Transformation—When Your Life is Cracking Open

When your life is cracking open…

It seems like everything is falling apart. Life was just starting to get a little easier and suddenly things have gotten much harder.

A part of you believes something wonderful is about to happen. Another part of you is afraid your dreams will never come true. One minute you are crying and the next minute you are calm and seeing the sunshine.

And you aren’t exactly sure what is true and reliable any more. I know, there is a part of you that feels like closing down and hiding. Some days the pain and chaos seem unbearable. And yet, deep down you know this is your opportunity to step into a whole new way of living.

Your life is cracking open.

Somewhere along the way, you set an intention for a better life, and that version of life is trying to get through to you. But in order for something new and wonderful to make its way, some old belief, and the pattern it created in your life, needs to die a natural death.

Even though a part of you wants to back off, it’s actually the best time to dig deeper.

The limiting belief behind your pain has been hiding for a long, long time. So if you are going to find it, you need to know what you are looking for.

3 Ways Limiting Beliefs Masquerade Themselves a Good Ones

Beliefs That Are Protective

Of course, not all protective beliefs are bad ones or the cause of your discomfort or pain.

However, beliefs formed in moments of great stress or trauma, are your subconscious mind’s way of protecting you. Sometimes that kind of protection is good and sometimes it becomes a burden in your life that needs to change.

Let’s say as a toddler you were next to your mom while she was putting groceries in the back of the car. You ran out into the lane just as a car was coming toward you. Your mom grabbed you just in time, and with a frightened voice admonished you for leaving her side. You might have been crying and traumatized, but because of that experience you might have been less inclined to run in areas where cars were moving about. That sense of caution might still be with you today.

On the other hand, it is equally probable you were traumatized by your mother’s reaction, but didn’t grasp the moving car in the equation. You might have reacted to the same incidence by staying close to your mother a lot of the time when the two of you were out and about. As an adult, you might find you resent how tied you feel to her and duty-bound you feel when she invites you to go somewhere with her.

Because some of our most limiting beliefs are protective in nature, they can be difficult to identify.

Beliefs That Seem Logical

Some of the beliefs that can limit us are perfectly logical. Because the logic seems to be sound, we can have a difficult time recognizing that the logic itself is restricting our potential.

For example, if you are diagnosed with a chronic illness, and your doctor doesn’t know of any cure, it’s logical to assume you have to live with this condition for the rest of your life.

Given this belief, you might start feeling terror or anxiety over the thought that you are simply going to keep deteriorating.

You know the fear is only making thing worse, but you don’t know how to stop it, given that your condition is quite real.

Because the doctor, as a knowledgeable authority doesn’t have an answer, and because many people have deteriorated from this condition, you might begin to make assumptions like:

God is punishing me
This is my karma
I just have to accept this as it is

What you have accepted as true, becomes true, unless you are willing to challenge the prevailing logic and look for solutions in other places. You can see some of the most common limiting beliefs right here on this page, when you pick up a copy of Beating the Odds: 10 Beliefs That Can Short-Circuit Your Healing.

Beliefs That Have Been Normalized

For many years my family held the belief that holiday celebrations required big, elaborate meals that took hours to prepare. That has been handed down to us through multiple generations and was part of being in the holiday spirit. Now, we certainly weren’t the only family believing that. I bet many of you who are reading have believed this too!

We didn’t even think of it as a belief… until the year my family decided they didn’t want to cook. Everyone worked full-time jobs and nobody wanted to spend their day off cooking and cleaning dishes.

So they ordered Chinese food.

That’s the day the belief changed. They discovered you could celebrate and have a great time together, without adhering to the family or cultural belief that an elaborate meal was required.

Family beliefs easily become normalized. Whether the beliefs are cultural, spiritual, or habitual in nature, and whether or not they are good for us, family beliefs feel normal and familiar to us.

It can be tricky to recognize that a normalized belief actually doesn’t suit who we are and what we need.

This is one of the reasons I wrote Beating the Odds: Ten Beliefs That Can Short-Circuit Your Healing. There are spiritual and cultural beliefs we have adopted, and without realizing it, actually limit our ability to heal. If you are healing physically or emotionally and don’t have a copy, you can get one here on this webpage.

Don’t worry. There are ways to turn those limiting beliefs around!

3 Ways You Can Lovingly Heal Limiting Beliefs

Listen to the Words You Use

When you are feeling stuck, listen to what you are saying when you feel defensive. How you defend why you are stuck is actually a clue to a limiting belief you are carrying.

I used to say this a lot, “I’m trying so hard!” It implied that I was trying, but nothing was working. The more I said it, the more I believed nothing was changing, so I stopped saying it. Literally, I stopped myself whenever I was about to say the words.

Instead, I said (and did) something results oriented like, “That didn’t work, so I’m doing something new to see if I get better results.”

If I felt limited in what I was doing, I tried on affirmations that got me to expand my thinking. I’d find one that made me smile and use it until I found a new one that made me smile bigger.

I coached my doubts to take a vacation. Yes, I talked to myself. I talked to the doubts, thanking them for trying to protect me and then told them they were on vacation for a while. I did this a lot, because sometimes it takes a while for doubts to quiet down enough for new beliefs to get their chance.

Consider a Bigger Point of View

One of the reasons you feel limited is because some part of you has accepted a belief like:

“This is going to be hard.”
“This is going to take a lot of time.”
“This new approach doesn’t line up with what I’ve been taught.”
“I’m not skilled enough.”
“Who am I to think I could do that.”

As a result, you continue to operate from the same old belief that isn’t getting us any results. So you end up feeling defeated and betrayed—often by God.

You need bigger beliefs, where you can more easily see evidence of how the Universe and the Divine really do support you.

What’s really happening is that you are stuck in a hamster wheel of beliefs that are too small for what you want to accomplish.

“The Divine is making life so easy for me.”
“I’m surrounded by love.”
“Divine time is working for me.”

Give yourself new beliefs to consider and then look for and record how it is happening.

Get Into Your Subconscious Mind

There are many approaches for shifting trauma-based beliefs formed in childhood or previous lives that live in your subconscious mind. They include: meditation, inner child work, EMDR, tapping, sound healing, hypnosis, soul retrieval, affirmations, ancestral lineage clearing, Holding, journeying and more.

You’ve probably noticed, we do a lot of that here at my website. That’s because it is one of the most powerful ways to make permanent change, gently and lovingly. In my SHE Academy, I take people into ancient journeys that carry you into the realm of your subconscious mind so you can recognize the limits you have lived with, and open to Spirit’s guidance for changing them. Apply for a complimentary SHE Rising Strategy Strategy Session where we create a personal growth plan for you. If SHE Rising is a good fit, I’m happy to share what it’s all about. 😉

This last step is important. By opening to Spirit’s guidance for the change, you are more likely to adopt new beliefs that will work FOR you for some time. Then, periodically, it is a good idea to journey again so that your beliefs continue to expand with your capacity to trust in Divine love and guidance in your life.

Be Bold

Your life is cracking open because you invited a better life for yourself. A greater experience of love and joy is trying to get through to you. Shedding the old, limiting beliefs, and their fearful patterns, is necessary for more expansive and rewarding beliefs to come in.

Of course it’s scary. You are in unfamiliar territory. So why not find your mentor (someone who has done what you are about to do), and put your all into it?

Divine consciousness wants you to be ecstatically happy. Consciousness is behind you, pulling for you. The crack you have created is the opening, so be bold… step through.

Transformation—When Your Life is Cracking Open