How To Get To The Root Of Emotional Suffering

A short talk where I share how to discover what's at the root of emotional pain and how you can begin to move towards change. I share some limiting beliefs that were holding me back from living fully and how I began to change them.

Transcript

Hello, I'm Charlotte and I wanted to share with you how we can get to the root of our emotional suffering and how we can really begin to understand exactly what's shaping our experiences of the world, What's running the show, What's making us feel the way that we feel about things. We can do this by really understanding what our beliefs are, What's at the base of all of this, What's forming the lens through which we're viewing ourselves and the world. I think so often emotions can seem to happen at random in response to the world around us and we might, For example, Have a lot of fear come up around a particular situation and not know how to get past it. You might even believe that it's an inherent characteristic, Like I am just an anxious person or I am just a sad person. We might think that we just have to live with these emotions and be held back. But what's really happening is we're having a particular emotional response because of a belief that we're holding about ourselves. And the beliefs sometimes aren't so obvious because usually they're formed very early on in our childhood and even into our teens. So this is the time when we're learning about ourselves, Learning about the world around us and we have our experiences and we take these beliefs on. They form. They sit within our subconscious mind. And then as an adult they begin to govern the show. They begin to be the place from where we live from. Sometimes they can be helpful. Sometimes the beliefs are helpful. And other times we can feel really held back. We might have a lot of fear come up around a particular situation. And this is an indication that we might have a limiting belief. We might have something blocking us from really living fully, Really being able to express ourselves fully. So I'll use myself as an example. I, For a long time in my adult life, Really struggled speaking in groups. So whenever I would think about speaking in a group, Whenever I'd be in a group, I would really sink back and just have a lot of anxiety when it came to sharing my thoughts and my opinions. And I think this is quite a common one. But for me in particular, It just felt like something I couldn't do. I felt so blocked. And for a long time I just believed this is something that I just have to live with. That this is just me. I'm just not a person who can speak in groups. I'm more of a one-on-one person. And it wasn't until I became a therapist and I was being invited to speak in groups, I was being invited to share my thoughts, To share my opinions with people who really wanted to listen, Who wanted to learn. And at this point, Yeah, I could have said no. It's not for me. I'm just not a group speaker. Turn the opportunity down. But there was a part of me that did really want to do it. There was a part of me that thought, Yeah, I'd really like to be the kind of person who felt confident enough to speak in front of people, To share my thoughts. And so this is an example of where I was being held back, Of where I had a belief going on, But I was just kind of accepting it as a truth about me. I was just going with it and not really thinking about changing it. And so this is a way to really figure out where you're being held back, Where you're having these emotions that maybe on the surface don't seem to make sense, But where somewhere inside you, You're carrying a belief that's kind of shading the whole situation. So it wasn't until I really acknowledged this belief, I really admitted that, Yeah, This is something that's holding me back. There is something that part of me really wants to do, But that part of me feels really scared to do. And I could imagine a future where I didn't feel this way, Where I was doing all these things and expanding myself and growing, But I didn't really know how to get past this fear. And so what we can do, And what I did to explore it, Was firstly acknowledge it. Yeah, Okay, I'm afraid of talking in groups. And the next part was to really ask myself, Well, What am I afraid of? What am I so scared will happen when I'm speaking in a group? And for me, I was afraid that I'd be judged. I was afraid that I'd be ridiculed for sharing my ideas. And this was, You know, Even in a group that wanted to hear what I had to say, I really had a lot of fear and really imagined that someone would judge me or criticise me, That this would just be the worst thing ever to happen. And so there's the belief, Okay? I believe that someone will judge me. And I asked, Why do I believe that someone will judge me? Why do I feel so scared about this happening? Why does this feel like the worst thing that could happen to me speaking in a group? And at this point, I could go back, I could ask myself, What is the memory behind this? What's the memory that's forming this belief that I will be judged? Or I'll be criticised? And for me, A memory popped up. I didn't really have to look far or search really hard, But a memory popped up of being in school when I was about six years old and putting my hand up in class and sharing an idea that I had. And I remember the teacher screaming at me, Telling me that's a ridiculous idea. That's, You know, Why did you put your hand up? Really shaming me in front of the class. And there I had it. There I had the memory. I remember sitting back down and just feeling so ashamed. And it formed. This is where the belief formed. When I share my ideas, When I stand up, There's the potential that I will really be shamed. All those responses, All those feelings that I felt now as an adult, They were there. They were right there as a child. So you can see how these beliefs just take root and they really begin to grow. And that memory just sat there. It was just there, Playing in the background. And so now I had this belief, This memory that went along with it. I could really bring it out into the light of day and examine what was going on. I could look at that memory a bit closer. I could kind of differentiate, Okay, What was happening then? What's happening now? And I'm going to be talking more about processes for doing this and ways that you can access these memories and begin to challenge them. But I'll say that for me, Once I really got into this process and really brought these memories out and these beliefs out, It was then that I could, I could move forward. I could change them. So if you feel like you'd like to, And you feel like it would be helpful, You can begin to start looking at, Okay, Where in my life do I feel held back? Where do I feel all these responses that seem to just happen automatically? Where might I have given up and just accepted these as truths about myself? And where do I want to go? How do I want my life to be? Because you do have the control over that. You do have a choice. Okay. I hope this has been helpful. I'm going to be talking more about beliefs and sharing more about processes for really accessing these memories, Changing these memories. And I'm really excited to share them with you.