Limiting beliefs

Your mind is like a computer program

The mind, especially the sub conscious mind is an amazing tool and what is just as amazing is that man has created a piece of hardware (a computer) that works similar to it.

The subconscious mind is responsible for everything that happens “behind the scenes”. It controls your breathing, body temperature, bodily functions, etc. and you are not aware of its existence or anything it is doing. Apart from that it also controls your survival and according to its perception, has created several “if this, then that” sums just like on a Microsoft Office Excel spreadsheet.  Every time something “bad” has happened in your life or you have been threatened in any way, emotionally or physically, one of these sums were create in the subconscious mind.

So let’s say you were teased as a child. The subconscious mind then created the following sum: If I behave this way, then I am rejected and therefore I must behave differently. The sum gets much more complex than that. By then the subconscious mind has probably figured out that rejection means that you will be alone, which causes suffering and may even threaten your survival. The subconscious mind is very survival orientated.  Its job is to protect you at all cost and to predict the possible outcome as much as possible in any situation so it can succeed in protecting you. Apart of its web of “if….then….” sums it creates in order to protect you, it also creates beliefs. These beliefs are “rules” according to the subconscious mind about how life works and how you fit into the world and what your place in the world is and what the best way would be for you to survive in it.

So, for example, you may have had a bad experience with a man as a child and have hence created the belief “Men are dangerous” or “men are bad” or “men cannot be trusted” and then it became your protection mechanism so every time you get close to a man emotionally this belief is triggered like a button and you react as if you have been hurt already, being suspicious, weary, defensive or aloof.

Another example:  Your best friend in primary school just seems to have it all. Their parents are wealthy; they get whatever they want and even got chosen as class captain. At the tender age of seven or eight you feel like you are not good enough and are destined to be less worthy. This belief then prevents you from trying (in order to avoid disappointment), it prevents you from taking risks and ultimately the more you believe it, the more you act like it and the stronger the belief becomes.

All the information coming through your 5 senses gets filtered through your belief systems and creates a picture in your mental screen, which then determines how you react to any given situation.

Not only does everybody have their own beliefs but they also adopt other people’s beliefs. A child has very few beliefs but gradually accepts what his parents tell him as the truth, even though it may be based on their own beliefs. For example, a child eats a piece of food that just fell on the floor and the mother tells him if he does that he will get sick. Even though there may be some truth in it, it is still just a belief, not a fact. “You can’t go out with no shoes on”, “You must eat all the food on your plate”, “Don’t talk religion or politics”, and “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” are more examples of completely unjustified rules we have according to other people’s beliefs.

Here are some more examples of common society beliefs that are not necessarily true:

• Appearance is reality,
• What you can perceive with your senses is what is real,
• Everybody who is bigger than you, is more clever, more powerful, or stronger than you are.
• Everything has limits,
• Always consider what other people will say,
• We are the only world that exists,
• Every important, book, machine, object, etc. has already been made,
• Every person and every thing is all separate from each other,
• You know nothing until someone teaches you,
• If nobody can back you up, it is not true,
• Good guys win, bad guys loose,
• If you are good you go to heaven, bad you go to hell,
• Death is the end of life,
• Bad people deserve to die and good people don’t.

Beliefs and expectations inevitably go together because when we believe something should or should not be done in a certain way, we expect it to be so. Therefore when our expectations are not met, we feel angry or fearful. What is it that makes us feel that way? Maybe we are feeling disappointed, vulnerable and unprotected, because we did after all create these beliefs to keep us safe. That is why we feel angry, stressed, or anxious when something does not work out the way we thought or believed it should.

For example: You believe that all people should be honest, so when someone lies to you, you get very angry and worked up.

Here are some more examples of how beliefs create expectations:

People have died in cars so cars are dangerous (belief) = People should drive courteously (expectation)

Children cause you trouble when they are not controlled = children should be controlled,

Men work hard all day and women do nothing = the woman must make dinner and do the dishes,

I do my job properly so other people better do theirs properly = the mail must get here in time.

This is how beliefs become little “buttons” that can be pushed to send you over the edge and once people catch on to what your buttons are, they will push them continuously just to get a reaction from you and subconsciously have power over you. If you refuse to let them push your buttons or rather not to react to it, they loose that power over you.

For example: Last time the children didn’t pick up their toys, you tripped and hurt your foot. Now you see toys all over the floor and you start screaming at the children to pick them up because you are scared that you might trip over them again. The kids know this is your button and will keep pushing it.

After all the influences and teachings from your parents, religion, school, friends, society, life experiences, etc., you have created so many filters that by the end of all this subconscious programming you are viewing the world though your very own set of coloured lenses, covered in grime and dirt, creating a warped perception of the world and how it works.

