In this episode of The Positive Mindset Tribe I’m sharing with you everything you need to know about limiting beliefs:
- What they are and how they form
- How to become aware of them
- How to remove them
- How to replace them with more empowering ones
I will show you a step by step process including an interesting exercise that I’m sure will surprise you!
I also explain the wonderful discipline Theta Healing, one of my favourite tools to remove limiting beliefs.
Enjoy!
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
WHAT IS A LIMITING BELIEF AND HOW DO THEY FORM?
The Oxford dictionary defines a belief as “an acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof”. Pay special attention to the end of the definition “without proof”. A belief is when we accept a thought or an idea without questioning if it’s true. If we repeat a thought enough times, it will become a belief. That’s why we need to pay attention to our thoughts and we say to ourselves.
Why is this important? Because most of the beliefs we have today, we acquired them ages ago, when we were kids. I like to think of beliefs as programs installed in a computer.
When we are young, we face different experiences. From the experiences we face, we learn lessons. We learn to survive. And that’s how most of our limiting beliefs are formed. So if someone bullied me at school, to protect myself I might have developed the beliefs ‘you can’t be yourself, they will laugh at you’ or ‘it is better to stay quiet’ or ‘it is not safe to make friends’.
We also acquire beliefs from our parents, school teacher, society. For example ‘I will never make it to uni’ or ‘I need to be married before I’m 30’.
As kids, we are like a sponge, we absorb beliefs, emotions we are learning all the time. So some of these beliefs might have been installed in our mind and we don’t question them anymore, we are not conscious about them.
Because most of these beliefs are in the subconscious mind, think about it like an iceberg, we are aware of a small portion of our thoughts and beliefs but there are many more under the water!
Some of our beliefs will be very useful and are the base of our education “look before crossing the road”, “say please when you ask for something”.
So when does a belief become a limiting belief?
A belief is limiting when it blocks our growth, our development, our happiness. When it holds us back from being our true selves. When it stops us from achieving our goals, our dreams, our purpose.
We can be aware of them or not, like in the example of the iceberg. When it comes to limiting beliefs, It is more common that we are unaware of them and that’s the real danger. They operate in the subconscious. And this is how self-sabotage happens. How we procrastinate. How we miss out on great opportunities. And how we attract situations that REINFORCE those limiting beliefs. This might sound crazy, but this is how the brain works. Our survival instinct looks for safety. And change is risky. So we are more comfortable with what is known, familiar, even if it’s unpleasant. And it becomes like spiral: the limiting belief ‘I don’t deserve love’ operating in the subconscious will make me attract partners that won’t commit to the relationship, reinforcing the idea that there must be something wrong with me.
Ultimately, the purpose of any of these beliefs is to protect ourselves. Always. They always have a purpose.
So for example in the example when I was bullied at school, developing the beliefs ‘be quiet’, ‘it is not safe to be yourself’, ‘making friends is risky’ were beliefs that were protecting me from being hurt.
We don’t acquire these beliefs randomly, they always have a function. Understanding what these beliefs were protecting us from is what is going to help us get rid of them. Because if we understand what they are protecting us from, we can assess what other ways (healthy ways) we have to protect ourselves. So I might want to remove the belief that it is not safe to be myself and work on my confidence and ‘install’ the new belief that I deserve to be myself, that it is safe to be myself, and that I have the resources to deal with anything that might come my way, for example someone laughing at me.
So it is EXTREMELY important to become aware of these beliefs and understand where they come from cause otherwise we won’t be able to remove them!
HOW TO IDENTIFY LIMITING BELIEFS
Like I have said before, most of our limiting beliefs will have been installed years ago and we have probably forgotten or we are not aware of them anymore. I’m sure that you have a few in mind.
But let’s do an experiment here that might surprise you.
Take a deep breath, close your eyes, bring your awareness within. Please don’t do this if you are driving!
And I’m going to start a sentence and I want you to finish it with whatever comes to mind first, don’t think about it! Say it out loud or write it in a piece of paper. Ready?
My name is…
My favourite colour is…
Women are…
I have to…
I am the one who always…
Men are…
I am not allowed to…
Life is…
Relationships are….
I will never…
Work is…
What keeps repeating again and again in my life is…
Sex is…
Open your eyes and take some time to reflect on your answers.
Did any of those surprise you? Which ones are limiting?
HOW TO REMOVE LIMITING BELIEFS AND REPLACE THEM WITH EMPOWERING ONES.
Where do they come from? How did they serve you? What is the benefit now? There is always a benefit!!
Cross them out, find evidence that you don’t need these beliefs anymore, throw the paper away, burn it, something that represents that this belief is no longer in your life.
Reframe them , write new empowering ones to replace them with. Read them out loud every day!
Now the deepest beliefs, might not be that easy to identify, because they will be deep in the subconscious. Their purpose is to protect them so they will be buried so no one finds them!
For these deep, old limiting beliefs I use Theta Healing. This is one of my favourite energy healing techniques that I use with my clients all the time. Beliefs are energy, thoughts are energy. We are all made of energy really. So sometimes talking about our beliefs is not enough, the cognitive mind sometimes can’t reach these deep limiting beliefs. So when we work at the level of the energy and we transmute these beliefs at the energetic level you can achieve much deeper and long lasting transformation.
Theta Healing is called theta because by leading a short meditation, we get closer to the theta brainwaves (half asleep half awake) where we can access the subconscious much easier. It is not hypnosis, when I do a theta healing session we are both aware and we continue the dialogue but we are in this meditative state that makes it easier to become aware of these beliefs and transmute them and install new ones. We also download new empowering beliefs.
It is like cleaning the computer, erasing the programs that are slowing down the system and installing new ones that are useful and relevant to us.
Also, Theta healing is great because some limiting beliefs we acquire from our parents even when we are in our mother’s womb. So if your mum was worried, stressed when she was pregnant with you, if she had any beliefs about relationships, about motherhood, you absorbed that too! Any negative emotions, tension, stress that she might have experienced you absorbed it.
These beliefs are very deep and difficult to just suddenly become aware of them and there is a beautiful technique in theta healing about sending love and healing energy to the baby in the womb and cleansing all these negative emotions, patterns, beliefs imprints, it is such a powerful one.
When I do a session like this my clients yawn a lot and sometimes they feel tired afterwards because the body is adjusting to all those deep energetic changes.
So let’s recap – step by step process to remove limiting beliefs:
- Become aware of them (exercise, coaching sessions).
- Understand where they come from.
- Understand the purpose or the benefit, what they are protecting us from.
- Write new positive empowering beliefs.
- Deeper beliefs will require deeper inner work, ideally energy healing.
OK my loves, I hope you enjoyed this episode, thank you so much for being here and listening to this podcast, thank you being part of the positive mindset tribe!
If you are enjoying this podcast please subscribe, give it a good review and share with your friends and loved ones, invite people to the tribe!
And feel free to reach out with any questions or suggestions of topics you would like me to cover in future episodes!
Sending much love and light to everyone,
See you next week.
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