Limiting beliefs are as old as the mountains. Almost every human being harbours a limiting belief at some point in their life.
Celestine Chua, in her blog “7 Limiting beliefs keeping you from living your best life” explains how a a strange limiting belief featured in the middle ages. She says that during the late Medieval period, around the 15th century, a weird psychiatric disorder swept through Europe. Many people believed that they were made of glass. They believed that they would shatter into pieces with even the slightest of contact. This order was later named the “Glass delusion” and was duly recorded in the research journal History of Psychiatry.
It is said that people took great care to change their lifestyle habits. They adjusted their behaviors, and even avoided human contact so that they won’t get “shattered.”
Now, most of you will probably find this glass belief stupid. We obviously know that humans aren’t made of glass. After all, we are in physical contact with people every day — from brushing shoulders on the streets, to shaking hands, to hugging — and we certainly don’t see anyone exploding into smithereens on the street! It would seem silly that people would modify their life over such an irrational and misguided fear.
However, this belief was very real to the European people then. We know the glass belief is false today. Nonetheless, have you ever wondered if you are carrying beliefs that are actually self-limiting — if not false — and are preventing you from living a great life?
The limiting beliefs we live with everyday:
Consider these seemingly benign statements that we say to ourselves on a daily basis:
“You must not tell the truth because you may get judged…”
“I don’t want to get close to this person lest my heart gets broken…”
“I refuse want to ask for what I want because, what if I get rejected?”
“You can’t trust people because you have been betrayed before…”
“I dare not pursue my dreams because I don’t know what I’d do if I fail…”
“They can’t do X because of Y…
“I can’t do A because of B…”
These statements are limiting beliefs that creep into our lives without even being noticed.
The only difference between us and the Medieval Europeans is that their belief was centered around physical contact, while our beliefs are centered around our emotions, relationships, and dreams. Deep down, we’re afraid that once our emotions get hurt, once we experience a heartbreak, or once we face a setback… we’ll shatter and die.
It does not have to be this way! One can change limiting beliefs. It does not have to take years of lots of effort. All it takes is a decision to change. That is what I did! I just wrote down the beliefs that I wanted to change, replaced them with what I would rather want to believe and decided to believe those.
But for many it is not that easy to do it by yourself. Great news! There are people who can help you identify the beliefs that is limiting your progress. They are trained to help you change them into workable beliefs with a process called Psych-K.