Changing limiting beliefs with NLP

Beyond Belief – doing away with limiting beliefs using NLP

Do you recognise any of the following:

“I need to make others happy before myself”
“I can’t be truly happy until he/she changes”
“I shouldn’t put my needs before others”
“I don’t deserve money, happiness, peace”
“I don’t deserve love; I am unlovable”

These “Limiting beliefs” can run very deep….and also be a very powerful way of staying stuck in the same situations that may or may not bring about a lot of emotional pain and suffering.

These messages or internal rules are ones that we have formulated from a number of external sources. This could be from family, friends, teachers and also from a generalised society that we mix in and choose to part of.

They can act to reinforce deeply buried “messages” of not being good enough and that if we act in a certain way then the end result is a dead cert and without room for other options to appear.

This is all well and good if these beliefs serve us well. If however they stop you living your dreams and reaching your full potential then it would be great to be able to able to change these to get a different result and one that may well be a stepping stone into a place of achieving your goals and stepping out beyond your comfort zone.

It doesn’t stop there. As well as the limiting belief being held in its own right we can also act in ways that reinforce these thoughts – in sync with how we feel about ourselves. The way we interact with others can be a true indication of how we feel about ourselves.

NLP – making changes and moving forward

So what can you do?

If something isn’t working for us, what can we do in order to change this and move forwards? The first step is to recognise that we are limiting ourselves according to our held beliefs. Not only this but:

Where did this belief come from?
How are we hearing the words “I don’t deserve love etc…”?
Whose voice is it that you are hearing?
What age were you when this first happened?
Are there others involved?
What was the positive purpose of the held message in the first place?

Could it be that you have absorbed someone else’s beliefs and that in fact they are not your own but you have merely “borrowed” them?

NLP methods – Museum of Old Beliefs

In this very powerful exercise using NLP techniques and visualisation we can examine what the held belief is and how it can influence you now.

The powerful side of this is working with the assumption and premise that these beliefs can be changed.

1. Can you recognise that you have a limiting belief? Do you recognise that it could be influencing your behaviour? If you could, how would you describe this? Is it true? What do you “believe” is true about this?

2. Can you see that this held belief, could actually be untrue? Do you have evidence that goes against this limiting belief? Have you always held the same beliefs? At what point did you change these? Have you seen other people change? Do you believe YOU can change?

3. It may be that this OLD belief once served you, but now you no longer feel comfortable with this OLD belief. However you will not throw it away but rather you might want to put in into a Museum of Old Beliefs that you can visit when you want but will not be part of your life any more. It is good to honour the belief for the once important part that it played in your life IN THE PAST.. What other beliefs did you once have that you no longer want or have – would you like to put these into the Museum also?

At this stage it is very useful to really make the experience come alive. Really to use imagination to create the space in the Museum – Such things as shapes, colours, textures, smells, anything that can be “created to honour the Old Belief.

It is also very useful to have it contained in some way – for example within a display cabinet or picture frame.

CHANGING THE BELIEF

4. What belief would serve you better at this point in your life? How would you state that within a sentence?

5. Do you sense that this NEW belief could be true? Are you open to believing something different from your old belief? Are you ready to embrace a NEW belief? Think of a time when you were open to a NEW belief, you may not have totally accepted it at the time but you were open to a new possibility.

6. What are your most dearly held beliefs? What would your life be like if you held this NEW belief in the same way?

DO YOU BELIEVE YOU CAN CHANGE?

Have you “always” believed in Father Christmas?
Do you believe in the Tooth Fairy any more?

YOUR BELIEFS SET THE LIMIT ON WHAT YOU CAN ACHIEVE