The Importance of the “If Statement”

In trauma healing, if statements are a powerful tool for identifying negative cognitions or negative core belief systems. These “if… then…” statements help you pinpoint two key things:

  1. The problem or trigger that’s bothering you (the “if”)
  2. The fear or belief system driving your behavior (the “then”)

If you have complex trauma, you probably carry multiple if statements — and often, they’re tangled together. Understanding how they connect can be incredibly useful when using EMDR to process them. It can help you decide the best order to target them, or even uncover an overarching umbrella belief system. This reduces the number of blocking beliefs or barriers that might show up during the processing phase of trauma work.

One of my favorite ways to uncover these patterns is with a simple exercise:

Take a sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle to make two columns. In the left column, write your problems — for example: I don’t feel safe expressing my feelings or I’m afraid people will hurt me. In the right column, write your current coping strategies or solutions — for example: I avoid expressing my feelings or I project my emotions onto others.

This exercise is designed to give you insight into your patterns of behavior. That awareness makes it easier to spot your if statements — especially if they’re hiding just beneath the surface.

For example, looking at the columns above, you might realize:

  • If I don’t make connections with others, then I won’t get hurt.
  • If no one knows how I truly feel, then no one can hurt me.

These if statements can offer profound insight into the unconscious rules your nervous system has been living by — rules that might have kept you safe in the past, but are now creating barriers to the connection, joy, and safety you want today. You may even be able to trace these beliefs back to earlier experiences, and your logical mind might already know they’re not true. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to change them on your own — and that’s okay.

With trauma, the nervous system often doesn’t have a solution that matches your present needs. Part of healing is giving it that updated solution. Increasing your awareness of these patterns is the first step toward rewiring your responses, reclaiming control, and creating the safety your mind and body need to move forward.