LMT1 – Lesson 2

The second reason it can be hard to eliminate a belief and how to overcome it

In today’s lesson, you will learn about another difficulty that can prevent you from eliminating beliefs.

Difficulty in getting in touch with the source of a belief.

Before I get into that, I want to tell you about a conversation I had with someone who was interested in learning how to eliminate beliefs.

When I told him about the work I do, he sounded excited at first.

But then he said, “I bet it takes a long time to learn how to do that.”

I think he was assuming that like getting a degree in psychology such as a Master’s which can take two years or getting a Master’s in Family Counseling which takes two years plus 3,000 hours of supervised practice … that it would take a similar amount of time to become effective with the Lefkoe Method.

Fortunately, it doesn’t have to take many years to become effective with this process … either to learn to help yourself or help others.

The basics of what we do can be learned in a matter of months.

Of course true mastery takes a bit longer and depends on how many people you work with.

But yes, you can learn this.

And no, you don’t have to spend years just to get started.

If you’ve tried using TLM on your own in the past and haven’t been successful, it’s likely there is one clear reason for that.

You didn’t yet know how everything about eliminating beliefs.

Morty and I took years to discover the ins and outs of this process.

In the beginning it took us 2 hours just to eliminate a single belief.  And that didn’t just happen once or twice.  That was how long it took on a regular basis.

We didn’t know then how to overcome the barriers many people have to eliminating a belief.

It’s likely that you don’t know that either … yet.

But since you are reading this email … and you clicked the link asking for us to teach you … and the fact that you’ve likely put in time and effort to learn how to change yourself for years now … shows that you do have what it takes.

Only those who desire to know will ever put in the effort to learn.

Since that’s you, let’s move on to your lesson …

Barriers to finding the source of a belief

Imagine the following scenario:

You are working with a client for the first time.  And you’ve identified a belief to eliminate. 

Now you are looking for the source of the belief.

The client gives you some events as the possible source.

You’re not totally sure that those events are the correct source.  But, because you can’t put your finger on why you feel uncomfortable about it, you proceed anyway.

Then, when you get to the end of the Lefkoe Belief Process the client says “I still have the belief.”

You suspect it may have something to do with the source but you just don’t know what was wrong with it.

In this lesson, I’ll show you how to keep this situation from happening to you by describing some of the barriers to finding an accurate source for a belief and how to overcome them.

So what are the ways that a person can find the wrong source?

There are several.

Problem #1

When you are working with a self-esteem belief, the most common reason a client will give you the wrong source is that they don’t want to make their parents wrong.  

So they will tell you about experiences they had with other people, students at school, friends, teachers, etc., instead of describing childhood events with their parents.  

The solution to this is to show them that even well-meaning, loving parents can do and say things that lead their children to negative conclusions about themselves.  

One client named Roberta thought none of her beliefs could have come from her parents. She told me “They were such nice people.  I don’t think they would have wanted me to form a negative belief.”  

And I told her,

No parent intends for their children to form a negative belief.  And most parents really love their children. However, because most parents don’t realize that their children are giving meaning to everything they do, parents inadvertently do or say things that lead their children to form negative beliefs while they are growing up.

After I said this to her she was able to acknowledge that it was at least possible that her parents could have said or done things that might have lead her to a negative belief.  At which point she was able to continue with the process.

Problem #2

Another way we can be lead astray when looking for the source of a belief is if a client gives us events that are caused by the belief instead of events that lead to a belief.

One example was a client who had the belief, “If I make a mistake or fail, I’ll be rejected.”

When I asked him about the earliest experiences that could have led to his belief, he told me that on the first day of school he was so nervous and scared of doing anything wrong and that he would be terrified every time he made a mistake.

I then asked him how his teachers and classmates responded to him when he made a mistake.  He said nobody reacted in an angry or disapproving way.  

So then I asked “Where did the fear come from? It sounds like you already had the belief, “If I make a mistake or fail, I’ll be rejected” and that’s why you were scared.  

He thought about this for a moment… then he agreed that the events he mentioned were the result of the belief, not the cause of the belief.  That enabled him to examine events that happened at home with his parents and find the ones that really did lead to the belief.

Problem #3

Another common way we can end up with the wrong source is if a client gives us only one painful event as the source of their belief.   

This is a problem because most beliefs are formed from a series of events, not just one or two times something painful happened.

An example of this is a client who told me that the source of, “I’m not worthwhile” was the time her father came to her birthday party drunk when she was very young.  

He acted strangely and made a lot of people feel uncomfortable and many of her friends left early with their parents.  

She was embarrassed and he never apologized for what happened.  

I let her know that I understood that this was a painful event and that she probably felt like she wasn’t worthwhile as it was taking place.  

