What are Limiting Beliefs? Limiting beliefs are untrue and often negative things or opinions we tell ourselves that result in us diminishing our worth and our true potential in life. They are un-serving because they are the main reason for our own stagnation or self-sabotage in life. These beliefs often stop us from growing on a personal or professional level, especially because most of them are fueled by fear. The worse part is, unless we do the inner work, we don't even know we are allowing these beliefs to rule our lives. We just accept them as truths and never stop to question them.
"If you accept a limiting belief, then it will become a truth for you" - Louise Hay
Where do they come from? Believe it or not, most of the beliefs that determine our lives and that we are programmed with come from our childhood. We develop filters at around age 7 that help us "make sense" of the world around us. We have been conditioned from birth by the things we hear, the things we see, society, our parents, our teachers, our friends & family etc. So if you think about it, we end up being adults being run by what we were programmed before we were 7 years old! Now think about the people you encounter on a daily, doesn't it start to make a little sense why so many people behave or think a certain way? It reminds me of something I heard recently "The world is literally run by 7 yr old traumatized minds." We didn't really have a choice in the matter of what we were programmed or conditioned to believe as children, but as adults, we do have a choice to rewire our minds and empower ourselves. This is where your life starts to change!
How do we get rid of them? Awareness is the start. Awareness of our limiting beliefs, like with many other things, is the "awakening of choice," this is because once we are aware of them, we can choose to get rid of them. One way to become aware of these limiting beliefs is to bring them to the surface through Journaling. I have included 4 journaling prompts below that can start you on this path. Repetition is the other way to retrain &rewire your mind. Since we have a lifetime of conditioning to undo, the only way to make these changes internally is to constantly repeat to yourself what your new and empowering Truth is. Watch then how you start to attract circumstances, places, people, and things that coincide with your new beliefs.
**Here is a little graph with some common limiting beliefs. There are HUNDREDS more I could have added here, but I encourage you to do this work for yourself as it is truly beneficial and powerful for each individual to surface and release these blocks for themselves.
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