How to Lessen Core Belief? Niceness = Sex & Sex = Love

[LeiaFlower]

@LeiaFlower, sexual arousal during abuse / trauma is a normal physiological response, it does not mean that you liked or wanted the abuse. It's the body's natural response to sexual stimulation, even when unwanted. It's important to understand this in order to work through guilt or confusion. Sex with friends does not lead to closer or better relationships, and is not a substitute for emotional intimacy or connection.

That is the common-sense reasoning to your negative core beliefs.

I think my therapist put it a better way to put it is, one is powerless as a child. When you think back to your childhood could you even choose what to eat, who to dress you, etc. As a child you’re usually your core self compassionate creative. A child is very me centered. They think everything resolves around then in the sense of if something bad happened it’s because they did something. However, we need to speak as adults and revise where the blame should actually be placed. Not on the victim but the abuser.

I know this wasn’t ill intent but text made it sound like what you said is an obvious thing, “Common Sense” What might be common to you might not be from someone else with a different background from you. I was raised that at young ages one can make life changing decisions. We aren’t meant to be given such power that young because we don’t know what to do with it. With that in mind and the idea that a child is me centered, it leads adult me to reason I had more control and power over a situation than I actually did.

 

[anthony]

I meant common-sense in the view of applying reasoning to negative core beliefs. Each to their own on how that is achieved, but it must be applicable that works for the person, that is common-sense and resonates for them.

If a negative belief is that you were reinforced that your skin is purple, and your skin is actually blue, the common-sense approach is to look at the your skin and determine the colour, not the belief in your brain. Another common-sense approach is take a picture of yourself and then look at that picture, carry it around with you, and every time you have the belief that your skin is purple, you look at the picture to know that is false, that your skin is blue.

Common-sense is the basis for dealing with negative core beliefs. Or the KISS principle - Keep It Simple Stupid. Which is what one can tell themselves. That is the Australian version. You can say Keep It Simple Silly, or any variation that fits your personality. Common-sense is not limited to one answer.