Limiting beliefs are cunning, crafty and clever. They wrap themselves around our subconscious minds and tie us up like hostages.
You want to live a carefree life where love flows freely. But instead, you find yourself entangled in that originally organized ball of yarn that was supposed to be fun. It’s crippling you.
Your beliefs can be particularly treacherous when it comes to your love life.
Why? Because when you believe something about yourself when you are out there looking to find the right partner or creating a vision for your career and professional life, you may misinterpret, overinterpret, and sabotage creating something really special.
Or if you are in a relationship, and you believe something about your partner (true or untrue), it deeply affects your ability to give or receive love.
You run the risk of making big mistakes in the most important areas of your life.
Often it becomes impossible to discern your limiting beliefs from reality. The suffocating restrictions it causes can be devastating.
Uncomfortable yet? Sound all-too-real?
There’s a reason for that, let’s start at the beginning, by answering one crucial question… What is a limiting belief, really?
Limiting Beliefs Around Love, Relationships and Abundance in your life, and Their Relation to F.E.A.R.
Maybe you’ve heard that F.E.A.R. stands for False Evidence Appearing Real. Whatever you’re afraid of and that becomes a cause of anxiety, may even seem silly to you…..
Fear poisons your possibilities. It’s a partner in crime with a limiting belief.
You’ve been gathering False Evidence to prop up those limiting beliefs. Why? Because they feel so real, you’ve got to prove that you’re right! We all want to be right…it’s human nature.
And all that “proof” you find? It only Appears Real, because everyone experiences their own personal reality. It’s true if you say it is. And everyone else is wrong…right?
Hate to break the news to ya…but when it comes to your own fear and limiting beliefs, you’re usually the one who’s wrong.
Limiting beliefs keep you in that cycle of Fear.
You know the whole Fight or Flight thing, right? There’s more to it. There’s also Freeze. When you freeze, you do exactly what those limiting beliefs want you to do. You don’t move forward.
You don’t reply to that message; you don’t return that eye contact; you don’t say yes to that date. You’re all tied up — frozen — and you might withdraw inward, to a place where you feel safe.
A place where you’re alone. An all-too-familiar place that’s killing you like time-released poison.
Why would your psyche do this to you? Doesn’t it want you to succeed?
Before we get too far, I want you to change the way you’re thinking about your brain. You’re evolved (Yeah, aren’t we all?).
Your prefrontal cortex is an evolutionary miracle, capable of unexplainable feats…or so you think…
All that’s cool, but let’s not forget we still have all the parts our grunting caveman ancestors had. The thing that made them run from tigers and lions and bears, o my… Yah, that’s still in there.
Here’s the thing: Most of us aren’t being chased by those beasts (at least in their exterior format, maybe your boss, your ex, or your someone on your shi*t list).
But the part of the brain responsible for telling us to RUN FOR YOUR LIFE is still alive and well.
It thinks every little thing is out to kill us…and if it lets us die to those threats — real or perceived — it’s dead, too.
Compared to our ancestors, we live pretty safe lives. Instead of avoiding risks, we have to convince ourselves to take them. But when we do take risks, there’s the amygdalae — that ancient brain — flipping the hell out.
Your amygdalae, a set of organs nestled in your brain’s temporal lobe, are responsible for a number of primordial responses. When you feel someone following you, you run. When you’re startled, you jump and scream (*Ever see the munch painting).
We share this function with all other animals. It keeps them safe. It has kept us safe. But unfortunately, when it comes to humans, the amygdalae have no idea it’s the 21st Century. It’s “outdated,” and the messages it sends can cause unnecessary fear.
And so, in times of self-doubt, that reptilian brain jumps into action and sucks the life from your “thinking” brain.
Your entire psyche reverts back to fear…and those Limiting Beliefs. It feels like you’re being chased by a rabid hyena; when really, it’s just another human looking for the same things you are.
Your brain is trying to keep you alive…but instead, it’s keeping you from living.
Do deep-rooted limiting beliefs have you in shackles?
- Do you find your romantic relationships typically ending in disaster…
- Do you notice patterns where your partner is not kind…if he or she is a bully…
- Do you end up with people who treat you badly, over and over again…
If you had a controlling parent, for instance, and they criticized you on a regular basis, you may have learned to feel guilty about the decisions you made as a child.
As you grew, you looked for that criticism in every situation because that’s what you came to expect. Even if there’s no one there to criticize you, you criticize yourself.
