How Do You Change Old Beliefs That Keep You Stuck?

A trauma-informed and neurodiversity-affirming look at psychological and cognitive flexibility Rebecca Goldstein, MSW, RSW | TuneinTherapy

Trauma-informed, neurodiversity-affirming virtual psychotherapy across Ontario

Most of us carry beliefs about what we need to do to stay safe, accepted, capable, or in control.

They may sound like:

• “I have to handle everything myself.”

• “If I ask for help, I have failed.”

• “If I set a boundary, they will leave.”

• “I cannot let anyone see that I am struggling.”

• “If I cannot do it properly, there is no point in starting.”

• “I need to know exactly what will happen before I begin.”

  
  

These beliefs usually develop for a reason. They may have helped you survive instability, avoid criticism or rejection, manage sensory or emotional overwhelm, navigate executive-function demands, or function in environments that did not understand or accommodate your needs.

These are sometimes described as “limiting beliefs.” However, that term can overlook the fact that many of these beliefs originally developed to protect us, help us belong, or make difficult environments more predictable.

But a belief that once protected you can begin to limit your choices over time.

It might keep you from asking for support, setting boundaries, beginning something unfamiliar, or allowing another person to see what you are experiencing.

You may understand logically that the current situation is different while still finding that your mind and body respond according to the old rule.

So how do you change a belief that keeps you stuck? Learning how to change old beliefs is not always about proving them wrong. It can involve understanding what they once protected, developing a different relationship with them, and creating more choice in how you respond.

One way to do this is by building psychological flexibility: noticing your thoughts, emotions, bodily responses, and automatic urges while creating more space between what happens automatically and how you choose to respond.

Psychological flexibility is not about becoming endlessly adaptable, forcing yourself to tolerate distress, or talking yourself out of legitimate needs. From a trauma-informed and neurodiversity-affirming perspective, it is important not to automatically dismiss or label protective responses as irrational or dysfunctional.

The goal is to understand what your protective responses and adaptive strategies have been doing for you—and to consider whether they still need to make every decision.

Key takeaways

• Old beliefs often develop to create safety, predictability, belonging, or control.

• Psychological flexibility means having more choice in how you respond, even when difficult thoughts or feelings remain.

• Cognitive flexibility involves shifting perspectives, considering alternatives, and adapting strategies.

• ACT and DBT support flexible responding through processes such as cognitive defusion, values-based action, dialectical thinking, emotion regulation, and balancing acceptance with change.

• Difficulty shifting may reflect executive-function demands, sensory overload, fatigue, pain, trauma responses, or a legitimate need for predictability.

• Flexibility may involve changing your response, asking for support or accommodation, changing the environment, or some combination of these.

What Psychological Flexibility Looks Like In Everyday Life

In my work with adults navigating ADHD, autism, trauma, chronic pain, burnout, and major life transitions, I often see beliefs that once offered protection but now create new difficulties.

Some of us have learned to survive chaos by controlling every possible variable. This can make it difficult to delegate, prioritize, or tolerate uncertainty at work. When we have learned that vulnerability can be used against us, we might withdraw when we need connection the most. If we have repeatedly been criticized for making mistakes, we may avoid unfamiliar tasks unless we feel certain we can do them well.

These responses make sense in the context where they developed. They may simply no longer fit every situation we are facing now.

Psychological flexibility and cognitive flexibility

Psychological flexibility and cognitive flexibility are closely related, but they are not exactly the same.

Cognitive flexibility involves shifting perspectives, considering alternative explanations, adapting a strategy, or moving between different ways of thinking.

Psychological flexibility is broader. It includes noticing your thoughts and emotions, making room for discomfort, and choosing an action based on your values and current needs—even when the original belief is still present.

Changing an old belief does not always mean making it disappear. Sometimes change begins when the belief no longer has to determine what you do next.

Why Protective Beliefs Can Feel Unsafe To Question

Many beliefs that keep us stuck began as attempts to create safety, predictability, belonging, or control.

