'AND THEN SHE SAW HIM...'

How my client's limiting beliefs held her back from finding love - and how we broke them down and changed her life...

In this blog today I am going to be talking about a client I worked with a couple of years ago and how her limiting beliefs held her back from being with her‘One’ and what we did about it…

But before I tell you what happened with her, I want to briefly run through what limiting beliefs are, and as usual please feel free to comment underneath if you recognise any or if you have any questions for me!

Limiting beliefs are those which constrain us in some way. Just by believing them, we do not think, do or say the things that they inhibit.  I’ll try to explain how they develop:

We have a conscious mind and a subconscious mind. We tend to only be aware of our conscious minds, and we think they are running the show because that’s where we process all our information. It’s our ‘thinking’ mind.

Our subconscious mind, however, does no thinking at all. It’s fully developed when we are born and is all about instincts and feelings. It’s the instinctive, primeval if you like, part of our brain. It develops as we grow and we fill it with the information we are given from the world around us without questioning what we are filling it with. Our subconscious mind believes everything – it has no filter, and it can’t tell the difference between what’s true and what’s untrue. But…it runs the show.

Our conscious mind thinks it’s in control – but it isn’t; our subconscious mind doesn’t think anything, but is in control.

This is how we develop our limiting beliefs. We are told that we are stupid often enough so our subconscious stores it and we believe it, we are told we are not pretty often enough so our subconscious stores it and we believe it.

Our limiting beliefs are often about ourselves and our self-identity, but they are also about other people and the world in general.

Do you ever think things like:

·        I don’t attract good partners or

·        I don’t do well on first dates?

As you can imagine, by thinking these things, they could become a self-fulfilling prophecy!

Or maybe you find yourself thinking things like:

·        I can’t find the right person to settle down with

·        I can’t let anyone see me naked, I don’t have a nice body

·        I can’t go speed dating, I will make a fool of myself

·        I can’t do online dating

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But you have no real proof of that! These are things you’ve told yourself that are probably based on an experience you’ve had or one of the other types of limiting beliefs I’ll talk about later.

Other common things we might think are:

·        I must not let anyone know the ‘real me’ because they probably won’t like it

·        I must change my clothes/hair/weight to be attractive (You know – I’ll start dating when I’ve lost a stone, or I’ll get a new style, then men will fancy me…)

These are often linked to your VALUES(what you value, what you pass judgement on)

I wonder if you ever find yourself passing judgement on other people for the things you judge about yourself?

There are so many types of limiting beliefs I can’t possibly go through them all today, so the things I have just mentioned are a small sample – but I think you get the idea!

So– where do they come from? As I have said, they are the things our subconscious squirrels away and doesn’t question, it just believes the information to be true. They mostly arise from:

·        Experience

·        Fear

·        Faulty logic

·        Education

·        Excuses

As I say, some limiting beliefs that come as a result of Experience. We act,something happens and we draw conclusions. Often such beliefs are helpful, but they can also be very limiting.

I’ll give you an example:

Let’s say you went on a date and it was a disaster. Then you went on another and that was a disaster too. You start to believe that either dating is a disaster, or that you’re no good at it.

Your experience has taught you that dating doesn’t go well for you, so you start to avoid dating. But is it true that ALL dates will be a disaster? No! It’s not.But you will subconsciously believe it and it will limit your chances of finding someone because you won’t want to go on any more dates.

How many times have you let your experience of past events shape your expectations of future events? Is it always rational to do so?

Felicity’s story

Felicity came to see me as a result of a painful break up. She thought she was in love with her ex, even though he hadn’t treated her particularly well. She was engaged to him and had imagined a future where she had children with him and grew old with him. Part of her felt this was her only opportunity for a family and so even though things weren’t perfect, she persevered and focused on all the good aspects of what they had together. But one day, he finished with her with no warning, saying that it didn’t feel right and he just wasn’t sure about her any more.

I worked with Felicity for around 6 months, and each week she seemed to begetting stronger and more used to the idea that her future wasn’t the one she planned. When we first started working together, she was in a very dark place and couldn’t imagine ever feeling better. Life felt pointless.

As the months passed, I realised she often talked about a man she was in a band with, he had been one of her best friends for years but nothing had ever happened between them. She spoke about him very fondly and said what a wonderful person he was, and how much she valued their friendship.

I gently pointed out the fact that she talked about him often, and seemed to talk about him in a particular way, and I wondered aloud whether she had stronger feelings for him than she realised.

This is where we uncovered her limiting belief:

She said “I could never date someone I’m friends with! I never have. All my relationships have been with people I became romantically involved with immediately. I keep my friends as just friends, because if it didn’t work out I would lose their friendship. It’s not the done thing!”

At this point, she would not even consider it as a possibility. Becoming involved with a friend was something impossible, it could never happen.

However,the following week she came to our session and said she’d been thinking about it, and maybe she did feel more for him, it had just never occurred to her. She was still very resistant, but I asked her to think about something. I said ‘What would it be like to wake up every morning to your best friend?’

That night she went home and told him she was in love with him.

This summer she sent me a text with a photo attached – it was of them on their wedding day!

It just goes to show that until we uncover our limiting beliefs, we have no idea how they are holding us back. We act according to them without even questioning them. It’s not until we examine them that we can start to change them.

So! I wonder if you can relate to any of this. Do you think there are any beliefs you hold that are limiting your life in some way? Maybe you’d like some help uncovering them. Please let me know in the comments below or email me, I really would love to hear from you!

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