Learning how to change limiting beliefs is one of the hardest lessons to learn during our spiritual growth. This is because, some of these limiting beliefs are so deeply held in our subconscious that were not even aware of their existence.

I Don’t Wanna Do This Anymore!

Yesterday I was talking about making conscious choices. Everything about life is a choice yet so often we leave it to someone else to make a decision. By not deciding to make a choice we empower the people to take control of our lives.

I appreciate that very often this is the easiest option! However, it’s not the best option for you to grow and blossom as the perfect human being you were born to be.

Let’s say, you lose your job, through no fault of your room you are simply made redundant. Although, your first thought may well be “what can I do now?” The chances are this question will be filled with the blind panic. You are asking yourself the question from a place of fear.

The chances are you or someone else will come up with a suggestion. Most of the time when this happens we say to ourselves
“I can’t do that because…….. ”

“I can’t do this because………… ”

Most of us will continue in this negative vein until we run out of negative things to come up with. By this time was so full of fear, anger, anxiety, panic and depression we can think. We have begun to lose confidence in ourselves and our ability.

All of this crap which is developed into a single self-perpetuating vicious circle is because you chose to say the word “can’t.”

It’s perfectly acceptable to give yourself a little kick up the backside every now and again! I often say to myself “I need to go out more.” This statement is a fact I really do need to get fresh air and exercise more often than I do. However, this is a different statement to something like “you lazy fat pig!

The first statement is a statement of fact, I leave home about once a month if I have to! The second is reinforcing a limiting belief. I must be clear I don’t have that limiting belief, but the statement itself would be reinforcing a limiting belief.

Interestingly enough I think you would never dream of course calling somebody a lazy fat pig. Yet, quite often we say things to ourselves using a language that we would never dream in a million years of using to someone else.

My answer to this question is twofold, they do, and they don’t. To make matters clearer, do affirmations change limiting beliefs? On their own no they don’t.

I understand this as a psychologist and a sentient being. Many self-help gurus say that affirmations work. Through my experience of studying psychology, I know they cannot possibly work because they target the conscious level of your mind.

Your subconscious stores all these limiting beliefs, they are not part of your conscious mind. Because your conscious mind never thinks of them or acknowledges them, you are often ignorant of their existence. The best you may know is they exist but will not know the source!

The reason this affirmation has no possibility of changing my relationship to exercise is that it creates an inner struggle. The statement is telling my conscious mind I need more exercise. This is a complete waste of time because my conscious mind is fully aware of this and I have absolutely no intention of changing! The struggle is between the fact I know I should change and my limiting belief.

The limiting belief I would guess is to do with self-worth. It means in some ways I do not believe that I am worthy or deserve to be fully fit. Because I understand that an affirmation isn’t going to change my inability to exercise I have never tried it.

The problem with Affirmations

When other people try affirmations where there is this dichotomy between the conscious and subconscious they start by being really positive. When no change takes place, most people become even more dispirited and feel even more useless later than the first place.

This means that the very act of affirmations is actually reinforcing a limiting self-belief. So while this is true, I also think there’s another point to take into account. An affirmation is not a reason to manifest the desire. If you looking at Affirmations in that way, then dream on. They are never going to manifest a desire.

On the other hand, affirmations can be a useful tool. They can be a helpful starting point to reprogram the way you think. For instance, my mother died at 86 years of age. She had never had a day’s illness in her life. She began every morning saying to herself “I feel great!”

Consequently, she did feel great most the time. On the rare time she had real aches and pains, she could live with them. The point I’m making is she didn’t dwell on the negativity of an ache or pain. Believing yourself is the ultimate goal of creating an affirmation.

To make affirmations work you have to believe it. So please don’t go scouring the Internet for other people’s affirmations. If they are not specific enough to your desires and they won’t work anyway simply because they don’t ring true.

Tomorrow we can look at the ways of how you can build a good affirmation for your intentions.