Each of us sees the world through unique lens and that’s why we all have varied perception of reality.

Limiting beliefs are based on our past experiences, social conditioning, family habits or painful memories that override positive experiences. Usually limiting beliefs run inside us when we interact with others. Limiting beliefs can be very loud in our head altering the conversation, emotions and choices we make.

What took me a very long time to understand and manage is my thought process. Our thoughts have a direct impact on our emotions because thoughts are based on memories. It’s simply a survival mechanism of human species. So when some memories carry negative charge we create negative thoughts that in turn make us feel bad or fearful of something. This kind of thinking-in-the-past creates the same kind of emotion that in turn forces us to make the same choices. In other worlds we create negative thoughts based on our past or painful memories and react to them with the same emotion. This behavior is automatic as we’re unaware of it until we notice the same train of thought.

https://youtu.be/BdkAOyNcmmU

So what happens when you catch yourself thinking the same thought that’s also called ‘negative thinking’ or a limiting belief? You’re aware of it! That’s the first step. From now on you need to re-program your brain to think differently. You’d experience lots of pressure inside yourself if you really want to change it. I watch myself what I think and if this thought is negative, I acknowledge thinking it. I also think why I said it and then I say to myself that whatever I’m thinking is ’not true’. I say ‘not true’ and immediately find the opposite example of that negative thought because I also have positive memories but they’re not as bright as the negative ones I got used to repeating. When I go through this process several times, I slowly change my automatic response to a more measured one.

I believe in taking small steps. It used to be meaningless for me when people said something like ‘think positively’ or ‘enjoy what you got’. I think if you’ve experienced some traumatic events ‘thinking positively’ about it is not going to cut it right away. It becomes more relevant to learn how to overcome something that you want to change in yourself. Overcome. Overcome. And overcome. For instance, I wanted to change my reaction to certain people who hurt me in the past and to some events that triggered my anxiety and insecurity about myself. Overcoming those triggers became work for me when I noticed that I had some false beliefs about my abilities and those in turn made me feel small and insecure.

What I learned over the years that lots of negative thinking is simply the absence of feeling gratitude for something. If you don’t feel gratitude, what emotion are you encouraging to bloom inside your heart? Tony Robbins says that he does ‘priming’ every morning by saying 3 things that he’s grateful for.

What to practice:

• Make a conscious decision to heal and change. One day I decided that I suffered enough and that I didn’t want to be that person anymore…
• Do you tell yourself things that are not kind? You won’t tell those things to your friends but you keep telling them to yourself. Why?
• Practice gratitude. Pick 2-3 things you’re grateful for and remind yourself of that daily. When you simply choose to repeat 3 things you’re grateful for every day for two months, you’ll notice that your thinking will shift. I realized that I’m grateful for air-conditioning and blue sky. It’s that simple.
• Learn to accept the unknown that exists every day. You can’t control everything around you but you can control your thoughts (and emotions). And control is not about suppressing thoughts and emotions, rather it’s about learning to acknowledge and let them pass without creating a whipsaw of painful feelings.
• Do something fun every day! By doing something exciting daily makes us happy. I paint, run, swim and write about art.
• Understand how you love to relax and find that space to sit alone with your heart.
• Everyone seeks love, even those annoying or complaining people. We need to find compassion for those people or walk away without drama.
• Choose intention. Choose to believe in yourself and your superpowers.
• Don’t say anything negative about yourself. Figure out why you keep saying this instead. Artists have a lot of negative talk about them saying that they’re not good enough or that they’ll never be able to accomplish this or that. If you keep saying this to yourself you begin to believe in this nonsense.
• Have concrete list of goals to achieve what you want.
• Leave people who are not supportive of your goals and intention. Attract positive and supportive people who are a step or two ahead of you.
• Find role models or a mentor for yourself who did what you want to do.

It’s possible to repair thinking process and emotional distress that we get used to feeling. Mastering how we feel about something can change our perception of reality.

People are entitled to have their own opinions that might not sit well with you. You have the power to choose if you want to adopt their beliefs as yours or not.

I think that real freedom comes with understanding of your limitations and working through them. When we get rid of everything that no longer serves us we become empowered and free to play, create and love.