources such as other friends, other opportunities, usually some financial resources, other things to do, new people to meet, another job search, and maybe a career change. Though often very stressful, these changes are all part of the fabric of life, often unavoidable, and sometimes we look back of the change as a blessing in disguise.

2. Now, imagine or recall similar "failures", losses, insults, assaults but as a child. Perhaps the child experiences loss or abandonment or neglect or abuse from a parent. Perhaps there's trouble in school or in the neighborhood or with friends or family. Children take everything personally. Children don't have the adult experience, wisdom, income, transportation, distractions, friends, and other resources to help them distract or cope. When rejected that young, before the ''age of reason'', a child will self-centeredly misinterpret the abandonment as personally deserved as described by Stephen Wolinsky in the box to the left.

3. Imagine again being an adult facing the same failures as above, but with the added, ungrieved childhood feelings from neglect and rejection. Today's failure, loss, or rejection, reactivates the childhood feelings to a much more painful degree, brings up the "false core" thoughts, and promotes the "false self" overreactions of attack, withdrawal, and emotional problems that make a difficult situation seem impossible and overwhelming. All of the old insecurities, originally from other people's old mistakes, arise again to intensify and distort the current problem.

4. So today's reaction to disappointment includes the emotional undertones of every similar disappointment from the past. Focus on the current thoughts and feelings, and then ask how old those feelings are.