Why Healing Your Past Won't Change Your Life | Katherine Woodward Thomas
episodePreviously titled “Why Healing Your Past Won't Change Your Life” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 12, 2026
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What are the invisible glass ceilings limiting our potential?
The thing about the I'm not good enough, and that is the most pervasive one, although the second runner up is I'm alone. Everything that is not working, if I'm not getting fed properly, people are ignoring my needs. If I'm aware that my mother didn't want to be pregnant with me, I might form a self-sense of I'm not wanted.
Wow. Whether she said it or not.
Absolutely. And it happens in the womb.
She is a licensed marriage and family therapist, a New York Times bestselling author, and an internationally recognized teacher of personal transformation. Katherine Woodward Thomas.
You actually cannot progress in your life when you are making a home of victimization.
What if all these bad things happened to us? We were traumatized, someone hurt us, they abused us, they abandoned us.
How do childhood experiences shape our core beliefs?
Shouldn't we feel victimized?
So you want to look at how is I the source of it? Who was I being that allowed that to happen? You have to kind of put your big girl, big boy panties on and really show up for yourself.
It's hard to create from a victimhood is what I'm hearing.
You can't create from victimhood. The first entry to creativity is giving up victimization.
Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness. I'm very excited about our guest. We have the inspiring Catherine Woodward Thomas in the house. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist, a New York Times bestselling author and an internationally recognized teacher of personal transformation. She spent decades helping people clear emotional blocks, align their inner world and consciously create the life and relationships they desire. And I'm excited that you're here because the last time you were on was over a decade ago. And it was such a powerful conversation to help people heal. And you have a new book out called What's True About You? Seven Steps to Move Beyond Your Painful Past and Manifest Your Brightest Future.
And the first thing I want to ask you, Catherine, is about why so many people don't feel like they are enough. You have... these different core beliefs that you talk about in your book that block people from manifesting their greatest future and from feeling enough. Why do you think one of the biggest core blocks that holds people back is I am not good enough? Where does that come from and how can we start to overcome that?
Well, when we're young, our, our, our, task is to form a sense of self and to understand who we are for others and where we fit into this world. And so when you're young and you can't do things for yourself and you have Parents who are trying their best or you know Overburdened or whatever and so there may be older siblings who can do things that you cannot do There's a lot of ways that we would get the message. It's somehow I'm small Somehow I don't have the power that I need to do the things that I would need to do. I can't get what I want also children take on the emotional Troubles of their parents. So if their parents are depressed and they can't fix their parent or or their parent is an alcoholic.
They can't fix that. They don't internalize it. They don't have the cognitive, or we didn't have the cognitive capacity to recognize the situation with any kind of complexity or holistic understanding that, oh, my mother needs AA, or my parents are having money problems. It became who I am, that somehow I am inadequate here. I cannot help this situation. I cannot do anything in this situation. I am too small. I am too insignificant. But there are also, so these are what I call relational woundings. The I'm not good enough is in relationship to someone.
That's interesting. So you have to feel I'm not good enough based on what someone else thinks of you or says about you or your interpretation of what they think or say about you.
Your interpretation of what they must feel about you. All beliefs have three components to them.
Okay, what are they?
We're a little unsophisticated. We'll say, okay, I think I'm not enough. But what that means really is that when I'm with others, what I'm projecting onto others is that others are better than me.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What are the invisible glass ceilings limiting our potential?
0:00–0:46
2
How do childhood experiences shape our core beliefs?
0:46–4:21
3
What is the difference between healing and transformation?
4:21–7:12
4
How can we shift from victimhood to empowerment?
7:12–8:04
5
What are the 22 core beliefs that hold us back?
8:04–11:39
6
How do we identify and break free from our source fracture stories?
11:39–18:12
7
What practical steps can we take to create a positive future?
18:12–22:00
8
How can we mentor our wounded selves towards healing?
22:00–1:20:27
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from The School of Greatness
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