If expressing your needs once led to criticism, conflict, rejection, or punishment, you may have learned that it was safer not to ask for anything. If mistakes were treated as evidence that you were careless, incapable, or disappointing, even a small error may begin to feel like a threat. If relying on other people repeatedly led to being let down, handling everything alone may have started to feel like the only dependable option.

These beliefs are not simply random or irrational thoughts. They are conclusions we may have drawn from real experiences.

Over time, they can become automatic rules:

• “Do not let your guard down.”

• “Do not make mistakes.”

• “Do not need too much.”

• “Stay useful.”

• “Keep everyone happy.”

• “Make sure you are prepared for every possible outcome.”

  
  

Even when we understand logically that our current situation is different, our minds and bodies may continue responding as though the old rule is still necessary.

This is one reason insight is not always enough. You may know that asking for help does not make you a failure while still feeling shame when you consider doing it. You may recognize that a relationship is safer than previous relationships while still expecting rejection when you express a need. You may understand that a mistake is manageable while your nervous system responds as though something much more serious has happened.

From a trauma-informed perspective, it is important to ask what a belief or response has been protecting before trying to change it.

Helpful questions might include:

• What did this belief help me avoid?

• What happened when I acted differently in the past?

• What does following this rule give me now?

• What does it cost me?

• Is the current situation actually safer or more supportive?

• What would help a different response feel more manageable?

  
  

The goal is not to remove a protective strategy before another source of safety or support exists. Change is more likely to feel possible when it is approached with curiosity, choice, and enough emotional or practical support.

A neurodiversity-affirming perspective adds another important question: is this belief creating the difficulty, or is the person being asked to function in an environment that does not meet their needs?

For example, wanting clear expectations may reflect a legitimate need for predictability rather than an irrational fear of change. Avoiding an overstimulating environment may be an appropriate response to sensory overload. Needing more preparation time may reflect executive-function or processing demands rather than unwillingness.

Sometimes the work involves loosening an old rule.

Sometimes it involves creating a safer, clearer, or more accessible environment.

Often, it involves both.

How To Change Old Beliefs With The Right Support

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT, and Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, or DBT, both offer ways to respond more flexibly to difficult thoughts, emotions, and urges.

They approach this work somewhat differently, but both move away from the idea that every thought must be believed, challenged, or eliminated before we can act differently.

Cognitive defusion in ACT

ACT focuses less on deciding whether a thought is completely true or false and more on changing our relationship with it.

A thought such as:

“If I ask for help, I am a failure.”

can feel like a fact, a warning, and an instruction all at once.

Cognitive defusion creates a little distance from the thought. One simple way to practise this is to name what is happening:

“I am having the thought that asking for help means I have failed.”

Or:

“My mind is telling me that I should be able to handle this alone.”

The wording may feel awkward at first, but the goal is not to make the thought disappear. It is to notice that a thought is something your mind is producing—not necessarily a rule you must follow.

You may still feel ashamed, anxious, or uncertain and decide to ask for help because protecting your health, maintaining a relationship, or completing something important matters more than obeying the old rule.

This is part of psychological flexibility: allowing a difficult thought or feeling to be present while choosing an action that reflects your values and current needs.

Dialectical thinking in DBT

DBT helps challenge rigid, all-or-nothing thinking through dialectical thinking: the ability to hold more than one truth at the same time.

For example:

• “I am doing the best I can, and I may need to try something different.”

• “This belief helped protect me, and it may be limiting me now.”

• “I can be capable and still need support.”

• “My feelings make sense, and I still need to consider how I respond.”

• “I need predictability, and I may be able to tolerate one small change with enough support.”

Dialectical thinking does not mean forcing two opposing ideas into an artificial compromise. It means becoming curious about what may be true on both sides and looking for a fuller understanding of the situation.

This can be especially helpful when our minds move quickly toward extremes:

• always or never;

• success or failure;

• safe or dangerous;

• strong or weak;

• stay or leave.

Creating room for more than one possibility can reduce urgency and reveal options that were difficult to see before.

Both ACT and DBT recognize that meaningful change does not always begin with feeling differently. Sometimes the new response comes first.

