Changing Core Beliefs – following a Real NLP Coaching client. Done with permission from the client, whose name has been changed. The Life Coach is Nancy Slocum.
I don’t care.
I mean really don’t care. I just don’t. And I couldn’t get myself to care even if I wanted to. But I don’t even want to and that is how much I don’t care about anything. Caring about anything just doesn’t make any sense to me. It is a core belief I guess and changing core beliefs seems impossible.
If I cared, I wouldn’t smoke. I wouldn’t drink so much and I wouldn’t even overeat. I’d treat my wife much better and take more responsibility around the house. There is so much I would do if I cared, but I don’t! I know how bad this must sound because there is a part of me that does care, but that part is pretty damn weak. I can see how my life would improve dramatically if I cared about it more. I know what to do, but in the moment, this part of me that doesn’t care about anything just takes over and nothing really matters after that. Not caring, I even enjoy myself in an absurd way. It is a kind of momentary freedom.
Rod grimaced as he thought about everything he’d just said. It’s tough, real tough.
And he is right. Changing core beliefs that nothing is worth caring for is not easy. For Rod, it’s been a lifelong pursuit. Of course, he compensates for not caring by forcing himself to work at it when he needs to. When his wife has had enough, he gets busy doing the things he needs to do around the house. When his weight reaches 250 pounds, he diets down to 220. He compensates for not caring by scrambling to piece things together when they fall apart due to neglect.
This is quite a way to go through life, defiantly refusing to care, then hustling to pick up the pieces left in the wake of neglect. Life, such as it is, demands that we care about our health, family, work and the fundamentals of getting along in a world of people. When we refuse to care, the consequences begin to mount. Of course, not caring in the extreme is suicide.
How did Rod come to such a dilemma, caught between his out of control contempt for the demands of life and the ever-pressing reality that life demands to be well attended?
I think it started when mom and dad divorced. Mom was always a little distant, but when she took us kids and left my father, she retreated even further into a depression. She left home early and when she returned from work, spent the evening in her bedroom. Basically, I was left alone to raise myself. I got myself up for school, made my lunch, ate breakfast, bathed and walked to school. After school, I came home, did my homework and hid from my older brother. Evenings were spent in front of the TV alone.
When children are neglected, they tend to believe their needs are unimportant. After all, if they were important, adults would attend to them, right? They can’t fathom, until the teenage years, that adults could be simply inadequate or wrong. Children simply abandon their needs in the same fashion as their would-be caregivers and remain hopelessly unconscious of the process. For Rod, not caring about his needs was merely the air he lived in and breathed.
As an adult, his need to take care of himself, his family and his various responsibilities naturally took a backseat to his core belief that his needs didn’t deserve such close attention. This, of course, is an invitation to live behind the 8-ball.
I care most when my lack of caring has caught up with me. I guess caring is just not my default setting. How would I like to be? I don’t know. Of course I could say “I would like to care more” but that would be said without much feeling behind it.
I don’t really believe I am afraid to care, even though it makes sense from a logical point of view. Caring…investment…..could lead to rejection, failure, pain. But my life now doesn’t support that. I only get positive returns on caring these days, in my marriage and business and health, etc…It is the lack of caring that leads to negative consequences.
I just think uncaring is my default from way, way back. I am hard pressed to get under the emotional armoring of having learned so well that not much is worth really caring for. It’s like a boulder sitting on my heart – every single day of my life.
Changing core beliefs. Where is the hope for Rod? It lies in the realm of coaching around changing core beliefs. When Rod begins to get under the boulder that sits on his heart with the help of his coach, a new world will burst open before his very eyes. For now, Rod will merely observe his pattern without attempting to change it. “Just notice when you lack caring. See it. Don’t try to change it. Just identify it and observe without judgment,” was Nancy’s advice for this week.
This is a real work in progress, reported with permission. Rod, whose name has been changed, will provide updates to his process as they develop. Stay tuned for more on Rod’s changing core beliefs process.
Read about Session 2.
