The rules we wrote for ourselves
How the beliefs we formed long ago can quietly shape our lives today
You’ve probably heard people talking about limiting beliefs before. There’s a certain buzz around it nowadays and I’m using the term as well. So I wanted to sit down with you and chat about what that means to me and how it works in my sessions.
There are certain things we’ve accumulated from a young age that have shaped our thoughts and guided our behaviours without us really being able to identify or even articulate them. The term we’re using here is Limiting Beliefs.
Somewhere along the line you started to believe something about the world, about relationships or about yourself. You took on a belief and it’s been running quietly in the background all these years. This isn’t a bad thing. Life doesn’t come with a map or a guidebook, we’re all just finding our way here on Earth together.
The issue is when that belief starts to shape your thoughts and guide your behaviour to the point that it’s limiting you. They can act as cages that stop us from achieving the things we dream of, taking risks or being our whole selves in the world.
One of the easiest ways to understand a limiting belief is to see how it might show up in real life.
My Best is Not Good Enough
How does that phrase sound to you? Does it ring true in any way? Have you ever experienced a time in your life where, despite giving a situation your absolute best, you felt that it wasn’t good enough?
This is what I mean by a limiting belief. So let’s break it down.
If you genuinely believe that your best is not good enough would you:
Take a big risk?
Try something new?
Make a goal and work towards it?
Ever let yourself fail?
The issue here isn’t really about the belief, it was originally a way of mapping the world for yourself. A rule you wrote once that helped you survive a moment in your life. The issue is the way in which it limits you.
Our beliefs, and the way they limit us, are a source of stress. Believing that our best is not good enough is going to be a continual source of stress whenever we encounter anything that requires us to fully show up.
Now, let’s take your stress on an excursion
Let’s assume for a moment that you do carry this belief somewhere in your mind or body. Let’s assume that it’s already changing the way you make decisions in your daily life and let’s assume it’s causing you some stress.
Let’s see what happens when this belief follows you into everyday life.
In this thought experiment, let’s take it along with us to:
A dinner with the in-laws
A presentation in a meeting or to a small crowd of people
A job interview
A first date
Pitching for a pay rise
Do any of those options stress you out? Stay with the stickiest one.
If this belief is limiting you and changing your thoughts and behaviours in your internal world, then what is it doing in the external world? If you’re already stressed on the inside because of the ways in which you’re limiting yourself, how is that being compounded in moments of stress in the external world?
This is the crux of what we’re working through in your session when we’re focusing on limiting beliefs.
Some Good News
If our limiting beliefs are the cages that constrain our thoughts and behaviours then there must be a key, right? I’m here to tell you that you’re the key. If you were the one that originally adopted the belief then it follows that you have the power to change it.
How do I let it go now that I know it’s limiting me?
This is where Kinesiology comes in. I use muscle monitoring as a tool to explore stress responses in your body. Through our chats in the session we can find the ways in which your beliefs are limiting your decision making and behaviours in your internal and external world. This might involve me holding some acupressure points or working with your chakras. This might feel a little emotional because the belief could have been with you for years or decades. But once we’ve had a chat about the belief and how it served you in the past, we have the option to flip it into an affirmation.
Maybe you’ve worked with affirmations before, maybe you haven’t. I like to think of them as words of power. They express something you’re trying to embody more fully. We can work with the affirmation that comes through so it lands fully in your awareness and spreads throughout your mind and body.
The clearing
Then we reach the part of the session where we both go silent. This is the portion of the session where you receive Reiki with your eyes closed, comfortably snug under a blanket or with a nice little weight of an eye pillow to anchor you in.
During this part of the session I offer Reiki, a gentle energy healing practice that many people find deeply relaxing and supportive for releasing stress. This is often where the body begins to settle deeply, and people notice old patterns softening as a sense of ease returns.
For many people, this is the moment where letting go begins.
So when you hear me talking about Limiting Beliefs, this is what I mean. A rule you wrote once that’s past its expiration date.
Each session is a little different because each person brings their own story, but the intention is always the same - to help your system release stress and reconnect with a deeper sense of ease.
Are you ready to let go?
May you break through the ceiling of your own limitations
May you free yourself from the cage of your own beliefs
May you come back home to yourself in the present moment, unbounded and embodied