When words and insight are not enough

ACT and DBT offer valuable ways to notice thoughts, hold multiple perspectives, and choose a different response. But understanding a pattern intellectually does not always change what happens when that pattern is activated.

You may know that making a mistake does not make you incompetent and still feel intense shame when something goes wrong. You may understand why an old belief developed without knowing how to respond differently when it takes over.

Our experiences are not expressed only through words. They may also show up through emotion, imagery, physical sensations, impulses, rhythm, movement, and patterns of attention.

Creative, expressive, and body-based approaches can offer other ways to explore these experiences. Depending on the person, this might involve music, imagery, drawing, writing, metaphor, movement, sensory awareness, bilateral or alternating stimulation, or rehearsing a different response before trying it in everyday life.

These approaches can be especially helpful when talking has started to feel repetitive, overly intellectual, or difficult to access. They may help someone notice what is happening, express an experience that is hard to describe, remain present with an emotional response, or consider another choice.

A neurodiversity-affirming approach recognizes that verbal conversation is not the most accessible or effective way for everyone to process experience. Music, visual tools, written communication, movement, rhythm, or sensory strategies may provide more workable ways to understand a pattern and experiment with change.

The goal is not to find one correct way to process a belief. It is to expand the ways you can notice it, understand it, and choose what happens next.

Changing Old Beliefs With The Right Support

Understanding an old belief is important, but psychological flexibility also develops through small experiences of responding differently.

If the belief is “I have to handle everything myself,” this might mean asking a reliable person for help with one specific task. If the belief is “I have to do this perfectly,” it might mean allowing yourself to create an imperfect first draft.

These experiments are not about forcing yourself to prove that your fear is irrational. They are opportunities for your mind and body to gather new information.

Polyvagal-informed and nervous-system regulation strategies may help make that possible. Before, during, or after trying something new, this might involve grounding through the senses, movement, rhythm, breathing, connection with a safe person, or noticing what helps you feel more present and supported.

Sometimes the experiment also involves changing the conditions around the task. Body doubling, visual prompts, clearer instructions, sensory support, additional processing time, or planned recovery time can make a different response more accessible.

The goal is not to pressure your nervous system into feeling safe. It is to create conditions in which a new response feels manageable enough to try.

Over time, these supported experiences can help your overall system learn that the old rule may not be necessary in every situation.

Psychological flexibility in relationships

Old beliefs rarely stay contained within us. They can shape how we interpret other people, what we expect from relationships, and how we respond when we feel hurt, uncertain, or disconnected.

For example, one person may believe:

“If they cared, they would already know what I need.”

Another may believe:

“If someone is upset with me, I have failed.”

When these beliefs meet, one person may withdraw or become resentful while the other becomes defensive, shuts down, or rushes to fix the problem. Both may be reacting to more than what is happening in the present moment.

Trauma, attachment experiences, and neurodivergence can all affect how people communicate and interpret one another. A change in tone may feel like rejection. A delayed response may be experienced as abandonment. Someone may need time to process before answering, while their partner experiences the pause as avoidance. One person may communicate directly and literally, while the other searches for meaning beneath the words.

Psychological flexibility can help create room to ask:

• What meaning am I assigning to what happened?

• What am I assuming about the other person’s intention?

• Is this reaction connected only to the present, or is an old experience also being activated?

• What do I need, and have I communicated it clearly?

• What response would reflect the kind of partner, friend, or family member I want to be?

This does not mean dismissing harmful behaviour, overlooking repeated patterns, or taking responsibility for another person’s choices. It means becoming more curious about the difference between intention, impact, interpretation, and nervous-system response.

Sometimes flexibility means considering another explanation.

Sometimes it means expressing a need more directly.

Sometimes it means allowing another person time to process.

And sometimes it means recognizing that a boundary is still necessary, even when holding it brings discomfort.

The goal is not to react perfectly. It is to create more opportunities for clarity, repair, and intentional choice when old beliefs begin shaping the relationship.

What psychological flexibility is not

Psychological flexibility is not the same as being agreeable, easygoing, or endlessly adaptable.

It does not mean ignoring your limits, suppressing your needs, or becoming more convenient for other people. It is not about masking neurodivergent traits, tolerating harmful behaviour, or forcing yourself to remain in situations that are unsafe or inaccessible.

