Identifying limiting beliefs and erasing them

[Vkluff]

I recently started identifying limiting beliefs i didn’t know i had mostly revolving around my social life. How do I get to eliminate or erase them?

[Detective_L]

Are you asking for sub recommendations or general advice?

[Uber_Elysium]

Everybody’s process will be different but what works for me:

1. Accepting of my limiting beliefs, and not making a huge deal out of it. Some of these things takes time and it will resolve when it resolves, this helped me with my perfectionist mindset.

2. After identifying sometimes I will think back long and hard on times that challenges that negative belief. When you do that you are able to look at positive events that correlate with said limiting belief and the belief starts to disappear on its own, or is completely eradicated.

3. Take action (Most important step imo) that challenges said belief. I also suffered from real bad social anxiety for a very long time. Long story short the easiest thing that I could have done was just put myself out there and make a lot of small talk.

4. Reframe the belief itself. As time went on I began to realize that my lack of social skills wasnt a limiting belief at all it was just a lack of experience. I was the one turning it into a limiting belief.

Im not sure what limiting beliefs you have with your social life, but that is what I had with mine. Now this is what I do with limiting beliefs, hopefully this helps you to a degree.

[Vkluff]

I’m talking of both subs and techniques to reframe or erase them. I’m reading a book Spontaneous manifestations and its exposing some beliefs I didn’t know were there or didn’t take notice of. Now I’m left pondering how do I go about changing them. You can’t take action if you have those beliefs, its like running a new program in an old operating system.

[ksub]

@Vkluff

I recently started identifying limiting beliefs i didn’t know i had mostly revolving around my social life. How do I get to eliminate or erase them?

I ran Ascended Mogul for months. Then Emperor for 2 years. That removed many of my limiting beliefs related to status and self-confidences… Then I ran EOG stage 1 for 4 or 5 months it eradicated 90% of my money limiting beliefs. I also ran LBFH and it took my self-esteem to levels I never knew was possible.

[Psiklou]

@Vkluff

I’m talking of both subs and techniques to reframe or erase them

There use to be PSTEC audio clicks products to reframe beliefs, they are not around anymore but if you can find them.

[RVconsultant]

This is something I’ve used for years:

Main Disc. Thread - STKS Announcement -- 5.28.2023

Try looking up terms like: cognitive behavior therapy cognitive distortions Cognitive Behavioral Thought Records Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy Rational Responses ABCDE thought records Here is an example of one ABCDE thought record: Read a bit, and you’ll know what to do. That pretend someone who was hired to follow you around represents an inner voice. I’ll give you a little clue about all this. That whole post above, even your updates, sounds like a page from my journal when I …

Also I keep track of thoughts I have throughout the day that are limiting or negative or unconstructive etc… I write those thoughts down. If it’s an image or a movie playing in my head, I write that down. Then when I get time later, I do thought records about those thoughts, images, and movies.

Eventually what seems to happen is that the rational responses or disputes start to become automatic, or even become thoughts in place of the limiting or negative or unconstructive thoughts.

@IronClaws

@Fractal_Explorer

@Geoff

@Matalexander305

@James

@subliminalguy

[Detective_L]

That is very useful @RVconsultant. Thank You!

[Foreal]

“You can’t take action if you have those beliefs, its like running a new program in an old operating system.” this is your ticket to years of being “stuck”. from experience

[Viking]

Limit destroyer

[IronClaws]

@RVconsultant

Also I keep track of thoughts I have throughout the day that are limiting or negative or unconstructive etc… I write those thoughts down. If it’s an image or a movie playing in my head, I write that down.

Okay sounds like something I partly already do! Now Ill do it instantly as I become conscious of those thoughts!

@RVconsultant

Then when I get time later, I do thought records about those thoughts, images, and movies.

You mean as in: looking at your journal entries and reflect upon them? Im assuming you ask yourself why you had that thought in the first place which can uncover beliefs or fears that you didn’t know of before.

@RVconsultant

Eventually what seems to happen is that the rational responses or disputes start to become automatic, or even become thoughts in place of the limiting or negative or unconstructive thoughts.

This is where Im kind of lost. Are you saying that by this long term practice your conscious brain starts to take into habit dismissing irrational fears or negative scenarios and even sometimes replace them with the opposite of them / more positive affirmations?

[RVconsultant]

@IronClaws

You mean as in: looking at your journal entries and reflect upon them? Im assuming you ask yourself why you had that thought in the first place which can uncover beliefs or fears that you didn’t know of before.

