Do you remember the first time you felt like something was unfair? Do you remember the moment someone abused you so badly that you lost trust in people? In moments of weakness, tragedy, or grief, we, as human beings, have a tendency to store these emotionally charged experiences in the form of self limiting beliefs. These beliefs are meant to “protect” us, and our conscious carries it out without even knowing it.
Cause of Self Limiting Beliefs
In my personal experience and with talking to others, I’ve found that limiting self beliefs are caused by fear. We fear what we don’t understand or can’t control, and therefore we subconsciously create beliefs about ourselves, people, or situations.
Especially in childhood and adolescence, we were susceptible to the beliefs our parents taught us. We soaked up their values, and observed how they treated relationships, finances, spirituality, and work. We created our own beliefs and subconsciously found evidence to support those beliefs, which were based off of either fear of love (sometimes a combo of both).
Some of these beliefs look like, “I’ll always be poor” (fear of success) or “There’s not enough for everyone so I need to take what I can get” (fear of others/the world) or “Relationships always have to be hard and full of fighting” (fear of being controlled). We observe our parents and the people around us, and soon, we have formed many beliefs. Some beliefs are positive and truthful, but beliefs that are negative and false become self limiting beliefs.
For example, if someone was abused by others, they might subconsciously create the belief that they’ll always be abused by people. They then consciously distrust people and subconsciously hang around people who turn out to be narcissistic or abusive.
These limiting beliefs can stump our progress and our happiness. They can also prevent you from reaching your goals. It’s difficult to have healthy beliefs about money, success, your body, your mind, or just about anything in this life.
The How
In my own journey of overcoming self limiting beliefs, I’ve used 3 simple steps: recognize, find the source, and create. It’s so easy to feel overwhelmed by the false, untrue beliefs we have, but I encourage you to come from a place of love in overcoming your limiting beliefs.
In Hawaii, we talk about having aloha, which is more than just “hello” and “goodbye.” Aloha teaches us to love God, others, and ourselves. I encourage you to read these steps with aloha for yourself. The limiting self beliefs were created from fear, so come from a place of love in overcoming them.
Step 1: Recognize
The first step to overcoming limiting beliefs is to recognize. Recognizing helps us look at things with both eyes wide open. We can see areas of our life we’ve lacked and the fears that hold us back from doing things that would bring more joy.
I don’t think I can list all of the different kinds of limiting beliefs here, but a really great way to recognize the limiting belief is to put it in the form of a sentence.
For example, “I will always feel really sad after feeling happy.” This was one of my self limiting beliefs for the longest time. I never felt like I could have true joy because I’d suffer after. In my experiences, it seemed like each time I experienced a spiritual high, inspiration, or moment of motivation, it was followed by the equal amount of grief and sadness, as though I had failed. I started fearing happiness because of what followed after it.
Sometimes you can find common themes of your limiting beliefs. For example, you might notice a common thread in your relationships, such as not wanting to get close to others, fear of being hurt, and/or anxiety around certain people or groups. These relationship issues can go along the theme of distrust.
Another example is the theme of feeling broken. You might notice that you don’t feel like anyone could ever fully love you because of the trauma you’ve gone through, and/or that you have too many problems, and/or you won’t ever function like a “normal” person.
These are just some examples to get you started, and, as I said before, there are SO many limiting self beliefs that it would be impossible for me to write them all down. However, I want to help you get a head start so I’ve listed some of the most common themes of self limiting beliefs. As you read through the themes, evaluate how you approach the theme.
Ask yourself: Does this theme bring up negative feelings of fear, discouragement, anxiety, or even depression? Some words might resonate strongly and positively with you because you have healthy beliefs on that theme. Give yourself credit for these joyful, truthful beliefs.
For the themes that have negative energy or a negative reaction, write them down to explore in the next step.
Themes:
- Abandonment
- Abuse
- Awkward
- Balance
- Betrayed
- Broken
- Change
- Confidence
- Deceived
- Deserving
- Education
- Enough
- Failure
- Family
- Fear
- Finances
- Helpless
- Hopeless
- Lonely
- “I will always feel______”
- Negative
- Neglect
- Overwhelmed
- Passion
- Relationship
- Safety
- Scarcity
- Stuck
- Talent
- Time
- Trust
- Unfulfilled
- Unworthy
- Weak
Find the Source
The next thing is to find the source of this belief. Our subconscious mind creates these ideas as a means of protection, but these beliefs hold us back from truly succeeding, feeling happiness, and experiencing satisfaction from our accomplishments.
From the previous example, my experience with feeling sad after feeling happy comes with a heavy history of trauma, neglect, stress, and abuse. For example, if I felt happy about something or successfully accomplished a task, it never felt like people acknowledged my hard work. I usually felt brushed aside by others. I also experienced abuse at home which made me feel worse about myself. The happiness and satisfaction from my hard work quickly diminished. It seemed to me that I was better off bracing myself for sadness after feeling happy—even the slightest amount of happiness.
This limiting self belief carried onto my marriage. I prepared myself for an equal amount of sadness as the happiness after our wedding day, but it never came. In fact, my life improved and got better. It left me dumbfounded, wondering, HOW? It was then I recognized I had a self limiting belief. I changed my perspective, realizing that I DESERVE happiness and, to be totally honest, I COULD still be happy, despite my trials. I also accepted that sometimes things don’t work out the way we want after we experience joy. Life is just like a roller coaster, and it’s OK if things don’t always work out.
In your life, you might have experienced trauma or even just emotionally taxing situations. If you can look back and find the source of you self limiting belief, it makes it so much easier to get rid of them.
Sometimes, with mental illnesses like depression and anxiety, the science of the body affects how we feel about ourselves. Specifically with depression, the self limiting beliefs go along the themes of brokenness, hopelessness, and unworthiness. As you acknowledge that the mental illness is the source of the limiting belief, it makes it much easier to overcome.
Create new, empowering beliefs and consciously live them
Creation is one of my favorite things. I love that we can create opportunities from obstacles. When I discovered my limiting self belief, I knew I had to replace it with a new belief. I couldn’t keep mentally bracing myself for grief after feeling joy. So the best way to replace the self limiting belief is to create a new belief, which is kind of like an affirmation. Here is how my affirmation went:
I can choose to be happy no matter what the circumstances. Sometimes bad things will happen, but I won’t let that stop me from being happy or enjoying myself and my life.”
Even more important than creating the affirmation is to actually live by that affirmation. Whenever you feel yourself acting out of fear by the old beliefs, consciously state the new belief/affirmation in your head and then live by it.
This is one of the most fulfilling ways to live. When you come from a place of love and state your new, truthful beliefs, you then become free. You don’t have to live your life by old scripts or by old hurts. This is when you truly become your best self.
I encourage you with all the aloha in my heart to find those limiting self beliefs and come from a place of love in recognizing them, finding the source, and creating new, truthful beliefs.
What limiting self beliefs have you overcome? I’d love to know! Comment in the section below! 🙂
Love,
Lei
P.S. Check out my FREE 5 Hawaiian Days to Wellness class to help you live with more daily aloha!
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