Oftentimes, we do things and we don't know why we're doing them. We may make a decision that doesn't pan out the way we wanted and we think we did something wrong or we see a pattern of behavior that has led to a result that isn't what we wanted and we judge ourselves saying "Why do I keep doing this?" or "What is wrong with me that I keep falling into the same trap?"
I'm here to tell you NOTHING is wrong with you. You are not broken and you don't need to be fixed. What you are doing is the result of the subconscious wiring of your nervous system.
The human brain, which is part of the central nervous system, is designed to predict and protect so when a threat is perceived, it relies on what it already knows to do to keep us safe. The problem is that what once kept us safe may no longer support us.
Our brains use memories and learned patterns to navigate the present, even when those patterns were created in circumstances that no longer exist. A strategy that protects us at one point in our lives can eventually become what keeps us stuck. We may still be living from a place we needed to be in once, but we aren’t there anymore and when we continue living from that old place, we can unknowingly rob ourselves of the freedom, joy, and possibility available to us now.
At the deepest level, our subconscious beliefs, and even more deeply, our identity, shape the way we see ourselves and the world around us. Those beliefs influence our thoughts. Our thoughts evoke emotions. Our emotions influence our decisions. Our decisions lead to actions. And our actions create the results we experience.
Beliefs → Thoughts → Emotions → Decisions → Actions → Results
I recently uncovered a subconscious belief I carried with me since childhood: I have no value. As I looked deeper, I realized it wasn’t just a belief but a part of my identity. I identified as someone who had no value.
Our beliefs, both limiting and supportive, are the lenses through which we experience the world so because I saw myself as someone without value, I interpreted my experiences through that lens. That belief influenced my thoughts. My thoughts created emotions. Those emotions influenced the decisions I made. Those decisions led to actions and those actions created the results I saw in my life.
Let me give you an example:
For most of my life, I've had thoughts of scarcity and fear around money. I saw and heard things in my childhood that planted the seed in my subconscious that money is difficult to get, you have to work hard to earn it, it doesn't last so you need to save it, and spending needlessly is bad and leads to fighting. I often heard the phrase "money doesn't grow on trees" which reinforced the scarcity mindset I had around money. Of course money doesn't grow on trees but as a child, my subconscious didn’t understand that phrase as simply an expression about being responsible with money. It reinforced a much deeper message: Money is difficult to come by.
These became beliefs I carried about money but they were nourished by something deeper: my identity that I had no value. Since I didn’t believe I had value within myself, I wanted to hold onto something I knew had value in society: money.
Think about what that means. If you believe you have no value, but you know money has value, and you believe money is difficult to earn, doesn’t last, and shouldn’t be spent, you begin to attach your own sense of worth to having money. That’s what I was doing. I was outsourcing my value to something tangible. When I had it, I felt good, when I didn't, I felt worthless.
I remember, as a little girl of maybe 4 or 5 years old, taking money from my father's dresser. I knew this paper with a number on it had value so I wanted it. I didn't know why I wanted it but I knew it had value so I took it and kept it. Looking back now, I can see that experience in a different light. I was a little girl who didn’t feel valuable, so I was drawn to something I knew was valuable and as long as I had it, I had value.
As I grew older, my beliefs about money became stronger. I believed spending money frivolously was bad and could lead to fighting so I developed thoughts like:
I shouldn't buy this.
Is it necessary?
Buying this might lead to an argument.
What if I need the money later?
And depending on what I was denying myself, those thoughts created different emotions. Sometimes anger. Sometimes fear. Sometimes resentment. And those emotions influenced my decisions and actions. I would either buy what I wanted and feel guilty for spending the money, or I would deny myself and feel resentful and angry because I really wanted it. Either way, I wasn’t at peace. I was conflicted because the conscious part of me wanted one thing, while the subconscious beliefs I carried were telling me something entirely different.
And underneath all of it was the deeper identity: I have no value.
My thoughts around money weren’t really just about money, they were about value. Having money, on some subconscious level, meant having value so when the money was gone, or when I struggled to make it, it reinforced the belief that I had no value.
It became a constant loop:
I need money because money has value.
If I don’t have money, I don’t have value.
I need to hold onto money to prove that I have value.
But I never feel like I have enough, so I must not have enough value.
And because I lived paycheck to paycheck, the cycle seemed to continually prove the story I already believed.
The Universe provides us with people and circumstances to help us see where we aren't free so it's no coincidence I married someone who was, what I considered, a spendthrift. He spent money, I got stressed and angry, we fought. Every fight reinforced, over and over, the beliefs I already had about money and, by default, my identity of having no value.
At the time, I didn’t see the gift in this relationship and the opportunity to uncover what was happening within me. I wasn’t ready to see it and that’s okay. It was part of what I needed to experience to get where I am today. Now, I can look back with gratitude for what that relationship taught me. I can see the beliefs I carried. I can see the stories I told myself and I can recognize that those stories were not the truth. They were stories I had learned to believe. But they were just that, stories, so I understood that if I could tell a story that doesn't support me, I can tell one that does.
In truth, the biggest gift in all of this is the compassion I now have for the scared little girl inside me who still comes out time and again believing she has no value and desperately tries to hold onto anything she believes does have value. I see that she isn't broken, she is trying to survive. What she needs is for me to see, hear, embrace, and love her. When that happens, decisions I make are made from a place of freedom instead of fear.
This is why I believe that the results we see in our lives can be invitations to look deeper. Not to judge ourselves or to ask, “What is wrong with me?” but to become curious and ask,
What do I believe about myself that could be creating this pattern? What story am I telling myself about this situation?
What did I learn to believe about myself, other people, money, relationships, success, love, or safety that is making me react this way?
And perhaps most importantly: Who have I decided I am and is it an absolute truth?
Behavior is just the visible part of the pattern. The deeper work is discovering the belief, and ultimately the identity, that is driving it. Not so you can blame or judge yourself and not because there is something wrong with you but so you can finally understand yourself. You can recognize what once protected you. You can embrace the part of you that thinks it still needs to protect you and give it the love it needs. Then you can choose whether that old story still belongs in the life you are creating today.
You are not broken. You never were.
You were adapting to what you experienced and now, with awareness, compassion, and a willingness to see yourself differently, you can begin to live from a new story.
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