The first step to becoming “the real you” is to clean the windows you observe the world through. If they are covered with dirt, you cannot see clearly and get a distorted picture. Everybody sees the world differently depending on what they have experienced, what they have learned to be true for them, how they feel and what they have decided about how the world works.

A computer can only do so much

The problem is that this program inside our heads that runs our lives is incomplete but we have been given the amazing ability to override it when needed. As with any other computer program, it can only do so much and once there are too many variables it becomes confused or outdated. The survival program in your subconscious mind is built exactly for that…survival, but it cannot filter every situation that life (which has millions of variables) throws at us so the belief or “sum” it throws out when presented with a situation is not always appropriate or accurate resulting in a false output. This false output of triggers then makes you act in a situation as if they were true which can cause what we know as an overreaction. This is where it needs to be overridden. 

Have you ever over reacted and realised it afterwards or maybe even during the overreaction but you had no idea why you were doing it or why this situation bothered you so much?

By getting rid of our old filters, conditioning, mental and emotional baggage, negative / limiting beliefs, inner conflicts and out-dated programs it expands our consciousness and awareness, allowing is to create a new life that we want.

You are not the computer program

Now, it important to realise that the program in your subconscious mind is not you. Yes, it is a part of you and determines a great deal of how you experience the world but it is not the “you” part of you. It is like a little traffic controller man in your brain but it has a boss and that boss is the “you” part of you. It thinks it is in charge but it can be over ridden if you have the correct passwords, which we are going to teach you. It is time to stop running on auto pilot and to put things back on manual so that you can steer your life in the direction you want.

By analysing your thoughts and emotions, you can identify your negative and limiting beliefs and replace them with more empowering beliefs and by changing your beliefs about what is and what is not possible, you can literally change your reality and can choose your experiences.

Even though it is inevitable to build beliefs throughout our lives, we must be aware of them and be careful not to let them restrict or limit us. It has become so normal and accepted in our society to live like this but always remember that just because restricting ourselves with rigid beliefs and mind sets is considered to be normal, does not mean it is beneficial or healthy in any way. The more rigid your beliefs become and the more there are of them, the more likely it will be that you will be living from outburst to outburst. Your blood pressure goes up and your nervous system is a wreck. You will start feeling like a walking time bomb.

If your buttons are an explosion waiting to happen you can never be happy because your happiness is always conditional – you can only be happy if life goes the way you believe or expect it to go. This allows your beliefs to have total control over you. When something “goes wrong” (according to your beliefs), you might think, “I have every right to be angry” and blame it on external circumstances. But, by thinking this, you are giving the narrow-minded part of yourself free reign to disempower you further and prevent you from moving on.

When you have so many buttons that other people become weary of you, it inhibits anyone from being themselves around you and prevents you from truly ever knowing someone and having a close relationship. This is just another way of protecting yourself. Some people believe so strongly that people will hurt them that subconsciously they will set people up to disappoint or hurt them just so that they can hold onto that belief!

A belief creates an opinion and opinions always need to be justified. There is a need to defend them. Remember that opinions are just based on a belief. Opinions always have an opposite, which can be justified just as much as yours can.

It’s not what we don’t know, that is holding us back, but rather what we think we do know, that does.

You may be asking, “Ok, so what can I do about it?”

Firstly, just be conscious of it. The more you become conscious of it, the more you will start realizing that when something “goes wrong” you are just triggered by a belief.

If someone irritates or makes you angry in some way, look at what they do that makes you feel that way. Then look at why that bothers you so much. It is normally something that you expect them to do or not to do because of your own beliefs. If someone is selfish and demands the world to revolve around him it may bother you because you would never do that. You may even be jealous that they have life so easy and you always have to work so hard for everything you want. Let it go and see it as their way of learning the lessons they need to learn in life.

Don’t allow anyone to dictate your mood. That is letting them create your reality.

When you stop living according to the restrictions you have created for yourself, your beliefs will start disproving themselves and you won’t get so involved in the situation anymore. So for example: When your husband does not take out the trash, you will not start screaming at him. You will realize that you are just upset because you believed that he should and he didn’t, so now you are disappointed. You will instead ask him nicely if he would be so kind as to take the trash out. Now don’t expect him to say yes because of your belief that if you ask someone nicely they must do it! Always remember that it has nothing to do with what the other person has or hasn’t done. It has everything to do with your belief of what they should or should not have done!

Another thing to be really careful of is not to replace exploding with imploding and suppressing the emotions. The trick is to not let things get to you, not to hide the fact that they are getting to you. Embrace life rather than resist it. If your belief systems define who you are but they are running you down, why hold on to them. Let them go! We all make the mistake of blaming our lack of joy on the missing ingredients and the things we cannot change. This is a sure way of setting ourselves up for disappointment and constantly experiencing unhappiness. When our perspectives change, our environment will automatically change with it and happiness is an automatic by product.

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