Dissolving Self-Limiting Beliefs

I once had a yoga teacher who would tell us that she loved her mind. That her mind was her friend and that her mind could do amazing things.

I remember sitting there and thinking my mind was more like a screaming pit of demons.

I still have doubts that I will ever be able to say the same as her in regards to my mind, but regardless, for many years I have practiced moving towards cultivating a more calm and peaceful mind by any means necessary.

Numbing helps for a minute. I have successfully learned to binge social media, TV, alcohol, and food and forget all about those thoughts for a bit, until they are right back and even more vocal and vicious when I try to fall asleep.

I tried a meditation practice, but I am convinced that meditation was more effective in a different time and place, like maybe it worked in a cave thousands of years ago. But not for me, not now.

One year on retreat I was led to a book called Loving What Is by Byron Katie. I bought it and read the first chapter or so after which time I set it on my bookshelf to collect dust. I do remember her using some inquiry questions about thoughts and calling it, doing “the work.” Seemed tedious and well sort of painful.

Years later when reading The Way of Integrity by Martha Beck, I was re-exposed to Katie’s thought inquiry process and I took it much more seriously this time only because ten years of procrastinating had taken its toll.

It's not letting my thoughts float by or numbing that gives me peace of mind but confronting, feeling through, and actively doubting my TROUBLING thoughts that helps me to dissolve them!

Let's choose a relevant topic for us questioning educators to practice this inquiry process with.

Imagine you get up on a stage and tell an audience of people the following:

My body, my relationships, and my emotions are in rough shape as a result of my role in education. I am forming dangerously bad habits trying to cope. I am ready to make a big change in my career to start to feel better.

Look around and listen to that audience respond.

Are any of your family members in that crowd? What are they saying about you and your idea? I am willing to bet that you hear people you love drumming up some legitimate survival fears. What are those fears?

Do you hear any coworkers or bosses? What's their sentiment? What do they say you stand to lose here? Is there any shaming?

Who else is there and what are they saying?

Take a moment to journal what you are “hearing.”

If you have completed that activity you have some real “good” torturing thoughts to practice “the work” on. Lucky you.

Rest in comfort knowing that we all have similar variations on the same terrifying thoughts. See if thoughts like,” I can't afford to leave education,” and “If I leave, I will lose people and things”, and “I don’t know how to do anything else,” or “I can't just do what I love,” ring a bell.

The reason there are such striking similarities in our hell thoughts is that we were all raised in a similar culture- one based in colonialism, patriarchy, and capitalism if we are getting real.

Knowing where these eerily similar thoughts come from is less important though than knowing how to dissolve and scrub them away from your beautiful mind.

So I am going to model how to use Byron Katie’s six-step inquiry process, with Martha Beck’s and my own explanations to debunk the thought,“ I can’t leave education.” After seeing the model, give the process a shot on another false belief.

Step 1: Ask yourself, are you sure?

This question helps draw out even more of your subconscious fears. Am I sure I can't leave education? Of course I'm sure! How would I support myself? What about my summers off? How could I waste all those years of college? You can then run any of those thoughts through the same process.

Step 2: Ask yourself, are you absolutely sure?

Martha Beck likes to refer to the enlightenment thinker Immanuel Kant here, and his philosophy that it is absolutely true that nothing is ever absolutely true. Go with it. The idea here is to just create a tiny bit of space away from your thought. So, is it true that you

technically can't leave education?

Step 3: Ask yourself, how does the thought make me feel in my body?

This is my favorite step. When you think, “I can't leave,” how do you feel in your body? Do you tense up? Check around your jaw, do your shoulders rise to your ears? What else do you feel? Remember a relaxation response happens when we tell the truth and a contraction response with a false belief,

Step 4: Ask yourself, who would I be without that thought?

What types of things would you do? What risks would you take? What possibilities can you imagine and how would you feel if you tapped into them? Do you feel a sense of freedom here?

Step 5: Turn the thought into its opposite.

Simple, I can leave education.

Step 6: List three pieces of evidence that the opposite thought, “ I can leave education,” is at least or more true, than the original.

• My friend left and she doesn't regret it.

• My skills make me very marketable to many other career paths.
  

• I have a supportive family.

Now you try, what other self-limiting beliefs came up in the journaling or Step 1 of the inquiry process? Write them out so as to be “doing the work” and then notice when you least expect it, how courageous and empowered you’ve become, how that old thought no longer has the same power over you.

Remember this is a practice, which by nature means it takes time and effort. We practice better together as human beings. Commit to exploring your thoughts with us this winter in our online book club around the book, The Way of Integrity by Martha Beck.