Can a limiting belief hurt us? How? Or is a thought just a thought?
Last week I was learning about meditation, where we were encouraged to sit in stillness for 20 minutes and focus on our breath. For me, it was a great experience but something really interesting came to me as I sat cross-legged on the floor: the words ‘accept this thought’ came floating to me, and as it did a warm calming feeling washed over me. In that moment I just let the words drift passed me without overanalyzing- which is hard for me because I dissect everything! I knew that I could come back to those words at a later date to make more sense of them, and find meaning in it. For the moment I just wanted to bask in the feeling of peace, warmth (and a numb leg 🙂 )
The next day I gave myself some time to come back to those words, and what I discovered was ground breaking for me. Let me Screen Shot 2015-02-18 at 10.39.45 AMjust set this up for you- this is what I already know about limiting beliefs: they can be very harmful in many ways. They can keep us repeating patterns that don’t align with our true self, keep us from reaching our goals, hold us back from living the life that we truly want to live, leave us feeling defeated, angry, sad, unloveable, unworthy, unsuccessful, to name just a few!
All of this I already know, but the huge shift for me came with this: our thoughts can create so much (basically our reality) but it’s just a thought!!!! A limiting belief is just a thought!
What gives the thought it’s power is US! If we look at a limiting belief/thought and focus upon it with the power of it being true, it clearly has the potential to harm us.
The limiting belief/thought of ‘I will always be alone’ can easily attract another negative thought of ‘I’ll never find my forever-person’. Then the thoughts ‘I never attract the right kind of person’ ‘What’s wrong with me?’ can come along. We start to give the thought power by 1) believing in it, and 2) reinforcing it to be true with more negative thoughts. In the example above, by believing the statement ‘I will always be alone’ I have just given it the power to harm me. It is no longer just a thought- it is something that is starting to shape my reality, my circumstances, my life. Making sense?
But, if we look at a thought and see that it’s only a thought- just something floating around our brain, without any true meaning behind it, we don’t give it the power to harm us. This way we can choose a different thought with more ease.
The thought ‘I will always be alone’ can be looked at as just a thought. See it floating by with no meaning, no power.
I accept this thought- it’s just a thought, and it can harm me not, as it has no power over me.
I invite you to try this for at least one week. Set the intention to say the above statement every time you’re experiencing a negative thought or limiting belief. Make note in how you feel and let me know how you do.
The only way something can harm us is if we give it the power to do so.
Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder to hurt, to harm, to humiliate, to humble ~Yehuda Berg
Calgary Canada Life Coach Arianne Moore-Armstrong, founder of Path of Tranquility Coaching for Women, helps clients worldwide. Arianne is also the founder of the Ultimate Belief Breakthrough Methodâ„¢