Lies and limiting beliefs can hold us back, especially if we are not conscious of them. We can break free to greater success by taking 3 important steps.

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On This Episode

Rhythm of Life – The Saga of My Lost Access Card aka Panic Never Solved Anything
Tune-up Tip – Artificial Sweeteners: The Gift That Keeps On Giving
Random Riffs – Who are Boubu and Kiki?
Feature Segment –What’s Holding You Back? Lies and Limiting Beliefs

Rhythm of Life – The Saga of My Lost Access Card -or- Panic Never Solved Anything

A few weeks ago, a “misplacement” of my office access card turned into an event I’d rather not have to repeat.  From searching for my badge, to the hassle of trying to get into the building without it, to complete stress and panic for the work meetings I was missing as a result.

A few days later, I came across my “lost” access card behind the passenger seat of my car.  I couldn’t believe it had been there all along.  In my panic of looking for it, I clearly didn’t really see.   Why?  Because panic prevents clear and creative thinking.  And clear and creative thinking is what we need to solve problems.

So the story of my lost access card is a reminder to me, and you, that stress and panic never solved anything.  Or if it did, not in a best way.  Repeat after me:  A calm mind leads to clear thinking.

Tune-Up Tip – Artificial Sweeteners: The Gift That Keeps On Giving

During this holiday season, I’d like to talk about gift giving, but gifts we don’t really want: artificial sweeteners.

For years, artificial sweeteners have been consumed to get a sweet taste without calories or the negative effects of sugar.  But not so fast.  Studies have shown that some other gifts come along for the ride.

Gift 1 – Diabetes

Artificial sweeteners can change the bacterial mix in the gut which can lead to impaired glucose tolerance which eventually leads to diabetes.

How to counter:

1. Drink water instead of diet drinks
2. Drink coffee or tea without any sweetener, or a very small amount of a natural sweetener, like honey or raw sugar.

Gift 2 – Weight Gain

People may subconsciously offset the benefits by eating other junk food, thereby not reducing calories at all.  These sweeter foods may also “ruin” our taste for less-sweet foods, particularly natural, whole foods like fruit.  We begin to crave more sweets and eat more.

Gift 3 – Addiction

Studies show that these sweeteners can to be addictive too.

If you’re hooked on sweeteners, it might take a while to wean yourself off.  Real food might not taste that great in the beginning.  But making the change will be a great gift you can give yourself.

Random Riffs – Who Are Boubu and Kiki?

The words might sound familiar, but can you place them?  No, because they are nonsense words.  They are used by linguists to study how meaning, via vowels and consonants, is conveyed across different languages.

Studies found that consonants really mattered in how words were interpreted.  Certain consonants were associated with round shapes, and others with spiky shapes.  I don’t  know why this response, but the conclusion is that vowels are there to make it possible to speak words aloud.  Consonants are what convey the actual meaning of the words.

Think about what words you could invent with only consonants.  Here are some common ones:

Hmmmm; Grrrrrr; Zzzzzzz; Bzzzzz; Brrrrr  – all pretty clear what they mean

What words can you come up with that only use consonants?  Post a comment below or on my Facebook page.

Feature Segment – What’s Holding You Back?  Lies and Limiting Beliefs

In Episode 030, we talked about the voices in your head – negative or critical voices.  Those voices can make us uncertain, cause us to fear, and even make us miserable.  They can hold us back.

But there’s something more, something even deeper, that can have an even greater hold on us.  Lies and limiting beliefs.

These tend to be even deeper below the surface.  They don’t necessarily cause an emotional reaction, or at least one we would recognize.  Lies and limiting beliefs come out in even more subtle ways.

Limiting beliefs may start the same way as negative thoughts, but the difference is it gets at the core of who we are.  If we believe at our core that we are seriously flawed, we will never reach beyond where we are.  If we believe that change is impossible, no matter how much we say out loud that change is possible, it won’t happen.  Unless we recognize that our thinking is flawed.

The lies are dangerous. They are so deep that we can’t see or hear them.  We don’t know they are there, but they nourish our limiting beliefs.

Dr. Gay Hendricks, a psychologist and executive coach, talks about this in his book “The Big Leap”, saying that we all have an inner gauge that determines how much love, success, and creativity we’ll ourselves to enjoy.  When that inner setting is exceeded, we employ sabotage to bring ourselves back into the old, familiar zone where we feel secure.

Other groups don’t even see that anything better or different is possible in their lives.  Shawn Achor speaks about this in his book, “Before Happiness”.  The only way to change this is to fundamentally change your reality; the lens through which your world is viewed.

That’s the power of limiting beliefs.  They – limit us.  Limit our ability to take action.  And sometimes even limit our belief that positive change is even possible.

But the great news is, just as limiting beliefs have power to limit us, their power has limits.  We can cultivate stronger beliefs to overcome these limits.  But it’s not a one-time fix.  It’s a learned practice of techniques:

Step 1 – State that positive change is possible. Speak your truth out loud.

Step 2 – Surface the Lies and Limiting Beliefs – whether thru journaling, or singing, or speaking out loud

Step 3 – Counteract them – speak the opposite truth; work toward emotional freedom; pray

I leave you with a quote by Tony Robbins that sums this up.

“Beliefs have the power to create and the power to destroy. Human beings have the awesome ability to take any experience of their lives and create a meaning that disempowers them or one that can literally save their lives.”

Now it’s time for you to take some action in your own life.  Inventory what limiting beliefs and lies you have in your life, and how they are skewing your truth and holding you back.  Then practice the three steps to set yourself on a path to counteract.

Don’t limit yourself.  Life has enough limits of its own.  The truth will set you free.

Share this post with a friend by using one of the Social Media or email buttons.  Talk together about how you can hurdle over limiting beliefs.