Mistaken Beliefs Lead to Mistaken Identities

At a CODA meeting I remember someone saying that he grew up thinking he was worthless because his father had a habit of saying to him “Everything you touch turns into shit.” As a result of taking this phrase literally, this person grew-up unable to follow through on projects because he subconsciously believed they’d all “turn to shit.”

For most of his life, he was never able to make the connection between the fact that things never seemed to work out right for him and his hidden belief that everything he touched turned to shit. Once he made the connection, it was eye-opening. He finally understood that his failures were self-sabotage based in the mistaken belief that everything he touched was destined to end in disaster.

This was a great leap forward for him. He now could stop sabotaging his endeavors by changing his thinking. He could stop believing that everything he touched turned into shit and begin believing that everything he touched could turn into gold.

But, he happened to take an even bigger step forward when he took time to talk to his father about the infamous phrase that had so damaged his life: “Everything you touch turns to shit.” After addressing it to his father he learned that he had misinterpreted his father’s words. What his father had meant by this phrase was that his son was clumsy and had a way of unwittingly breaking things as a child. His father had never intended the phrase to mean that he (the son) could never do anything right, or that he could never be successful in life.

Sometimes adults use detrimental phrases that are then misinterpreted by children. Many of us grew-up with some sort of parental phrase that came to identify who we are. The phrase may have been “You’re hopeless,” or “Can’t you do anything right?” or “You’re going to be fat like your father’s brothers.” Certainly none of these statements are positive. But if we heard phrases like these we may have also misinterpreted them. We may have taken them too personally and we may have spent a lifetime clinging to a mistaken belief about ourselves; one that has unfairly damaged our lives.

So it’s a good idea to identify those old bad phrases we heard as children and to begin the process of challenging them. We allowed ourselves to embody those phrases, to believe we weren’t good enough, and we need to free ourselves from the false identities that these bad phrases created. 

If our parents are still living, we can always ask them what they meant when they said we were “bad to the bone” or we were “hopeless.” In doing so, we may also learn that we misinterpreted what was said, or at the very least we may get an apology for something that a parent said to us out of their own personal frustration and inability to cope with their own lives.

But the most important thing is that we identify those detrimental statements and that we stop believing them. No one is doomed to have everything they touch turn to shit. So ask your Higher Power to help you identify those old bad beliefs and to convert them into new positive, life-giving beliefs about yourself.