Shirley (real name not used), in her mid-thirties, believed that she was evil. For many years, this was a position that she held about herself. She had been physically abused, sexually abused and mentally tormented by her father from infancy until she left home. There were many real life experiences which contributed to this self-injuring belief.
To Shirley, evil meant being worthy of punishment and hate. Naturally, her thinking and her behaviour expressed this in self-mutilation, suicide attempts, disregard for basic self-care skills and a constant repetition of self-hate statements. Among the reasons that she had for proving to herself that she was evil, the one that seemed to carry the most weight had to do with something she had done, not what had been done to her.
Shirley was able to say this: "I'm evil because of what I have done." This was a beautifully clear statement. At first, Shirley was unable to say what it was that she had done that provided such convincing evidence that she was evil: "If I tell you, then you will think that I am evil too."
These two beliefs sealed Shirley into a personal hell. From them arose many other thoughts that were based upon the blind acceptance of these positions. Her emotional energies were therefore warped into depression, despair and self-loathing.
The question was: How can she successfully dispute these beliefs? What kind of challenges can they be put to?
The first step was to insert two ordinary words in front of Shirley's belief statements. The words are: "I think."
The position (belief) statements now read:
"I think - that I'm evil because of what I have done." "I think - that if I tell you, that you will think that I am evil too."
and agreed to investigate them to see if they were true, or whether they might be false. Why not? What was there to lose? Nothing fancy here.
Adding the words, "I think", to her beliefs statements brought forth the concepts that Shirley had been learning to work with, the concept that thinking shapes emotional energies, and the concept that habituated thinking may be offside logically and factually. Adding the words, "I think", in front of the belief statements links the beliefs to the learning. It says: "Hey! These are only thoughts. They aren't necessarily facts."
The first belief up for scrutiny and challenge was: "I think that if I tell you what I have done, then you will think that I'm evil." While there was no way to actually prove that I wouldn't think that Shirley was evil, naming the fear out loud and discussing it, provided enough safety to enable Shirley to take a risk. She is, after all, a very brave person. And naming and discussing fear ain't a bad idea.
Shirley filled in the missing details: "I think that I am evil because I once had a dog lick my private parts and I got aroused." With the full statement out on the table, the disputing could begin in earnest. The gig in this instance is to search for the kind of arguments that make sense to the individual. It was Shirley's thinking that was most important, not mine. Her own expanded understanding was the goal. We tried several approaches to debating her position.
Here is one disputation that made sense to her: She is 35 years old, which means that she has been living for about 13,000 days. (We actually did the arithmetic.) On about ten of those 13,000 days, she did the so-called evil behaviour - for only a few minutes at a time. Therefore, on 0.077% of the days of her lifetime, for about 0.6% of the time in each of those days, she has performed evil deeds. Okay. At this point, Shirley began to chuckle, even though she had not yet addressed the issue of whether this kind of behaviour is truly evil. The spell of wonky, habituated thinking had been broken.
The thinking error behind her self-damnation was: "If I have done some bad things, then I am badness personified." ("If I have a pimple on my nose, I must be a pimple.") The power of catastrophising, combined with a thinking error and influenced by the I-gotta-be-perfect-or-else belief was thwarted.
Once the belief-bubble had been popped, Shirley was receptive to hearing some accurate information about sexual victimization and sexualized needs-meeting behaviour. She was relieved to know that she was not the only person in history, or in her community, to try to meet needs in these unsuccessful, but completely understandable ways. It is a common type of sexualized symptom of unresolved sexual abuse. Nothing more, nothing less. Certainly it is not cause for damnation. It isn't perfect, but it is a genuine attempt to meet needs - maybe not the best way, but she did figure that much out already.
She figured that out years ago!
The only problem was the shame and guilt.
A belief of many years bit the dust with a few minutes of work - defeated by courage and re-thinking. The emotional energies flowed instantly into the new thought configuration. Yes! The habituated thoughts did return to pester Shirley, but their impact was watered down by her enlarged understanding. She worked to develop her ability to recognize and to challenge her unrealistic thinking when it did show up.
Regular mental housekeeping is a good habit to develop.