To uncover a limiting belief, all you need to do is to look at an area of
your life that is not working for you. Contrary to popular belief, the
circumstances of our lives are a direct reflection of our inner world. Our
beliefs absolutely create our reality. Now at first glance you may think
this is really bad news. You may be thinking that not only do you have
areas in your life that you find challenging, but now you are being told
that it’s your fault! Well, please keep reading because this is actually
very good news. It is not about blame but rather about responsibility.
Think about it this way. If you can take responsibility for the
circumstances of your life (or how you view them) then that means you
have complete control over your experience from moment to moment.
How empowering is that?
What is a belief?
A belief is a personal truth. An idea we have formed about the world
around us that has become a certainty. These beliefs colour and even
create our day to day experience. Just to give you an example of the
profound effect a belief can have on your life, just imagine you are a
woman and you believe all men are liars and cheats. How would this
impact on any romantic relationship you had? Would you be able to
create a close and loving relationship with a man? It’s very doubtful isn’t
it?
Why is a belief so powerful?
To answer this question we must look at the mind and how it works. We
have two minds, our conscious mind and our unconscious mind. The
conscious mind is obviously the mind we are aware of. It is our
conscious awareness. Our unconscious mind is exactly that. It is the part
of our mind that we are unaware of, however, the unconscious mind is a
very powerful driving force. If you think for a moment about learning a
new skill like driving. At first it feels really difficult to do. You have to
remember to look at the road signs, watch out for other vehicles, change
gear at the appropriate time etc. This, at first, seems very confusing and
overwhelming to the learner driver. However, over time and with
practice (repetition) it becomes easier. You no longer have to
consciously think about changing gear, or looking in your mirror. It just
happens automatically. This is because through repetition, the
unconscious mind has learned to take over the role of driving, leaving
your conscious mind free to deal with other items of importance. Your
conscious mind is only capable of dealing with between 7 and 9 items at
any one time, which is why we hand over as much material as possible to
our unconscious mind to deal with. Our unconscious mind is huge and
has recorded in it every detail of every event we have experienced in our
lives. It uses these events, or rather, our interpretation of these events to
keep us safe. The unconscious mind cannot determine right from wrong
and cannot determine a real event from an imagined event. It is like a
giant recorder. It records events together with our interpretation of those
events then treats our interpretation as the truth. This is a very important
fact, which we need to understand when we are dealing with any human
behaviour. It is great when our unconscious mind is fully aligned with
our conscious intent, but when we consciously wish to create more
fulfilling and positive life experiences and our unconscious mind has
previous recordings that go against our current desires, we are driven to
keep experiencing the same life challenges but we can’t understand why.
The good news is, you can uncover and change any unconscious
programming that is stopping you from achieving your goals. Now,
looking again at how these parts of our mind work. The unconscious
mind believes what the conscious mind tells it without question. The
more times the unconscious mind is told something, the more rigid it
becomes in its interpretation. Also, from the information the unconscious
mind receives from the conscious mind, it determines what information is
important to bring to our conscious awareness. If you think about it, we
are constantly bombarded with information in any given moment. There
may be people talking to us, we may be surrounded by furniture or street
signs. There are huge amounts of sensory stimuli, what we see, smell, feel
and hear. In any given moment we are surrounded by about one million
pieces of information, but most of it is of no relevance. Because we
couldn’t cope with this amount of information in each and every moment,
the unconscious mind deletes all the information it deems to be
unimportant. This protects us from going into complete meltdown.
How does the unconscious mind know what is important to us?
This is the crux of the matter. The unconscious mind chooses what to
bring to our conscious awareness from the information it has been given
from the conscious mind in the past. This is where our power to change
lies. Imagine that you believe once again that all men are liars
and cheats. Your unconscious mind would then delete any and all
information to the contrary, so any information that would challenge that
belief would never reach your conscious awareness. From this you
will see that through your belief that all men are liars and cheats, you
have created a world where all men are in fact liars and cheats. In order
to make positive change in your life, you must be prepared to challenge
each and every belief you have that does not serve your best interests.
How do you change a belief?
First you must uncover the beliefs that are keeping you stuck. To do this,
look at any area of your life that is not working perfectly. Lets say for
example you constantly work long hours and this has an impact on your
social life and relationships. What is the belief that drives that
behaviour? Do you believe you have to work hard for a living? Or do
you believe you have to work hard to gain other peoples approval? Once
you uncover the belief/s that are not creating the life you want, you can
start changing them. This may feel uncomfortable at first because to you,
your beliefs are true. This is why you need to open your mind and
challenge them. The best way to do this is to look at your limiting belief
and think of its opposite. So if you think you have to work hard for a
living, you could say to yourself ‘I find work easy and enjoyable’. You
may wonder how this will change your belief. Remember our
unconscious mind believes everything the conscious mind tells it,
especially with repetition. So, if you keep repeating this statement to
yourself, your unconscious mind will start bringing to your attention
anything that supports this new belief thereby slowly reinforcing it until
that becomes your reality. To further quicken and reinforce this process,
you can imagine in detail what it would be like to find work easy and
enjoyable. Imagine what your day would be like, how great it would feel,
what kind of things would you be doing? Imagine all the energy you
would have. This is a great way of creating the life you want because
your unconscious mind cannot determine what is real or imagined, so if
you imagine your life to be just the way you want it, your unconscious
mind will, I guarantee you, support you fully on your journey to create
the life of your dreams. Try it and see.
Sara specialises in facilitating positive change. She is passionate about finding ways to initiate and assist the process of change as quickly and painlessly as possible, eliminating the physical, emotional and behavioural obstacles that stop us living the best life we can.
Often people find it difficult to change either because they don’t know how, or, they know how (they know what they ‘should’ be doing) but seem to be powerless to stop or alter their behaviour or emotional responses. Either way, Sara’s diverse therapeutic training allows her to tailor each session and solution to meet the unique needs of each client.
Prior to training as a Homeopath and Mind Therapist, Sara ran a business in the position of Finance Director. It was her own dissatisfaction with what would appear to the outside world to be a charmed life, that led Sara on her own journey of self discovery that ultimately changed her life in almost every area. It was this experience that prompted her to study the fascinating subject of change and to look for a variety of ways to facilitate change as quickly and painlessly as possible. Often our desire to change is suppressed because we are taught that change is hard, painful and takes time. This does not have to be the case. All change can take place in an instant.
Sara’s thirst for knowledge in this area has given her the opportunity to train with some of the best Therapists in the world. She trained in NLP with Richard Bandler and Paul McKenna, Meridian Therapies and Clinical Hypnosis with Alistair Horscroft, Life Coaching Mastery with Michael Neill, and more recently became a certified Personal Trainer using Benjamin Fry's Psychological Coaching method on BBC1's Spendaholics. She also has a diploma in Therapeutic Counselling and is a Homeopath who adheres to the professional code of ethics of The Society of Homeopaths.