Why limiting beliefs hold us back…

Everyone has limiting beliefs! Sometimes you know what they are and how they affect you and sometimes they appear out of nowhere.

What is a limiting belief?

A limiting belief is something you believe about yourself that can hold you back. What you believe about yourself impacts how you think, feel and behave.

It might be that you struggle to speak up in a group because you hold the belief that 'no one cares about what I have to say'.

It might be you find it hard to do a presentation or workshop because you hold the belief that 'I don't know enough' or 'I'm not an expert' or 'They might ask me something I don't know'.

It might be that you stop yourself from doing a course in a subject you're interested in because you hold the belief 'I don't have enough time'.

Limiting beliefs are totally standard in our lives as human beings and they affect everyone differently. If they're not getting in the way of what you want, then you might not even know you hold a limiting belief about something. 

But when they are very real for you, they can keep you from seeing new possibilities, following dreams and take you away from the amazing, creative person that you are.

Why do we have limiting beliefs?

Experts believe that most of our beliefs about the way the world works are formed by the time we are 8 years old. In the psychoanalytical theory and method of 'Transactional Analyisis', this is called our Life Script.

This involves making sure we survive by fitting in with the adults around us. Just think of how much there is going on at any one time in someone's life - family, culture, faith, community, society....the whole world. As children, we're thinking 'how must I need to behave to fit in, to get my needs met, to survive'.

It's thought that in the first two years (and in the womb), children are in the Delta brain-wave cycle. When you're deeply asleep as an adult, this is the state you are in. Even as you get to 1 year old, you're mainly in and out of this state. This means as a baby, you are taking eeeeeeverything in as you learn about the world, there's no filter at all.

From age 2 - 8, it's thought that children will mostly be in Alpha and Theta brainwave states, which is what you're in while you're under hypnosis or perhaps meditating. So basically at that age you're going about your day hypnotised, open to everything that is being presented to you. Being able to be rational when something goes wrong or think critically is not really a thing your brain can do yet, so you're still in a high learning state. Between five and eight years old, this is when your analytical brain starts forming and you start to interpret and make meaning from your environment.

• If as a three year old you heard a nursery nurse say 'you're so clumsy', you might grow up thinking you're clumsy even though that was bestowed on you age three (when most three year olds fall over a lot anyway!).

• If, as a 5 year old you heard your mum say to a friend 'he/she is not very good at reading', you might take that as fact.

• If, at six years old your teacher tells you 'stop being naughty' when you're fidgeting in your chair, you might take on the belief that your need to be moving to make yourself feel calm is bad.

• If, when you were 7 years old, you asked your dad if you could have a toy when you were at the shop and he got annoyed and shouted 'you can't ask for those kind of things!', you might grow up with the belief 'I can't ask for what I want'. You're not sitting there going 'I appreciate my dad spoke to me like that because money is tight and he has an electricity bill due tomorrow'.

If you feel like you're holding yourself back in certain areas and you don't know why, it might be that you start to take a look at what limiting beliefs you have and notice how they are serving you.
 

Examples of Limiting Beliefs

Once you start tuning into what a limiting belief could be, you'll start to hear people saying them everyday. They're everywhere, so take some time to notice them and get curious.

Sometimes they can start with 'I'm not...', 'I can't...', 'I'm always...', 'I'll never...', 'I'm too...'

• I'm not good enough

• I'm not ready

• I'll never be successful

• I can't fail

• I'm too old

• I don't have enough experience

• I'm not smart enough

• I can't be who I really am or people will judge me

• I can't ask for what I want because the answer will be no

Other times they can be more specific, for example in the workplace:

• I need to know everything that goes on in my team

• I don't have enough experience to go for that role I would be amazing at

It might be that you write them down and get curious about where they may come from.

Limiting Beliefs about Money

Money mindset and limiting beliefs about money are really common, but let's address the elephant in the room - it's never about the money! I'll write another blog about this one day.

• You need to work hard to make money

• If I've got money, people will ask me for it and I won't be able to say no.

• If I'm rich, I'll be too busy

• If I'm rich, my children will be spoilt brats

• I am not good with money

• Being rich is selfish

• If you're rich, you're not a nice person

• You have to be greedy to be rich

Again, you might like to get curious about where these beliefs come from and check out if they are serving you.

Secondary Gains

Sometimes we benefit from holding onto a limiting belief. We are not normally aware of this though, it's an unconscious thing.

For example, someone might want to give up smoking, but if they did that, deep down they might believe they'll miss out on social interactions with colleagues and not want to lose that connection.

You might like to take a look at the benefits you get from holding onto your limiting beliefs, get curious and ask yourself 'what's going on there?'.

Can we change our limiting beliefs?

Coaching can help us to update our Life Script by questioning the way we think, feel and behave and in my experience they can be changed.

As a very surface level example, I used to have a messy bedroom ('it's hard to keep my bedroom tidy') and could never figure out why. Notice my language - 'I used to have a messy bedroom', this indicates a belief has changed.

Keeping my room tidy always felt like SUCH hard work and I tried to, for years and years, tell myself 'just keep it tidy'. I would go through a massive clean up and be like 'right, I'm doing it, I'm keeping it tidy' and then three days later it would be messy again.  It wasn't until I started looking at the belief behind why I had a messy bedroom that I was able to change it.