And when you look for a life partner, whether you realize it or not, you may be drawn to people who are critical of you. It just feels right. If feels like what you deserve…even though it doesn’t feel good.
Maybe, as a child, you were told you were a bad friend, or that you weren’t good enough to hold hands with that kid behind the sliding board, so you continue to move toward circumstances to prove that’s true. It’s important to be right…right?
You might enter into bad relationships again and again.
Your conscious mind doesn’t want that, but your subconscious is dying to prove that what you believe about yourself is true.
Limiting beliefs can keep you from getting what you want.
They can also attract all the wrong things into your life. By falling into the same patterns over and over again, you prove those beliefs to be correct.
What if you could change what you want to be right about?
What if you started to believe that you were a great friend? Or a fun date? A magical lover or wonderful partner? And then proved yourself right? Then wouldn’t you have everything?
Growth Pattern of A Limiting Belief
If you’re ever going to learn how to overcome limiting beliefs, it’s important to understand their growth cycle.
First, as we’ve discussed, the seed is planted. Where do those seeds come from? Oh yah…from all the messages you’ve heard about yourself, as well as all those things going on around you as a young person.
- How did your father view women?
- How did your mother view men?
- How did your teacher make you feel?
- How did your friends treat one another?
The answers to these questions are the seeds.
And you would think as you mature, if you don’t like something, you would find proof that it’s not true, right? After all, your brain is mature by the age of 25 and should be capable of figuring this stuff out, right?
So you should be able to correct the situation, right?
Nope! In fact, it works in precisely the opposite way.
The human psyche will continue to find proof and reinforce our limiting beliefs…until we CONSCIOUSLY seek out proof to the contrary.
Weed out those Limiting Beliefs
Our brains are wired for negative thinking. Those pathways carve deeper grooves in our brain (remember the deep roots from earlier), so negative experiences have a higher charge — while the lighter charges of positive feedback kind of get forgotten.
Have you ever noticed how much more impact negative comments have? How people have trouble forgetting them?
If you have five positives and one negative, your brain will probably only remember one of those positives…and it will certainly remember every negative.
So, when someone gives you evidence contrary to a limiting belief, like a compliment, you might think they have an ulterior motive. You might even forget it like it never even happened.
Are you starting to see the damage that limiting beliefs can do?
You’ve got some weeding to do.
Here are a few questions you can ask yourself, to unearth limiting beliefs:
- Are limiting beliefs keeping you from moving forward?
- Do you think you are unlovable?
- Do you think you’re not good-looking enough?
- Do you think you’re hard to handle?
- What negative reels are playing over and over again in your mind?
- What was the last piece of “proof” you entertained as fact, and how did it reinforce your limiting beliefs about yourself?
Give those questions another read, and get ready to make a discovery.
Your Love Life Without Limiting Beliefs
- What kind of relationship would you have if you had no doubt in yourself?
- Who would you talk to if there was no limit to your self-confidence?
- What could you give to another person if you have no hang-ups about being good enough?
It is beyond amazing how we convince ourselves that we’re not good enough for the relationship of our dreams. She’s out of my league. I’ll never have a guy like him. I don’t have what it takes to live in peace with another person.
These are just a few examples of what we tell ourselves…without even knowing it.
What we should be saying every time we don’t feel capable is “Says who?”
Your teacher in second grade? Your brother? Your ex? And what authority do they have to change the way you see yourself?
How much longer are you going to allow them to have power over you…when they don’t even remember what they said to you, about you, in front of you, or about someone else?
It’s time to take back your brain into that fertile planting ground.
It’s time to find those limiting beliefs and rip them out by the roots. No hesitation. No second thoughts. Just forward movement…toward a bright, colorful garden of nothing but good, empowering thoughts.
All the places you thought you were going wrong can be rich, plentiful fields of confidence. All the dating and relationship confidence you’ve been lacking can be areas of strength.
All you have to do is shift your beliefs…understanding that all the things you’ve been telling yourself are perceptions, and nothing more.
Think it’s too hard? Or that your negative, limiting beliefs are true? Of course, that’s how you feel. You’ve been living this way from the beginning.
You haven’t experienced what it’s like to be free of the entanglement. You haven’t given yourself permission to experience love for a long time…or maybe ever!
I have wonderful news. You have everything you need inside of you. All that’s left to do is find it, and I would love nothing more than to guide you along that path of love and relationship discovery…as you move through fear, past limiting beliefs, to see all the loving possibilities that lay before you.