Went to the coffee shop today, and an old song came through on my playlist. It’s an absolute banger by Breaking Benjamin, and I’m going to share it with you right now.

Source: Breaking Benjamin YouTube Page

How often do you hear a song that takes you back to a moment or a place in time where that song had meaning for you? Well, this particular song has meaning for me because it was one I was really into around the time I went digging into myself and my past to work through my issues. I associate this song with an old blog post I wrote the day I had the biggest breakthrough of my life.

The song itself wasn’t really part of the breakthrough, other than the lyric “Dear agony, just let go of me,” which perfectly personified the struggle I was facing within myself at the time.

This post is about what I’ve come to call “zombies” that haunt each and every one of us. For now, suffice it to say that a zombie is what I’d call an old, outdated, even dead part of us that still runs in the background.

It’s fueled by old, outdated beliefs we formed about ourselves as children or young people, beliefs that act as seeds for the pain, discontent, and insecurity that drive us. Every belief we have about ourselves can be traced back to a moment when we first decided something about who we are.

And let me tell you, they ain’t pretty. They usually exist as “I am” statements such as “I am worthless” or “I am stupid.” In my case, the two biggies that were driving me were “I am bad” and “I am on my own.” These two simple beliefs began when I was a child and were products of my upbringing and of how my family made me feel about myself when I was young.

Everything I was doing as an adult revolved around those two beliefs. Anytime something happened to confirm them, I’d be hit with a huge rush of shame or anger.

The day I uncovered them was incredibly liberating, and that’s what I want to focus on with this post. When I wrote the blog post that day, I started it with this quote from The Matrix:

“I know you’re out there. I can feel you now. I know that you’re afraid… you’re afraid of us. You’re afraid of change. I don’t know the future. I didn’t come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it’s going to begin… I’m going to show them a world without you… a world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.” — Neo, The Matrix

When you uncover these beliefs about yourself, it truly is as liberating as seeing Neo stand up in that hallway after getting shot at the end. When you see the beliefs running your life in the background — and can identify how they guide you in the present moment — you begin the same war Neo began the day he told those bullets to go straight to hell.

And yes, you’ll wield the same power over your beliefs that Neo did over those bullets. Your adult self, looking back on your formative experiences, will almost immediately give you a much better, more informed perspective. Just identifying the beliefs is over half the battle because, if you’re like me, you’ll see how silly they are through your grown-up eyes.

So let me give you a rundown of the process of identifying these zombies and what that might look like.

First of all, I want to make it clear that I am not a therapist and that this post does not constitute psychiatric advice or care. You should not attempt to dig into your past without an experienced professional, or at least someone you trust, to help guide you through it. There will be lots of emotion behind these beliefs, even if you come to see them as kind of silly through your adult eyes.

That said, the actual process for identifying these beliefs involves the following:

Start with the things that make you the most emotional. We might call these “triggers.” You’re looking for events or situations that cause strong emotional reactions — anger, sadness, frustration, etc. If you’ve ever thought, “I might be overreacting,” that’s a clue there’s more behind it. There’s likely an earlier event (or events) from your past that made you conclude something negative about yourself, and the current event is triggering that same emotion, making that old belief feel true again.

Once you identify those triggers, ask yourself: When was the first time I felt this way? You might be surprised how quickly your mind brings up examples. You’re looking for the first time you felt that emotion.

Then ask yourself what that event meant about you. A helpful phrase to use is:
“X event happened, and that means I am ____.”

You keep asking that question until you land on something that hits you like a ton of bricks, the thing that causes an intense emotional reaction. That’s your zombie. It will suddenly make so many aspects of your personality and reactions make sense. Because, like I said, these beliefs are seeds that grew into mighty oaks shaping your life.

Here’s how this played out for me…

When I did this, it was only a couple of years after my divorce. I knew it was coming long before it happened, but when it finally did, I was still completely destroyed. It left me insecure, angry, sad, and depressed, which ultimately pushed me onto the path of personal development.

