Why the First Story We Hear Becomes the Hardest to Unlearn
- Brainz Magazine
- Oct 6
- 5 min read
Leonie Blackwell is the founder of Empowered Tapping® and a naturopath with over 30 years' experience in emotional wellbeing. She trains practitioners globally and empowers individuals through her Bwell Institute and personal growth community, the Tappers Tribe.
Have you ever tried to correct a false rumour, explain a misunderstood moment, or even unlearn something painful from your past, only to find that the original story still has a grip on you or others? There’s something sticky about the first version of events we hear, especially if it’s dramatic, emotional, or comes from someone we trust. Even when it turns out to be wrong, misleading, or deeply harmful, it lingers. And not just in the mind, but in the body, the identity, the relationships we form, and the stories we tell ourselves.
This psychological pattern is known as belief perseverance. Once the brain has formed a first impression, particularly one that feels intense, emotional, or protective, it resists letting it go, even when the facts shift. It’s not rigidity. It’s emotional survival. And it shows up everywhere.
Childhood: When falsehood becomes identity
As children, we are wide-eyed observers trying to make sense of the world. When a parent, teacher, or sibling labels us, “You’re so dramatic,” “You’re too much,” “You’re always the difficult one”, it creates an imprint. If it’s said in anger or reinforced over time, it’s not just a moment. It becomes an unconscious belief.
Even decades later, we might still be trying to disprove that story, or living under it like a ceiling we can’t break.
Relationships: When gaslighting becomes gospel
In unhealthy or manipulative dynamics, the first accusation or framing often becomes the dominant lens. If someone tells you early on, “You’re just insecure,” or “You always make things worse,” that framing can overshadow your instincts, distort your truth, and make you doubt what you know you felt.
We start managing perception rather than honouring reality. We lose ourselves to stay accepted.
Politics and media: When drama outruns truth
We’ve all seen it, an inflammatory headline goes viral, a scandal rocks the front page, a distorted statistic spreads like wildfire. By the time corrections appear, the emotional damage is done. The first impression became “truth,” not because it was accurate, but because it hit us hard and first.
We rarely pause to ask, “Who benefited from me believing that?”
Why is it so hard to let go?
Letting go of a false belief means more than changing your mind. It can feel like betraying your past self, losing your place in a group, or being left in emotional limbo.
Here’s why it’s so sticky:
Certainty feels safer than curiosity.
What we often call the ego is really the survival system of the brain, the amygdala working to keep us safe and comfortable. That part of us resists being “wrong,” even when the evidence shows we were.
The nervous system records emotional intensity as importance.
Beliefs create belonging. Letting go might mean standing alone.
And perhaps most poignantly, we don’t want to face what else might unravel if the first story we believed isn’t true.
Unlearning the imprint with empowered realism
There is a way through. It doesn’t come from shame or forcing a new belief. It comes from awareness, compassion, and a willingness to evolve. These seven principles of Empowered Realism offer a gentle process to support your unlearning:
1. Pause and name it: Your beliefs are always right
Beliefs always prove themselves true because they shape the way you see and interpret your world. Some beliefs strengthen you, while others create struggle or limitation, but either way, they guide your focus and your reality. When have you created circumstances that validate your beliefs? When have you interpreted your experiences in a way that perpetuates your patterns?
2. Trace the rule: To every rule there is an exception
We all live by rules we’ve absorbed from family, culture, or society. Rules provide order, but stress arises when we cling to them as absolutes and resist the inevitable exceptions. What “rule” are you living by that may no longer serve you? What exception is unsettling your world?
3. Honour the balance: Sometimes it’s about you, sometimes it’s not
Taking responsibility for what is yours, and not for what isn’t, is the heart of balance. Too often, we claim blame where we don’t need to, or we deflect ownership when it is ours to hold. What are you making about you when it’s not? What are you blaming someone else for when it is about you?
4. Step into the big-you: You have a big-you and a small-you
Your small-you feels the raw emotions of your experiences. Your big-you observes with perspective and calm. Both voices exist within you, but healing deepens when your big-you guides and supports your small-you. Which one is interpreting your experiences right now?
5. Reframe the story: It’s all just data
Every moment offers data, information filtered through memory, emotion, and need. By reminding yourself, “It’s just data,” you create space to choose your response instead of being pulled into old reactions. What story am I running that’s keeping me upset? What data is here for me to work with?
6. Feel the intensity: The degree to which you feel something
Emotions show themselves in intensity. The stronger the feeling, the sharper the words, the bigger the behaviours, the more extreme the reactions. Intensity is simply a signal pointing to unmet needs. How intense do I currently feel? What behaviours, actions, or words reflect this intensity, and what unmet need is fuelling this response?
7. Return to essence: Your experiences don’t make you who you are
At your core, you are more than anything you’ve endured. Painful experiences may have shaped the path, but they never erased your essence. You were always there. Who am I, no matter what I have experienced?
Final thoughts
When the first lie sticks, it’s not because we’re weak or gullible. It’s because our minds and hearts are doing what they’re designed to do, protect us, preserve identity, and create order.
But eventually, we’re called to outgrow the first imprint and write a truer story.
You are allowed to let go of what was never yours to carry. You are allowed to be wiser than when you first believed it. You are allowed to change your mind, and still honour the version of you that couldn’t yet see.
That’s not a lack of integrity. It is integrity, because integrity isn’t about never changing. It’s about honouring your truth as it grows.
Read more from Leonie Blackwell
Leonie Blackwell, Naturopath, Author & Teacher
Leonie Blackwell is a leader in emotional wellness, with over 30 years of experience as a naturopath and educator. She is the creator of Empowered Tapping® and founder of the Bwell Institute, offering accredited practitioner training and transformational personal development. Leonie has worked with thousands of clients, trained hundreds of students, and taught internationally, including trauma recovery programs for refugees. Her published works include Making Sense of the Insensible, The Box of Inner Secrets, and Accessing Your Inner Secrets. She is passionate about helping others live with authenticity, purpose, and joy.