My mum had always told the story about how she'd never been able to keep her room tidy even at university. So it was partly a belief I'd taken on board from her, but also, I got down to 'if I don't have a messy bedroom, I won't be like my mum and that would be bad!'.  This was a massive 'holy shit' moment for me. No wonder keeping my room tidy felt SOO hard. My mum is amazing by the way, but clearly I'd formed something along the lines of 'must always do as I'm told' as my Life Script was forming in those early years! I found the emotion behind it and was able to change the belief.....much to the relief of my husband 😂

I've given you quite a surface level belief (It's hard to keep my bedroom tidy), but even with that you can see how deep it can go. If I'd have just stuck an affirmation on the wall of 'it's easy to keep my bedroom tidy', I wouldn't have gotten very far if I hadn't gone further into the reason and emotion behind what my belief was.

In summary, limiting beliefs are all around us, they're completely normal and we can change them once we know what they are and where they come from.  And yes our children are forming limiting beliefs everyday no matter how amazing we are as parents 🙈

If you're interested in a belief session to help you change a specific limiting belief, do get in touch!

What is Somatic Coaching and how can it help me?

Somatic coaching is a field that is growing. But what is somatic coaching, and what does it involve that could benefit you and your life?

Somatic coaching is based on the idea that the mind and body are interconnected. When something is bothering us mentally, it often shows up in our bodies as physical symptoms - even before the brain realises. It's happened to us all at some point, however sometimes describing the bodily sensations with words does not do it justice to what you actually feel....but I'll try below:

• The wave of terror that ripples through your body when you see someone you have negative feelings about and want to avoid....

• The hot flush of your cheeks when someone embarrasses you.

• The sickness in the pit of your stomach you feel when you're driving home after dropping your kids at school.

• The grip of fear in your body when you see an animal that gives you the willies.

• The tightness in your throat when your finger hovers over the 'Go Live' button.

• When your boss asks to see you....you know….that feeling....

Sometimes you know what's going on.

But sometimes you think 'what the hell is that all about?!!'.

And then sometimes...you just ignore it.

Your body is so much more than just a state-of-the-art Tesla transporting your brain around from A to B. Your body-mind is constantly working, cells are communicating, neurons firing, all trying to keep you balanced. The idea behind somatic coaching is that everything about you is valid, you are naturally creative and whole and if you can get out of your thinking mind, you've got this body that can give you clarity, direction and answers.

When you start listening to your body you become way more compassionate with yourself, treat yourself with a lot more care and start to see yourself as creative, resourceful and whole.

But what does this look like in real life?

Before writing this blog, I was sitting at my computer, messing around for probably about an hour, pissing about with my website, not really getting anything of any note done, totally unfocussed. I thought the day was a write off. When I asked, I got a sense that my body wanted to lie on my bed and stare out the window at the blue sky and the clouds. So I did.

While I was there, I tuned into my body, trialling out a few ways I could create different sensations in my feet that I could notice all with a view of 'getting out of my mind'. One thing included attempting to click my toes together at different speeds (it's really fuking hard to do!!) which had me all of a sudden laughing at how ridiculous it would look to an outsider.

Now in case you're thinking 'dang girl, have you lost the plot?'.....guess what happened my friend....within 7 mins (if that), I had the idea for this blog. The sections were clearly mapped out in my head and a few hours later it was published, here on my website for you to read for all eternity.

If I've lost the plot then I'm cool with that because I was hella productive after checking in with my body compared to what I was like beforehand! 😂

Soma-what?

The word 'Soma' is from the ancient Greek language meaning vibrant, living body and encompasses your entire organism, not just the skin and bone, but it's full aliveness.

'Somatics is the study of the self from the perspective on one's lived experience, encompassing the dimensions of body, psyche and spirit' ~ Thomas Hanna

Thomas Hanna was the first person to use the phrase 'Somatics' in the 70's, but this was not the origin of somatic practices. 'Somatics' is used to cover all the methodologies that recognise your brain and the rest of your body as a dynamic system working together to maintain balance and wellbeing.

If we are only focussing on the mind then we are missing out a massive part of our lived experience. When you focus on the body new choices might come to you (like this blog did for me!) or you might feel like there are new possibilities relating to an important decision. It gives you an experiential way of learning and transforming and for me has created shifts that have meant I can move forward with stuff I didn't feel good about before.

One methodology that I’ve enjoyed using and had results with in my coaching practice is Focusing.

Someone wanted to interview me and I had a full body wave of terror reaction when I got the voice note asking about this; which was out of the blue. I'd worked on stuff to do with getting myself out there in the past and had used EFT to release emotions - I honestly thought that was off the list of shit I had to worry about. Ha! Clearly not.

So I took this feeling to a Focusing session. By paying attention to what was going on in my body, I was able to move the energy relating to this situation. My throat closed up and I found it hard to swallow, then my cheek was shaking like crazy on the left side of my face and eventually a wave of tears came over me and I cried for about five minutes. I wasn't sad, but the tears flowed. Two days later I did the interview with ZERO terrified/nervous feelings happening anywhere in my body.

So bloody powerful!

I've had clients who were blocked or stuck about certain things who have had similar experiences when I’ve done a Focusing session with them. They've said they feel 'lighter' or that 'something has shifted' in the days after and feel less bodily feelings about whatever they worked on.

Somatic coaching can help you create sustainable change by providing a safe, supportive coaching environment where your bodily wisdom is waiting for you to discover the insights it has.