Transform Limiting Beliefs

An informative, practical talk including a mix of insight, metaphors, a personal experience I share, and step-by-step processes to rewrite your story and experience of Limiting Beliefs held within the mind. A useful audio to come back to whenever you have negative beliefs you wish to break free from.

You can simply listen, or turn it into a personal coaching session by bringing pen and paper to follow through the exercises provided.

Transcript

Rewriting the story,

The dialogue that we say to ourselves about ourselves,

About life,

About the world,

About others,

The beliefs and the thoughts,

Everything that's within our mind,

Really important because they have such a direct influence on how we experience life.

There are so many different things as we walk down a crowded street or as we walk along the beach or as we walk in the forest.

There's so many things to see,

Hear,

Feel,

Smell,

Taste.

And with all that information that enters our mind,

We actually need to make sense of it in order to know how to respond,

How to navigate that situation.

So we have filters,

We have internal filters that organize all of this information.

I like to see it as almost like a post office.

It's receiving all these letters and it's organizing everything.

There's actually a particular part of the brain called the reticular activating system that organizes and it generalizes,

Distorts and deletes.

Almost like all these letters are arriving and it's piling up these letters into different piles,

To a pile of generalizations,

A pile of distortions and a pile of deletions.

Perhaps there are certain things that we delete that we don't even pay attention to because they don't fit in according to our blueprint,

Our map of the world,

Our belief system.

You see,

Every single person has a belief system and this is formed from when we were growing up,

Especially through the years of not to seven.

Beliefs that perhaps we picked up from others,

Parents and caretakers and at school.

Some of these beliefs are really useful.

So for example,

Having the belief that we need to always check before we cross the road,

Check both ways and just make sure that there are no cars coming or never put your hand on a open flame because then you can burn.

Certain things are there for our protection and they're useful.

And then sometimes there are not so helpful beliefs,

Like beliefs about money.

Money is hard to come by.

That is a limiting belief about money or about other people and relationships.

Relationships are hard.

That's another limiting belief.

So imagine if we had that belief of relationships are hard and every time we meet someone and we go into a relationship and we believe that relationships are hard,

Then what's going to happen?

We're actually going to notice all the hardships,

All the challenges even more.

We're literally just recreating our life experience according to what beliefs we're holding on to.

Whatever beliefs we have within our unconscious mind are really important.

If there are some limiting beliefs there,

Beliefs that limit us in some way,

Then perhaps we can let go of those.

Now there's often the perspective that we need to get rid of all of the limiting beliefs.

We need to let go of all of them and that's not necessarily the case.

We only really need to let go of a limiting belief and rewrite the story if it's something that's really limiting us in living and experiencing the life that we want to experience.

Human beings have many beliefs.

Essentially they are statements with a feeling of certainty attached to them.

So if they limit us in some way,

Then we can choose.

We can choose whether to rewrite the story,

Change that perspective,

Reframe it or continue with that perspective.

We always have choice and there are so many different ways to rewrite the story,

To shift limiting perspectives and when we do that then our whole experience changes.

When we shift the perspective,

Our whole experience changes.

There are many different ways to rewrite the story.

One way is to actually just in the moment choose a different action.

I'll tell you a little story.

Many years ago I was looking to buy some new trainers and I saw some trainers in a shop and they were bright turquoise,

Like almost fluorescent.

Turquoise and anyone who knows me knows that turquoise is one of my favorite colors.

I love it and when I saw these trainers my eyes completely lit up.

I felt such a an expansion of joy within and I saw these beautiful trainers and I reached out to pick them up to have a closer look and I noticed my mind,

My inner critic,

The critical thoughts within saying to myself,

Oh no too bright you'll stand out and I got curious in that moment and I started remembering memories from school when I used to get teased a lot.

I used to get teased a lot about my height and my shoe size.

Now my shoe size is not particularly massive,

Just when I was at school being a young girl towering over all the young boys,

The girls tend to have growth spurts earlier and I'm very tall and I used to get teased a lot for my height and because I had slightly bigger feet than than other people.

That was something that stuck with me and I always wanted to try and minimize myself and not allow myself to be seen so much,

To not stand out so much because that was a form of protection.

If I didn't stand out so much then I'm safe.

Those were the beliefs that I held and just in that moment of choosing the trainers,

Seeing those trainers,

All those memories started to come back because my unconscious mind was trying to protect me,

Not allow me to buy those wonderful bright fluorescent turquoise trainers as a way to stay safe.

The way that I rewrote the story on that was actually to go against what my unconscious mind was saying.

My unconscious mind was saying to go with the safe grey trainers,

The dark trainers that no one will notice and I listened to my heart and soul and I bought those fluorescent turquoise trainers and I loved them and just by doing that action that was one way to rewrite the story.

So we can actually do it through our daily actions and just being curious about where these thoughts and beliefs come from and getting curious about that.

Another way to rewrite the story is actually to notice if there are any limiting beliefs that pop up and to challenge it on the spot with the positive opposite.

So for example if we have the limiting belief of I'm lazy,

What's the positive opposite?

One option could be I'm hard-working and then noticing in our life what evidence do we have to support that positive opposite belief.

What evidence do we have in our life that supports I am hard-working?

Now there are steps forward from this,

That's the quick version,

If you want to take it even further you can actually find the new true statement,

Something that's in between those two beliefs.

I'm lazy or I'm hard-working.

Noticing what statement could lie in between both of those because when we notice in our life,

If we're looking for evidence in our life and we notice that there's evidence supporting the limiting belief,

Maybe there are moments where we've been a little lazy and maybe there are moments where we've been very hard-working.

If we have evidence supporting both statements,

Neither statement can be 100% true.

By finding the positive opposite and then finding the new true statement,

A statement that lies in between the two,

We can start rewriting the story even further.

So for example we have the limiting belief,

I'm lazy.

We have the positive opposite belief,

I'm hard-working.

We find evidence in our life that supports both.

Neither one can be 100% true,

Both have evidence and then we find the new true statement.

For example,

I'm hard-working when I feel passionate about something.

That new true statement opens everything up because then we suddenly realize,

Oh it's not about being lazy,

It's not about being hard-working,

Actually it's about doing what I enjoy in life,

Connecting to what lights me up,

What makes me feel passionate about life.

So perhaps in those moments where we feel lazy,

Perhaps we're actually not doing what our soul really wants to do.

So with this knowledge,

We can actually take wonderful steps forward and start aligning ourselves according to what really lights us up in life,

What really makes us feel alive.