How to Overcome Fear and Limiting Beliefs

Fear is an emotional response to an impending threat or danger.  It is one of our most basic responses.  Most of the fears that we experience today in our society are imagined. We experience the fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of success.  All kinds of fears – many of which are attached to our belief systems.   

Photo courtesy of ia7mad

I used to have a fear of going to the movies by myself.  While I longed to go to the movies, I refused to go alone.  I had a fear of being molested by a man wearing a beige raincoat that was cinched at the waist.  This was something that I had heard as a child and added to my belief system.  How ridiculous!  However, as I grew older I realized that I had this fear of going alone, but I could not remember why.  It wasn’t until I accepted that I was afraid that I was able to see what my fear was, where it came from, and how it came to be. My older brother used to take me to the movies when I was younger and in order to keep us in line he would tell us about the old man in the beige coat that would take us away and do awful things to us. What I realized was that I had internalized a lot of that story and it followed me for years.  I was 30 years old when I finally went to the movies by myself.  Yep, 30 years old.  Some people might say that’s crazy. However, in my mind I was still young and very afraid. Consequently, that was what my limiting belief looked like.  It was an old condition that kept me from succeeding and going to the movies by myself.   
 
Limiting beliefs interfere with many aspects of our lives.  There are all kinds of limiting beliefs that stop us from succeeding. Fear of Failure is a huge limiting belief.  I recently had the opportunity to meet a woman who was raised middle class, but because of her experience attending a school with children who were not middle class, she developed the limiting belief of not deserving. Because her friends did not have, she stopped asking her parents for the things she wanted. She did not want to feel like a show off because of her nice clothes and her toys and gadgets.  If she did get something she used it at home and refused to wear clothes that were better than her peers.   

Fast forward into adulthood. Her limiting belief manifested into not having made enough money to live on.  She always squeaked by with just enough money for her basic needs, but never enough for extras.  As a result of her limiting belief, she has never developed the confidence to ask for the salary that she wanted and conditioned herself to not have any idea about the amount money she wants to make.  So she lives in a world of not enough and not deserving.   

Photo courtsey of _Blippo_

Limiting beliefs can show up in lots of different ways and if the limiting belief is something that you developed as a child. It grows up with you into an adult-sized limiting belief system. In order to succeed and clear your limiting beliefs, you have to submerge and focus your mind with positive thoughts.  You have to starting creating the reality you want.  You cannot for one moment allow old limiting beliefs to enter your mind and re-root themselves.  It takes effort, courage and knowing in your gut that limiting beliefs can be overcome. 

Make time for happiness

A good portion of women are too busy making themselves busy so they don’t have a minute to look at the true picture of their life.  They are too busy to call a friend or too busy to return a call.  They are too busy to be the yes that they said they’d be.  What is all this busy-ness?  We have a ton of technology available to us at the drop of a dime.  Literally a drop of a dime and yet we are way too busy.  Now the with cellphones less than half a yard away from your elbow inside your bag or pocket it remains impossible to return a simple call, to a client, a potential suitor, a doctor anybody.

Two happy girls

Well, you don’t understand, I am really busy.  How busy can you be?  Are you running a small country?  What is it that you are doing in your life that has you so busy that nothing has changed in the last 3 years? I have a running conversation with clients that say to me that they are too busy to do something that they say is important to them.  Important things like their friends, their health and wellbeing.  They want to date, fix their finances or change something in their life.  Well, what I say is you are not running a city or a small country.  For instance look at Rudy Guilliani, the mayor of New York City 1994-2001. Here was a man that was busy, running NYC, visiting other states and countries and still he still found time to have a wife and then cheat on her.  Now that’s busy.  If you not running a small city, visiting other countries having a marriage and an extra marital affair, you’re not that busy. Come on!

What’s really going on is that you do not have a system to manage yourself, and you do not have a relationship with your word.  How do I know this?  Well, I know this because when the conversation comes up about you being unavailable, not following up on your promises, and not being your word, then you get triggered.  You shut down become resigned.  Some of you might even become angry.  This is not a judgment; it is something that I have experienced.

