Changing Your Relationship to Self, Others, and the World: How New Affirmations Can Guide the Way You Speak to Yourself

What are underlying beliefs? Underlying beliefs are the inner stories we tell ourselves about who we are, how relationships work, and what the world expects of us.
They can best be understood as the way we speak to ourselves. If we are honest, the person we have the most conversations with is ourselves. Whether we are planning our day, moving through routines, responding to everyday moments, navigating major life changes, or processing deep emotions, most of this happens internally. Many of us live in societies shaped by Western or neoliberal values that emphasise thinking, analysing, and verbal processing, which means we often experience life more through our minds than through our bodies or emotions. This is where the constant inner chatter lives, and that chatter is shaped by our underlying beliefs. What matters is recognising the power of what happens inside us, because that also means we have the power to create change from the inside out. This is the foundation of therapeutic work.

Why is it important to identify underlying beliefs? Underlying beliefs shape how we experience ourselves, others, and the situations we find ourselves in.
Our experience does not start in the outside world alone, but in the interaction between what happens around us and what happens within us. Underlying beliefs shape how we interpret events. Stress, for example, is not simply caused by what happens to us, but by how we perceive it. A demand at work becomes stress when we tell ourselves there is no choice, that it must be done perfectly, that failure is not an option. Stress increases further when we believe that expectations are unrealistic, that we will disappoint others, or that opportunities are scarce and must not be lost. Beliefs such as “I must be perfect,” “I am not good enough,” or “Others handle this better than I do” shape our lived experience.

How underlying beliefs influence how our lives unfold: Underlying beliefs shape our responses, and those responses influence what happens next.
Nothing we experience is only about what is happening around us. Our experience includes how we perceive, process, and interpret events, and how we respond to them. Our responses then affect our environment and the people around us, creating a cyclical pattern. One of my mentors once shared words that stayed with me deeply: “Juliane, there is a very interesting dynamic between what the world brings to you and what you bring to the world. Never underestimate either of these.” Our lives unfold in this ongoing interaction between inner and outer worlds.

How underlying beliefs affect well-being and health: When underlying beliefs lead to ongoing self-suppression, they can significantly impact emotional and physical health.
Underlying beliefs often result in unhealthy patterns, including behaviours that initially seem acceptable or even valued, such as people-pleasing. Over time, these patterns require us to swallow our own needs and emotions. What is suppressed does not disappear; it accumulates and often shows up as low mood, emotional heaviness, intrusive thoughts, or physical symptoms and illness. These patterns pose a serious risk to well-being and are often referred to as hidden stressors because of their powerful yet unseen impact.

How underlying beliefs are formed: Underlying beliefs are usually formed in early childhood through observation, attachment needs, and lived experience rather than direct instruction.
As children, we are highly perceptive and absorb what happens around us, using it as guidance for how we are meant to be in the world. What we observe often shapes us more deeply than what we are told. We tend to internalise how our caregivers related to themselves and spoke to themselves. This is why someone may be extremely hard on themselves even if they grew up with loving parents, because those parents may have been harsh with themselves. These patterns are sometimes described as “generational winds” that pass from one generation to the next. As children, we do not choose these winds and cannot protect ourselves from them, so we internalise them. This is why harmful beliefs are not a personal failure, but the result of relational and cultural histories.

Children also have strong attachment needs. In early childhood, our need for belonging and safety outweighs our need for autonomy. We adapt ourselves to maintain connection, often forming beliefs about what is required of us. When communication is lacking, children will fill in the gaps themselves, often with self-blaming explanations. In this way, underlying beliefs can form without anyone explicitly stating them.

How to identify underlying beliefs: Underlying beliefs can be identified by noticing repeated themes in the way you speak to yourself.
One helpful approach is to imagine your inner dialogue being recorded and transcribed. When you look at this transcript, patterns and recurring messages become visible. These repeated messages point directly to your underlying beliefs.Journaling helps bring unconscious underlying beliefs into conscious awareness. This involves paying attention to your self-talk throughout the day and writing it down. These thoughts are often long and complex, so the next step is to summarise them into a few core messages. Imagine all your thoughts being distilled into three to main statements. These represent your underlying beliefs. One way to think about it is if AI would transcribe your thoughts for a given day, week, month and provide you with a write up as well as the main themes, what would they say? If you are struggling to identify your underlying beliefs based on your thoughts, you can also reflect what you have learned growing up and reflect upon your experiences and observations as a child: What did people around you tell you? What did you hear them telling themselves? How did the people around you treat you when you were a child? How did they respond to any challenges, mistakes or hardship you experienced? Another way to access them is through the body, for example in guided meditation, ideally within a therapeutic space.

How to transform underlying beliefs into affirmations aligned with your values: Transforming underlying beliefs into affirmations supports a healthier relationship with yourself and your life.
Write your underlying beliefs on the left-hand side of a page, and for each one create an affirmation on the right-hand side that reflects your values and the way you want to relate to yourself. These affirmations can then be integrated into your daily rhythm until they no longer require conscious effort. When old beliefs resurface, gently return to the affirmations. Over time, this practice reshapes how you relate to yourself, others, and the world.