For the last six years, I’ve have focused on the phenomena I call a core contraction, which usually in psychology is called a negative self-belief. A negative self-belief points to one primary fear we have about, our self, our identity, our existence, which is the fear of not being good enough or not being worthy of love, not belonging, the fear of being rejected or abandoned, or a fundamental 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-mind 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 early childhood.
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 recognize 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 or loved. Some people fear being rejected or abandoned. 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, because it is a belief that we might not be worthy or good enough. One of the first steps in healing this, is to realize that, it is 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 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 of fear, we will not be able to relax and fully be who we are. Instead, we will be occupied with seeking affirmation and acceptance 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 daily life becomes about proving that. And that can become stressful, exhausting, and painful.
We feel tied up by an internal conflict between how we think we should be and how we really are. We can feel frustrated because we realize we can’t live up to our “shoulds” or “shouldn’ts”—and yet we don’t know how to just be ourselves without them.
It can be really difficult and deeply painful to be trapped between these two impulses: living up to the “shoulds” or simply being who we are.
There is a point where we seem not to develop and mature emotionally. We feel 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 natural Self, we will still be depended on feeling in a particular way. This means that it is still more important to us to affirm our idea about who we think we should be, than to relax into our natural self, realizing we are absolutely okay as we are.
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 and ourselves, 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.
That being said, working with core contraction is not easy. It involves facing shame and fear – often the last places we want to go. And yet, exploring and embracing what we fear most can be profoundly liberating on every level. When we do, it naturally transforms into wisdom and compassion. This process takes time. There’s no shortcut. But even so, it’s liberating, meaningful, and can bring a profound sense of joy and gratitude for being who we are.