How EFT Tapping Helps You Rise Above Your Limiting Beliefs?
EFT Tapping For Limiting Beliefs
In this article, you will learn about limiting beliefs, how they are formed, how they impact our lives negatively and restrain us from flying high, and how to identify and overcome them with the help of EFT Tapping technique.
Throughout our childhood, we are influenced by so many things. Especially during our formative years when our brain is still developing.
A child's mind is like a sponge, soaking up everything it sees, hears, and observes.
Our family and friends influence and shape our thinking significantly. We all are bound by rules, norms, and values.
Some are mandatory and essential for being a good human being, but some are limiting. Distinctly so. When I was a kid, my family and teachers often taught me that there are specific ways to do everything.
They instilled the same beliefs in me that they had learned in their childhood. “Don’t argue with me since I'm older than you.” “You cannot handle any responsibilities.”
Such statements from my parents remained etched into my mind throughout childhood. Even though I never thought of them consciously, they shaped my beliefs.
I never could confront anyone older than me, be it my family members, any authoritative figure, or even a stranger. I could never stand up for myself because of what remained with me as a child.
Scenarios like this, in turn, affected my mental health. This is what a limiting belief is. It is our thoughts and opinions, and state of mind that we believe to be the absolute truth.
They play a huge role in our lives, and more often than not, have a negative impact on us.
They limit us from reaching our full potential, and from undertaking new challenges and adventures, they prevent us from living our life to the fullest, and the life that we desire.
I had a friend in school who was popular, smart, athletic—basically, an all-rounder. I wished I could be like her.
But I never had the conviction or the confidence because somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I could not do it. A nagging voice inside my head kept telling me I’m not supposed to do it.
If the following phrases have been a part of your routine, then you, my friend, have been bit by the Limiting Beliefs bug:
- I can’t succeed
- I am not good enough
- I am not lucky
- I can’t earn money with ease
- I can’t get in abundance
- I have to struggle hard to get things done
- I do not think I can do this
- I don’t deserve love because my ex-girlfriend never loved me
- I will not able to start my own business
- I don’t believe good things will ever happen to me
Limiting beliefs are like rooms we choose to dwell in, a closed box where we feel comfortable. We want to stay in the familiar zone, because it feels safe and secure, and we do not want to go out into the unknown.
"You begin to fly when you let go of self-limiting beliefs and allow your mind and aspirations to rise to greater height"
brian tracy
It contains our version of proper behaviour as well as what is right or wrong. It contains our judgments, our successes, and our failures. Because we might feel inadequate if we step outside. The overwhelm of "I can’t", "I don’t think", and "What if" takes hold of us.
Have you ever felt like that?
These beliefs may:
Hold you back from making different choices in your life
Keep you from seeing different opportunities presented to you each day
Prevent you from seeing your gifts or accepting the gifts offered to you, or
Keep you stuck focusing on the negative aspect of your circumstances.
New to EFT? Learn how Emotional Freedom Technique Tapping heals.
Emotional Freedom Techniques (tapping) is clinically proven to lower stress, tension, anxiety, past trauma to enable health, happiness and vitality.
When I came to know about the word limiting belief, I enquired more about it and came to know that limiting beliefs are certain thoughts and opinions that one believes to be the absolute truth.
They tend to have a negative impact on one’s life by stopping them from moving forward and growing on a personal and professional level. (1)
Limiting beliefs are like rooms that we choose to stay locked in, cocooned in our comfort zone. We stay within the familiar (our comfort zone) and don’t venture beyond the walls (limits) of the rooms we have chosen.
So why do you have these limitations beliefs? What are the causes?
Causes of Limiting Beliefs
There are interactions, observations, and experiences we’ve had throughout our lives that shape the way we think now.
Our cans and can'ts are written on the walls of those rooms and we obey those rules as they are real.
The words on our walls are metaphors for our self-talk. They represent the attitudes, opinions, and beliefs that we have accumulated over years.
Limiting beliefs can come from many places including family members, teachers, coaches, media, society, and culture.
The following are some of the causes on why we have these limiting beliefs:
1.
Family beliefs
Of course, growing up, we learn what our parents and family teach us directly. But we also learn what they aren’t actively teaching us. We observe them. How they behave with each other, how they behave toward us, and how they react to situations. We soak it all up.
