The Hidden Beliefs Running Your Emotions: Understanding Core Beliefs and Schemas

Have you ever reacted to something in a way that felt too big or too old?
Maybe someone made a simple comment and it left you spiraling in self-doubt.
Or you felt unseen in a conversation & heard a voice in your head whisper “they don’t like you.”

Even when you know better, your system doesn’t always cooperate.
That’s not because you’re irrational.
It might be because of something deeper something we call a core belief or schema.

---

What Are Limiting Beliefs?

Limiting beliefs are deep, internal assumptions about yourself, others, or the world.
They often sound like:

• “I’m not enough.”

• “People will always leave.”

• “It’s not safe to express what I really feel.”

These beliefs don’t show up in your day-to-day thoughts directly.
They live underneath.
They shape your reactions, your choices, and how safe you feel being seen without you ever realizing they’re there.

---

What’s the Difference Between Core Beliefs and Schemas?

You can think of core beliefs as the emotional roots of how you see yourself and others.
But Schemas are the deeper patterns that create your emotional blueprints.

This is the information system that your nervous system uses to interpret the world.

That is why, even if you want to change a belief, it will feel impossible to do so.

A core belief might be:

“I’m a burden.”

And the schema it feeds might say:

“Anytime I need support, I’ll be rejected.”

Schemas aren’t just thoughts. They live in your body.
That tension in your chest when you speak your needs.
The freezing up when you sense disappointment in someone else.
These are clues that a deeper pattern is being activated.

---

Where Do These Patterns Come From?

Limiting beliefs and schemas often form in childhood or early relational experiences especially when your emotional needs were misunderstood, minimized, or ignored.

Maybe no one told you directly, “Don’t feel that,” but the message was clear:
Your emotions weren’t safe.
Your presence wasn’t celebrated.
Or your needs were “too much.”

To protect you, your nervous system adapted.
It learned to predict pain or rejection before it happened.
That adaptation was protective then but may now be keeping you stuck in old reactions that no longer serve you.

---

Why Limiting Beliefs and Core Beliefs Matter

When you don’t know your limiting beliefs, they quietly run the show.
They shape:

• Who you trust

• What you tolerate

• How you speak to yourself

• Whether you feel worthy of rest, love, or belonging

But here’s the good news:
Limiting beliefs can be updated.
Schemas can be softened.
And your relationship with yourself can become safer, kinder, and more honest.

---

How Change Begins

Change doesn’t happen through willpower alone.
It happens when we bring gentle awareness to the pattern and start offering your system a new experience.

That might look like:

• Tuning into your body’s response to perceived rejection or criticism

• Rewriting the story your inner child learned early on

• Naming the belief: “This feels like truth, but it’s actually a memory.”

You don’t need to “think positive” or force yourself to believe something you don’t.

Instead of forcing yourself to be different, stay in relationship with the part of you that’s scared & offer it something new.

That’s the essence of healing limiting beliefs:
Not erasing the past, but reclaiming the present.

---

If you’re ready to explore what’s underneath your emotional patterns, I’d be honored to support you. You’re not broken; you’re remembering something old and you don’t have to repeat it.

Book a session with me or browse more resources in the Self-Worth & Inner Critic category.