Let’s say my triggering event was the divorce. If I were doing this process, I’d ask myself: When was the first time I felt this way? Immediately, I’m back home as a young child, sitting in my bedroom listening to my parents yell at each other. My brother is off with his friends.

I think of all the times I was made to feel bad about myself. My parents had an idea of who I should be, and when I wasn’t that version, they made me feel like something was wrong with me.

When I asked what that meant about me as a child, my answer was, “I can’t be me.” That hit me hard, the idea that if I was truly myself, my parents wouldn’t like or accept me.

But that wasn’t the core belief. “I can’t be me” is a reaction to who I think I am, not a statement about who I am. To uncover the core, I reframed it:

“I can’t be me, so that means I am ____.”

It took several iterations before I found the belief that truly landed:

“I can’t be me, so that means I am stupid.”
“I am stupid, so that means I am worthless.”
“I am worthless, so that means I am no good.”
“I am no good, so that means I am a bad person.”

Boom. Ton of bricks moment. Core belief: “I am bad.”

That belief showed up everywhere in my life. I was a people-pleasing nice guy, a yes-man afraid to say what I really felt. I needed people to like me because, deep down, I was afraid I wasn’t good enough.

And later I realized where that came from. My mother once told me she was disappointed I wasn’t a girl. The whole family had expected one. My aunt even argued with the doctor about it (LOL).

I imagine that that disappointment seeped into our relationship, even unintentionally. She favored my brother, and as a child, I couldn’t understand why. I just knew I had to be who she wanted me to be to get her approval. That meant denying myself and my feelings, turning me into the people-pleasing “good boy.”

So you see, that belief — “I am bad” — rooted itself deep in me. It led me to marry the first girl who gave me attention because I feared being alone and didn’t want to hurt her. After all, that’s not what a “good boy” would do.

So two zombies were at work: “I am bad” and “I am on my own.”

The day I found those zombies was liberating. I felt like Neo in The Matrix. Like I had leveled up and could finally face them. Because, in truth, believing “I am bad” or “I am on my own” is kind of silly.

The next step is asking yourself how you behave when you believe those thoughts.

When I believe “I am bad,” I become a people-pleaser who avoids his own feelings.
When I believe “I am on my own,” I withdraw and push others away, thinking I have to do everything myself.

But when you become aware of these patterns, you can choose to stop. Instead of running from your zombies — letting outdated beliefs dictate your behavior — you can stop, turn around, and face them like Neo did in that subway tunnel when he realized he was the one.

And brother, let me tell you: the real power in your life begins the moment you decide to fight back. When you realize how much of your life has been dictated by these outdated versions of yourself and begin to imagine a new possibility.

That’s the final step: imagine a new possibility for yourself.

The person who guided me through this years ago used the phrase:

“Who I am is the possibility of being _____.”
Or, more simply: “I believe it’s possible that I can be _____.”

Then you find something that truly inspires you, something that lights you up as strongly in the positive as those zombies pulled you in the negative. You’re going from Thomas Anderson to Neo here. Find the thing that makes life worth living or, dare I say, worth dying for.

For me, after much reflection, I landed on this:

“Who I am is the possibility of being charisma, harmony, and inspiration.”

Those things still move me. When something triggers shame, anger, or sadness, I acknowledge how it makes me feel, then imagine how someone who embodies charisma and inspiration would respond.

This remains the single most defining, life-changing work I’ve ever done on myself. After this process, I changed careers, spent a decade kicking ass as a teacher, entered a doctorate program, and became a more self-assured, confident person.

But it’s a daily process. I still get triggered by zombies today (and it’s been 14 years since I first did this). I still have to remind myself of my possibilities.

At some point, you’ve got to stop running. You’ve got to turn around, square your shoulders, and face the old code that’s been running your life. That’s the moment you step into your own Matrix. When you realize you’ve always had the power to rewrite your story.

The bullets of doubt, fear, and shame will still come, but they’ll slow to a crawl the instant you remember who you really are.

You are not your past programming. You are the one who decides what happens next.

The past doesn’t die until you face it. The lies don’t end until you name them. And the healing doesn’t start until you choose to believe a new story.