If all the things that you say you would love to have or experience are really that important to you, then it is important that you carve out time for yourself.  There is more than enough time in the day to handle what it is that you say that you desire.  The first question to ask yourself is: Am I happy?  What’s happiness got to do with time? What has happiness go to do with anything?  Well, I have come to understand that people that are happy with themselves desire to remain happy.  They share.  They are often times enjoying the work that they have chosen for themselves.  They are busy, but they are organized.  It is this kind of happiness that is important to them.  They do not want anything to interfere with their happiness.  So they make the time to do the things that is important to them and schedule time to handle all the other things.  They are happy and they want to share it with friends so they create time to talk with friends.  They are not interested in getting sick so they will create time to go to the doctor and keep a handle on their wellbeing.  They have created structure to keep on doing the thing that they enjoy doing.

 

 

 

Happiness is something that one can do for oneself. However, it is something that is better shared with another.  When you are happy in your life you become aware of whom you are.  So if you desire a deep relationship with another person, it’s important that you become aware of yourself.

The comments above are not here to make you feel wrong or written as a judgment.  I have written them as a way to have you look inside and understand that sometimes you are not aware of what you’re doing or how it impacts your life and the lives of the people you say are important to you.  It is important to see them so that you can realize how important it is to learn to concentrate and focus your mind where you choose.  You can elevate your thinking and your choices to a higher ideal rather than just merely having a view or no view at all and remain stuck thinking that your business is real and you have no time.   Then when people say that you are not managing your time or you wasted their time being busy, you don’t find yourself feeling attacked or defending yourself.

It is as though you are too afraid to take a minute to just sit down and smell the roses.  Many  women have discovered the age old art of making themselves wrong so they have something to distract them from just taking a minute to sit down and reflect.  Happiness appears as this elusive thing they are searching for.  Some are looking for it in the arms of the next lover before completing with the last one.  Some are looking for it at the end of the credit card in the next pair of designer shoes.  This is not a judgment.

What I do know is that a lot of woman are really craving, desiring and would like to have the kind of happiness that just makes you heart sing.  The kind of happiness that you feel when you are taking time out to do something that you really enjoy doing, that ignites your passion and get your juices flowing.  No ladies, not that kind.  At least not at this moment;  I mean the kind of passion that I experience when I am riding my bike and the wind is whipping around my helmet and I see life’s pleasures like a flower that had just broken through the earth.

 

 

How to Feel More Secure

Security exists internally.  Most people look for security as an external experience.  They think it is either something or someone in the world that can give security to them and that makes them feel secure.  No one or nothing can make you feel secure.  Security is something that you give to yourself first.  Like most things, if you cannot give it to yourself then no one can give it to you.  Nothing or no one can give you the security you are looking for, so if you are seeking it in a boyfriend, girlfriend, marriage, money, none of these things can make you feel secure until you feel internally secure.

 

Image of Woman typing on computer

 

Security, acknowledgement, and praise are all individual personal feelings.  One of the only ways you can ever feel secure is by giving security to yourself. The love that you need, a sense of belonging, a feeling of safety in your world, being able to self-validate, acknowledging yourself and recognizing your own accomplishments are the gifts that you give yourself.  Ultimately only you can fill your needs.

 

Security is a sense of having something in your life that calls you, that is bigger than you are it pulls you, your attracted to it.  When you are secure in your life the petty upsets are small in comparison to what  you’re up to.  When you are secure you have projects, you are growing and you are not looking outside of yourself for love.  You don’t have unattainable rules in place to give you a sense of security.  You are busy loving you and loving another in that order. You are not looking for the person to love you.  You’re not looking for the person to call you to check in, or you are not waiting to hear the words I love you.  You are being I love you- it becomes your natural way of being and your experience of love lives freely.  That kind of love is not a demand that is practiced in a specific way of so many calls a week, so many hugs, keeping score of how many times the person says I love you. The bickering about who always says what first.   That kind of love is not secure and has no space for freedom in it and the joy is sucked out of the love in a way that causes insecurity and you can become shut down or anxiety driven.

 

Woman looking out window

 

When you are secure you have an experience of growth and expansion in your life.  Your view of the world is a bigger place and the feel of the universe is abundant you feel known. When you feel secure you are open, you share yourself abundantly, you are willing to take risks and you experience an opportunity to be who you really are.

 

Many people are on a mission to keep their world safe by not speaking up for themselves, or no speaking at all.  Feeling like they cannot trust anyone and always living in a space of fear.  Consequently, when you live in a space of fear your world gets smaller and you experience even more insecurity.  However, when you face your fears your world expands and you feel stronger and secure in other areas of your life and you discover that you true feeling of security exists when you can meet your own needs without being a demand for security from others.  Give yourself a life filled with happiness where security is your own responsibility and what comes from others is a blessing that is received with gratitude.