What is a limiting belief?
A limiting belief is something that you totally integrated as ‘true’ but is limiting you in your personal growth.
For example, when you believe that you always attract losers, that statement becomes a truth (your truth), therefore you are telling yourself that you can’t attract any other type of people in your life. You are literally limiting yourself to a very specific population!
We ALL have limiting beliefs because we created majority of them a long time ago, between birth and around 7 years old. This is when we copy, mimic and learn from our environment to be able to function in our world. The problem is that those limiting beliefs become unconscious and we feed them continuously without even realizing it.
Why? Because from a very young age, we heard our family, friends, society telling us some statements which for us were true because they were the ‘authority’!
For a long time, I was “feeling transparent” in groups, especially if I didn’t know the people. It was quite frequent that someone stood on my feet when going backwards because they didn’t notice me. They literally would tell me: “oh sorry, I didn’t know you were here”. I was angry at them as I thought they could be more careful. But then when I started to unravel my own past to free my emotions, I realized that it wasn’t their fault. I was doing anything to be transparent. It was obviously an unconscious behavior that I thought was protecting me from being hurt. I was quiet, I wasn’t making any sound because I was scared to do so.
All that because in my childhood, I heard over and over: “be quiet, don’t make a sound or you will disturb the neighbors”. We were living in apartments and you had people above, below and on the sides. My mom was very respectful and she didn’t like loud noises. Guess what? I was the same! Voila! A nice little belief system I created: “you are disrespectful if you are too loud”. But for other families, it can be the opposite. I have a good friend in France who is very present, articulate with a strong voice and she is not shy to tell her opinion. That is probably because she has a lot of siblings and they were playing, singing, arguing and doing all sort of loud stuffs. If they wanted to be heard, they had to be loud and speak up! This is another unconscious belief system: “You need to be loud to be heard”.
Please note that there are no one to blame. Parents do what they can with what they know. It's all about US and the way we decide to perceive and believe what is happening in our environment. The good news is that if we believe it is true, we also can UNDO/CHANGE it!
Now, what is important to note is that all belief systems aren’t bad! It only becomes an issue when in our present life we feel stuck, we feel unsafe, foggy, angry, frozen with fear, sad, depressed and so on. It becomes an issue when we are ‘stuck’ in the belief system and we can’t act differently because of it. If I believe that money is only for rich people, even if I try the best I can, I always will be struggling because money IS for rich! I just identify myself as someone with no money.
Once you believe something is true, you anchor it deeply within you and you learn to cope with that. Congratulations, you just created yourself a handicap or self-sabotage!
The next question for you is: What kind of limiting beliefs have you?
To identify some of your unwanted belief systems, you need to be in a quiet place and really take the time to focus back on your sensation because the problem does not come from outside, it comes from within!
Let’s start at the social level (friends, family, relationship, work):
- Do you feel uncomfortable in social environment?
- If yes, what kind of feeling it creates within you? What would be the emotion/feeling attached to it?
- Does it prevent you to function properly in society?
At the physical level:
- Do you have some negative talks about your physical body?
- Is there anything you physically do but you would love not to?
At the emotional level:
- Do you feel specific emotions in specific circumstances? (Such as angry when someone disagree with you or overtake you?).
- Do you have uncontrollable fears or anxiety and panic attacks in some specific situation?
At the mental level:
- Do you feel foggy in your head in some specific situation?
- Do you feel confusion, disconnection in some specific situation?
At the financial level:
- Do I struggle to feel abundant in my life?
- Do I struggle to be financially free and happy?
If you answer "yes" to some of those questions, it means that you may have some limiting belief systems created from your past. If you have some limiting beliefs, how much is it of a struggle in your present life? If it is a big struggle, maybe it is time to free yourself from it!
If you are not sure what would be your limiting belief, ask yourself what would be the sentence that describes your problem? For example, "I find myself too big or too ugly". This is a limiting belief. The image that you send over is that you are ugly or big. For finances it can be "I never have money or if I have some, I have to spend it". This is another limiting belief that holds the roots somewhere in your childhood.
Free Tools that can help:
- Relaxation (check on Youtube or some free apps for guided meditations)
- Meditation (calm, insight timer apps)
- Check on Youtube for some free contents: Mind Valley (amazing platform with lots of quests, talks), TedTalk, Dr Joe Dispenza, Hearthmath.org, Marisa Peer, Gregg Braden…
Here is a blog post from Mind Valley talking about Marisa Peer. It is a very empowering story and I highly invite you to read it. She is an incredible and inspiring therapist. Maybe that will be the beginning of your transforming journey! Whatever technique or modality you chose will be the perfect one for you! Happiness and freedom are within you, it's time to have them back driving your life!
If you are ready to release them even faster with my program, contact me today and book your free 30min consultation!