I’ll give you an example. Let’s suppose I’m at the end of my day and I pull out a piece of paper with negative, unhelpful, disempowering, etc. thoughts on it that I’ve had during the day and written them down.

I look at the list and see:

“I can’t get anything right”
“Why do I always mess things up”
“People don’t like me”
“I’ll never figure this out”

So I take the thought record (or a variation there of) and put each thought into the thought record. Let’s take just one for now:

A: What was the activating event?
I was trying to figure out new software and it was very slow to set up.

B: What thoughts or beliefs was I having?
“I can’t get anything right”

C: What feelings were consequences of thinking or believing that?
I felt bad about myself, and a bit discouraged.

D: How can I dispute those negative beliefs?
I could think that I’ve figured out software before and I can probably figure this out. If not, I can call a friend for help.

E: What effects will happen if I believe the dispute? How can I think more effectively in the future?
It will be only slightly annoying rather than reducing my self esteem or good mood. I can realize that not figuring out software is a temporary issue.

@IronClaws

This is where Im kind of lost. Are you saying that by this long term practice your conscious brain starts to take into habit dismissing irrational fears or negative scenarios and even sometimes replace them with the opposite of them / more positive affirmations?

YES! (You thought you were lost, but actually you were found.)

As in the above example, soon thoughts such as “I’ve figured out software before and I can probably figure this out. If not, I can call a friend for help” will generalize. When I start noticing something isn’t quite going as planned, then the general idea of “I’ve solve things before, therefore I can so with this” as well as thoughts specific to the situation such as “I can figure X out because I’ve done this or similar things in the past” will be more automatic, and negative thoughts might not even show up because the constructive, positive, empowering thoughts are ready to go automatically.

A person can also summarize their disputes week after week, and practice looking at their disputes to help strengthen this kind of positive, empowering thinking.

Also look at the structure of some negative thinking such as the above example:

“I can’t get anything right”

The sentence implies or assumes that this is personal (my fault), permanent (may last forever), and global (notice the word “anything”). It’s more than the words themselves, it’s the structure of telling myself that it’s personal, global, and permanent.

Any questions?

Any answers?

[IronClaws]

I believe I understand now! Thank you Ill do this and ask any questions if I have them in the future I appreciate the time you took to let me know!

[Yazooneh]

Wow this is golden, the most logical and real way to fix your mind

[Fractal_Explorer]

Thanks @RVconsultant I’ll give some of that a shot. Although typically this stuff doesn’t work well with my mind because I’ve had years of intense intellectualization of problems to run from emotions. It gets tricky when I try to employ these techniques and slip back into suppressive habits.

[RVconsultant]

@Yazooneh

most logical and real way to fix your mind

Mental health professionals such as Jeffrey E. Young, Aaron Beck, Albert Ellis, and David Burns have books that go into more details. Some of these people’s books are more oriented to other mental health professions. However if you look carefully through an online book store at what they’ve written, you should be able to find some for the “everyday” person.

Some people think that using these logical methods will make people not have feelings, but I don’t think that’s true. What I think happens is that people can then see things more realistically and get distressed less.

[Vkluff]

Thanks for this…ill adapt this. I already identified some of the beliefs though, changing them is the problem cos they keep coming in maybe whenever an event happens that reinforces those beliefs

[Vkluff]

I’ll try this out today

[subliminalguy]

I just recorded some nagging thoughts on my phone. I’ve found it to be helpful in Journaling, as I often write what’s on my mind.

Doing this on my phone is a reprieve for me since a lot of my thoughts don’t always have a story. They just are.

Thank you for sharing this

[Fractal_Explorer]

Just wanted to throw in my 02 cents off of what @RVconsultant posted here.

I’ve found strategies like this don’t work with me if I don’t address the underlying guilt or shame experiencing the emotion itself. For example in the example he gave about not being able to get anything right. As a human it’s ok to feel that frustration or disappointment, it’s just an emotion and it happens. But if I don’t acknowledge that first, the distress becomes less about the internal dialogue in my head and more about what it represents.

A lot of people want to change perceived bad feelings and it makes sense. But I think you have to look underneath that bad feeling and see what you’re uncomfortable experiencing as a human being. We weren’t meant to separate emotions into good or bad, that’s a social construct brought upon us by upbringing and conditioning.

This has been a hard distinction to make in my life and was one of the missing puzzle pieces in my life that didn’t allow these cognitive behavioral techniques to work to their full extent.