However, this event by itself would not lead to such a broad belief.  

So I asked, “What else happened that contributed to you forming this belief?”  She then told me about many other things her father had done which led to her belief.

So if a client gives you one painful memory, empathize with them, then help them find other events that also led to the belief.  

The one exception is if a client has been through an extremely traumatic experience such as rape or attempted murder.  In those cases of extreme violence a belief can be formed from one instance.

Problem #4

Another barrier to finding the source is if a person cannot remember her childhood.  

When this happens, you want to ask the client if she can remember how her parents treated her at any age and then use that memory to help her make real how her parents reacted to her when she was younger.

Jason was a client who didn’t remember his childhood.  Here’s how I helped him get in touch with the source of the belief “I’m not good enough.”

Shelly: What happened early in your life that lead you to conclude, “I’m not good enough?”

Jason: I know you are looking for early childhood but I just don’t remember that far back.  I can remember my parents scolding me when I was 12 or 13.  They would say “Why’d you do that?” or “You should know better,” or “We expect more of you.”  Things like that.

S: OK.  Fortunately you don’t have to remember specifically what happened.  But you do need to make it real how your parents would have reacted when you did things they didn’t like when you were a bit younger than 12 or 13.  So let me ask you: do you think your parents’ personalities when you were 12 or 13 are similar to what they were when you were 6 or 7?

J: I’d say they were probably pretty similar.

S: OK. So does it seem real to you that when you did things they didn’t like when you were a kid at 6 or 7 that they responded with disapproval.  And that this might have been similar to what you remember at 10 or 13?

J: Yeah that’s real.

S: And can you imagine how your parents would have looked and sounded when they were scolding you at the earlier age?

J: Yeah.

S: So imagine getting scolded when you were 6 or 7.  Imagine that happening dozens of or even hundreds of times while you were growing up.  Does it seem real to you that those events happening over and over led you to conclude “I’m not good enough?”

J: Yes it is.  I can see that now.

So here’s an analysis of what I did with Jason that you can do with a client who can’t remember his childhood.

1. I helped him identify events later in life that he could remember.
2. I helped him to see that his parents would have behaved similarly when he was a bit younger.
3. I had him imagine what it would be like to see his parents behavior at that earlier age.

Now that you know the three problems that can keep a person from getting in touch with the source of their beliefs and how to solve them, I’d like to share with you the answers to a few questions I often get.

How can we make sure we’ve found the right source?

With every step of the LBP we ask diagnostic questions to make sure that what we are doing is real to the client.  

To make sure a client is in touch with a belief, we ask them to say the belief out loud and we ask, “How does that feel?”  

And when we think we’ve found the source of the belief we ask two questions “Does it seem real to you that those events led you to forming this belief?” and “Would anyone who was that age and had those exact experiences form the same conclusion you did?”  

If the client answers yes to both questions we move to the next step.

But what if they say no to one of the questions?

If the client says that the source is not real to them, then you’ll want to review the points covered earlier in this lesson.  

In most cases the client will be concerned about making his parents wrong.  So ask about this and then make it clear that almost all parents do and say things that lead their children to limiting beliefs.

And as far as clients saying no to the second question, “Would anyone who was that age and had those exact experiences form the same conclusion you did?” — it almost never comes up.  

But when it does, the person is often confusing their adult understanding with what a child can know.  

So I explain to the client that children don’t have the broader view of life that comes with being an adult.  They were forming the beliefs that are developmentally appropriate for a young child.  

Summary of main points

To sum up, it’s important to find the right source for a belief because if you don’t, the rest of the process won’t work.

The most common reason a client will give you the wrong source is they don’t want to make their parents wrong, so you want to make sure that they don’t feel they are bashing their parents.

Sometimes a client will give you events that are caused by the belief instead of events that lead to the belief. Pointing this out will often pave the way to finding the real source.

At other times a client will give you a single painful event as the source of a belief. If that happens, empathize with the client and then ask for other events as well as that one painful event.

Extremely violent events can be an exception to this rule.

Some clients cannot remember their childhood.  When this happens use later experiences with their parents to help the client imagine how their parents might have treated them at an earlier age.

At this point in the process you’ll have found a belief and its source, next is coming up with several different ways of interpreting the beliefs.

Easy right?

Not so fast.

During this step, it’s easy to go wrong without even realizing it.

The client thinks she gets it.

You think she gets it.

But she doesn’t … and at the end of the process you don’t know why the belief did not go away.

I’ll show you how to notice this problem as it’s unfolding … what to do about it … and even more importantly how to prevent it from happening in the first place.

While you wait, please leave a comment so I’ll know if these lessons are delivering value for you.[/text_block]