Once, I noticed my friend’s mother hugging her. I asked my mother why we did not do that, and her answer was simply, “Because we don’t hug. It’s not for us.”
Twenty years later, I had never hugged anybody in my life. When my friends asked me why I don’t, I, too, simply put: "I just don’t hug people.”
A parent may tell their child that authority should never be challenged. As an adult, that belief made them never able to stand up for themselves and avoid any confrontation when faced with an authoritative figure.
2.
education
This, too, plays a major role in contributing to our limiting beliefs.
We learn from everybody around us, not just at school. Family, teachers, friends, they all have their beliefs which we would count on as an absolute truth too, not realising that it could be limiting us.
When we learn especially from the ones we like and respect, their truth becomes our truth, not realising that it may be holding us back.
3.
experience
An individual who has suffered from a broken heart in the past will believe that he is not capable of love.
A child whose parents never treat him lovingly will believe that he does not deserve to be loved.
An employee who never got credit for all the hard work that they put in, will believe that they do not deserve acknowledgement.
Experiences play an equally important part in what we believe to be our truths.
It is common and understandable to make conclusions after having particular experiences in life.
But unfortunately, the negative ones shape our limiting beliefs more sharply and strongly.
4.
fear
Some limits are often fear-derived. Because of thoughts that focus on criticism, rejection, and ridicule, we place these limiting beliefs on ourselves.
5.
excuses
We often make excuses to get out of uncomfortable situations where we think we might fail in some aspect or the other.
We form limiting beliefs using faulty logic.
Sometimes these limiting beliefs also arise in conjunction with scenarios we have had due to a traumatic incident.
One of the challenges with limiting beliefs is that most of us do not think we have them and they can be hard to spot. People are not aware that they have it and how to get rid of it.
Effect Of Limiting Beliefs On Our Health
What we see and believe affects our mindset. Whatever affects our mindset, has an effect on our mental, physical, and emotional health.
When placed in a situation that triggers our limiting beliefs due to trauma or some kind of suffering, we have had in our past, our behaviour changes because our subconscious is trying to block this particular painful incident.
What we end up with is procrastination, anxiety, overthinking, and other negative outcomes.
It is all connected. How we perceive things, how we react to situations that clash with our limiting beliefs, and how in turn they make us feel.
Types Of Limiting Beliefs
There are three types of limiting beliefs:
- Ones we put on ourselves: “I cannot do this”, “I do not deserve this”, “I am not able”. These are those limiting beliefs where we label ourselves with negative terms, like “loser”, “failure”, “undeserving”, etc.
- Ones we put on others: We aren’t able to trust those who are around us. Believing that they might harm us, manipulate us. These kinds of limiting beliefs strain the relationships we already have and make it hard to develop healthy relationships.
- Ones we put on the world: “This world isn’t a good place”, “I cannot go out because it’s too dark a world to be happy in”. Viewing that the world is not a good place to be in, and believing in the fact that bad things happen all the time in the world limits us from experiencing wonderful opportunities we might have, if not for such beliefs.
How To Self-Heal & Become An EFT Practitioner
Discover how EFT Tapping can help you to self-heal or to become professionally qualified as a Certified EFT Practitioner. Emotional Freedom Techniques (Tapping) is clinically proven to lower stress, tension, anxiety, past trauma to enable health, happiness and vitality.
Identifying Limiting Beliefs
It is very important to identify and explore these beliefs which constrain you. Here is how you can identify yours:
1.
Identify and write down your beliefs:
You can begin by writing down what you believe in. It could be anything and everything: beliefs on pineapple on pizza, for example!
It should be something you believe in strongly and which has an impact on your daily life.
To make things easier, you can categorise them into different groups, such as financial beliefs, health beliefs, relationship beliefs, family beliefs, authoritarian beliefs etc.
After this, explore in detail which ones are helping you and which ones are holding you back. The ones which hold you back are your limiting beliefs.
2.
Examine your behaviour:
How do you react or respond when you are in a situation which brings out an extreme reaction in you? Scenarios where you have reacted in a negative and/or toxic way?
Think about why you reacted that way, and what triggered you. On a closer inspection, you might find out the root cause was the limiting belief.
3.
Write down about the zones where you feel challenged:
Those aspects in your life where you feel as if you’re struggling could imply that there is a limiting belief behind these struggles.
