Limiting Beleifs

Sharing with you learning on Energy Psychology application (Dec, 2009).

Limiting beliefs, or more generally, negative thought, can do a lot of harm to individuals / organizations.

When such thought is obvious, we can more easily understand its negative consequences. e.g. "The world is a DANGEROUS place" may cause one to withdraw and dis-connect from all things and people.

The difficulty about Limiting Belief is that it is subtle, not obvious to the person concerned. And such belief acts as a driver in action, behavior and more action and more such behavior - a vicious circle.

It is embedded in the subconscious, hence not in the full awareness of the person or organization.

Hence year after year, the person / organization action and behavior is governed by such belief.

The danger of Limiting Belief becomes obvious in an Energy Psychology case of a cancer patient.

During Energy Psychology coaching session, a pattern emerged from the person that he has been governed by such limiting belief throughout the major part of his life - especially the difficult and negative past experience that formulated or reinforced such limiting belief.

The belief system goes like this ....

"Life is hard. I must struggle very hard to put in my best effort. I need to have strong will and determination to succeed. And I EXPECT good outcome. Rightly so, since I put in all my heart and soul. Failing which (with negative outcome) I feel very dis-appointed and frustrated."

In the above belief system, the person may use all his bull force, energy, concentration to struggle hard with determination on something to achieve or accomplish (e.g. career, business, resolving health issues) – such effort itself is already draining off a lot of energy if it is not done with calmness and peace, and such depletion of energy will cause stress, and other negative emotions, or sickness or invite diseases.

And with full expectation for the positive outcome / results, it creates enormous pressure to oneself.

When the result is not positive as expected, more energy is depleted with dis-appointment and frustration.

This is a sure recipe for trouble – sickness, disease, or even worsened performance and results for individuals / organization. (i.e. with collective limiting beliefs at play)

This is also an example how so called Positive Thinking is used wrongly, as it becomes counter-productive.

In Energy Psychology, we help the person / organization to reverse or balance the limiting belief, after helping to make clear identification of it, and its consequences. We do not use Will Power, as we do not speak to "rational mind", but approach at the level of the energy field.

We help to install a new belief system, e.g.

I can choose to believe

"I put in my best effort with calmness and peace and leave the outcome to the Divine, always with gratitude to whatever the outcome turns up to be."

I met several cases of patients (cancer or serious sickness) who could not let go, spending all their energy (money, efforts) to find the BEST treatment to fight the disease, not accepting things as they are. They make life more difficult to live for themselves and those around them.