For some time, I’ve been very focused on the phenomena I call a core contraction, which usually in psychology is called a core belief. A core contraction points to one primary fear we have about, our self, our identity, our existence, which is the fear of not being good enough, the fear of not being worthy of love, or life, the fear of not belonging, the fear that something is wrong with me.
This is what I call a core contraction. Why I call it a core contraction is that when this fear arises, we contract, the whole-body kind of shrinks in. It’s related to shame.
It feels shameful even to have that thought, oh, I might not be good enough. It feels shameful. It’s very hard to distinguish when it happens because it’s such a fundamental part of our makings and it’s something we have developed in our lives from childhood and up.
But it’s there in the subconscious, a fear of not being good enough. I find that life, the human experience, alternates between expansion and contraction, we breathe in and out, like a flower blooms and contracts. The seasons, spring comes out, expand and then contracts all its energy and juices back, in colors blooms and fades, like the universe, the Big Bang expands out and it contracts again.
So, everything is like that, expansion and contraction, like the heart when it pulsates. This is the same with our mind and emotional and physical body. We are open and inspired and then something happens, we get hurt or we get afraid, and we contract to brace ourselves against that threat which we feel, or think might be there.
I call that the core contraction. And why do I call it core? It’s because it seems like a basic pattern that repeats itself when our identity feels threaten. We each have it wired little bit different. That’s why it matters to find one’s own very particular core contraction, how it gets triggered and how we react to that.
Some people are fearing they’re not good enough. Some people fear that they become powerless, others fear being not wanted. Some people fear being rejected. Each fear can be a little bit different, with subtle variations and there can be many versions of it. I find it crucial to find that fear if we wish to be at ease with who we are.
In psychology they call it a belief, a core belief, because it is a belief that we might not be worthy or good enough. It’s a belief and it’s not a fact. So, there is a distinction between belief and a fact.
A belief invites fear because there is something we fear might happen, that might be true, and then we do various things to avoid that to be true. We react before thought, because this defensive pattern and strategy is so ingrained in us.
I find it’s very important to work with this. As I’ve been writing different other texts on this website, there is a point in our development, and I have experienced that myself and also with my clients, that if we don’t find this point where we have this fear that something is wrong with me or whatever it is, that core belief, we always will find ways to go around it and try to seek affirmation outside ourselves because we fear we might be unworthy. Therefore, we need to get proof from the outside world.
We need others to tell us we’re okay, or at least we need to prove to ourselves that we are okay. Our focus in our daily life becomes about proving that. And that can become very stressful, extremely painful. We appear self-absorbed because life is primarily about us trying to prove that fundamental fear is not true.
There is a point where we simply just can’t develop. There is something that can’t mature. We get stuck. The stuck-ness can be experienced both in our psychological well-being as well our spiritual development. If we never get to relax into our greater Self, we will still be depended on feeling good about ourselves. This means that it is still more important to us to affirm our ego, than to relax into our true nature, realizing faith that everything is absolutely okay.
I am not saying that there is nothing to work on or change in the way we are with each other or ourselves. Of course, there’s always something we can be more aware of and learn about how our behaviors affect others. That’s something else.
Bottom line, we are perfect as we are in our imperfection.
However, when we still live under the need to prove to the world, we’re okay. It’s stressful, we suffer, and we never learn to relax and be at peace with who we are. When that happens, and it’s a gradual process, we will also be available in a different way to our loved ones, the world, and ourselves, because we are not spending most of our energy to prove we’re okay.
It’s a deep relief.