Flexibility also does not require you to challenge every difficult thought or push through every uncomfortable feeling. Sometimes discomfort is part of trying something new. At other times, it may be signalling that you need more information, support, rest, predictability, or a firmer boundary.

A person may appear very adaptable while constantly monitoring other people, hiding distress, and changing themselves to avoid criticism or rejection. That may be a protective response, but it is not necessarily psychological flexibility.

Healthy flexibility includes the ability to adjust when change supports your needs and values—and the ability to remain firm when it does not.

Sometimes flexibility means compromising.

Sometimes it means asking for an accommodation.

Sometimes it means changing your plan, allowing more processing time, or accepting that you were wrong.

Sometimes it means maintaining a boundary, leaving a harmful situation, or recognizing that the environment—not your mindset—needs to change.

The goal is not maximum adaptability. It is having more freedom to respond in ways that respect both what matters to you and what your mind and body reasonably need.

Frequently asked questions

How long does it take to change an old belief?

There is no fixed timeline.

Some beliefs begin to loosen after a few meaningful experiences of responding differently. Others are connected to trauma, attachment, identity, chronic stress, or years of reinforcement and may take longer to work with.

Progress may not mean the belief disappears. It may mean noticing it sooner, recovering more quickly when it is activated, or having more options available when it shows up.

Can someone be too psychologically flexible?

Healthy psychological flexibility does not mean constantly adapting to other people.

If you are always the one changing, accommodating, or ignoring your own needs to avoid conflict, that may reflect people-pleasing, masking, or self-abandonment rather than flexibility.

Psychological flexibility includes knowing when to adjust and when to stay grounded in your needs, values, and boundaries.

Do I need therapy to build psychological or cognitive flexibility?

Not necessarily.

Reflection, journaling, ACT or DBT-based resources, creative practices, and small behavioural experiments can all help you begin noticing old patterns and trying different responses.

Therapy may be especially helpful when the belief is deeply entrenched, tied to trauma, affecting several areas of your life, or difficult to approach without becoming overwhelmed. A therapist can help you understand what the belief has been protecting, identify patterns that are hard to see from inside them, and build enough support for change to feel manageable.

What if I try something different and the belief turns out to be right?

Sometimes the feared outcome does happen.

You may set a boundary and someone may react badly. You may ask for help and be told no. You may try something unfamiliar and struggle.

Psychological flexibility does not mean assuming your fears are always irrational or that every risk will be rewarded. It means having more choice in deciding which risks are worth taking, what support you need, and how you want to respond if the outcome is difficult.

The goal is not always to prove the belief wrong. Sometimes it is to decide that living according to your values is worth tolerating some uncertainty or discomfort.

From old rules to more intentional choices

You do not need to criticize or eliminate the beliefs that once helped you feel safe, capable, connected, or in control.

You can begin by becoming curious about them.

What did this belief protect you from? What does it help you avoid? What is it costing you now? Is it still responding to your current circumstances, or is it following an old rule?

Changing a belief does not always mean convincing yourself that it is completely untrue. Sometimes change begins when you notice the belief, understand why it is there, and create enough space to choose what happens next.

That may involve considering another perspective, trying a small new response, regulating your nervous system, asking for support, or changing the conditions around you.

Psychological flexibility is not about becoming less affected, less neurodivergent, or more convenient for other people. It is about developing more freedom to respond in ways that reflect your needs, values, relationships, and current reality.

The old thought may still show up.

But it does not have to take over every decision.

How therapy may help

Therapy can provide a space to explore where old beliefs came from, recognize when they are taking over, and practise responding with greater choice and intention.

A trauma-informed and neurodiversity-affirming approach also considers what your responses have been protecting, what your nervous system may need, and whether changes are needed within you, around you, or both.

I provide virtual psychotherapy for adults and couples across Ontario, including support for ADHD, autism, trauma, chronic pain, burnout, emotional regulation, and major life transitions.

If this article resonates with you, you’re welcome to book a free meet and greet to explore whether working together might be a good fit.

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