If you are feeling challenged in an area of your life, think about what it is about the challenge that makes you feel this way.
For example: If you are struggling to lose weight, explore what are your thoughts about losing weight.
“The only thing that’s keeping you from getting what you want is the story you kept telling yourself"
tony robbins
5 Ways To Overcome Limiting Beliefs:
1.
Become organised:
A cluttered environment makes for a cluttered mind. Having a clean, organised space around you encourages and influences positive thoughts and helps improve your mental health. It helps you clear your mind and has positive energy flowing through your surroundings.
2.
Explore what is around you:
Sometimes, you should give in to your curiosity. This is one of the ways where you do not need to limit yourself if this is something you really have an interest in. You come out feeling better, stronger, and lighter.
3.
Counselling:
You can always, always, talk to a professional if you find yourself struggling and aren’t able to cope. Limiting beliefs can trigger conditions such as anxiety or depression. Therapists have the resources you need to help you overcome your issues to live a better and healthier life.
4.
meditation
Calming your mind by focusing on your breathwork goes a really long way in helping you to connect with yourself. A few minutes of your time every day helps you free your mind and encourage positive thoughts.
5.
Positive affirmations:
Start your day with positive affirmations such as ‘I can do this”, “I believe in myself”, and “I deserve to have good health”. You are what you believe, and if you believe in yourself you go a long way in building a positive mindset.
How does EFT Tapping Help to Overcome Limiting Beliefs
EFT Tapping is a mixture of acupuncture and modern psychology - only without needles!
It works on unravelling all your negative emotions, thoughts, and feelings and unleashes a new you. No matter what the ailment, underlying unexpressed emotions, unresolved trauma typically results in adverse effects on the body, whether it is mental, physical, or emotional.
EFT Tapping will help discover the root cause of your limiting beliefs and help you become the person you have always endeavoured to be.
One can have several constraining beliefs to work on, so we need to decide on which belief we have to start working with. Out of all my beliefs, listed above, I chose to work on "I’m not good enough."
I followed the tapping protocol for limiting beliefs and kept tapping on all the associated emotions, reinforcing, and previous events.
It slowly took me to the root memory, which inculcated the feeling that I’m not good enough. Tapping on it helped me to come out of this belief.
"There are no limits on what you can achieve with your life, except the limits you accept in your own mind"
brian tracy
DOES eft tapping really work?
Linda’s story: An example of a constraining belief
Linda is an artist and paints beautiful work. People come and admire her paintings at exhibitions but they don’t buy them. She feels nervous about money as if it’s not right for her to have money.
I gave her £100 in cash to hold and ask her what she feels. She feels a nervous shaking in her stomach and tightness in her chest.
I ask her to let those sensations take her back to the first time she felt like that. She tells me a story when she was five years old and the first time her father gave her money to go out to the ice cream van on her own and to get a cone for both of them.
She buys the ice creams and while walking back to the house, an eight-year-old girl from down the street says, "give me one," and she hands it over.
She returns to the house without a cone for her father. He jokingly says, "You can’t be trusted with money," and her five-year-old self, so proud to have taken on this task, takes it literally and writes it on her wall.
We tap and tap with this until it’s funny and she can hold the £100 without any hesitation. Later I hear that she has been awarded a contract to place her art in showhouses for a national property developer.
- The Constraint: I can’t make money through my art
- The Emotion: Nervousness
- The False Truth: It’s not right for me to have money
- The Initial Event: Buying the ice cream for daddy
- Reinforcing Events: Refusing money for art
Therapeutic Technique
Every constraint is held up by emotion, the emotion conceals a false truth. The false truth is written on the walls. Each piece of writing on the walls has got there as a result of a specific event and has then been reinforced by future events.
Roger’s story: An example of an Allergy Elimination
Roger had an intolerance and craving for cornflakes
At the age of 6, he experienced his parents and dogs, fighting. He ate cornflakes to calm himself down and he developed psychological reversal due to the fear and anxiety. As he ate cornflakes at the time with milk and sugar he also became psychologically reversed to cornflakes.
The reversal caused the motivation away from health and developed an intolerance. Roger’s desire for cornflakes as well as the trauma of the event with parents and dog fighting was treated with EFT. The net effect was he no longer craved cornflakes or had an intolerance to cornflakes.
New to EFT? Learn how Emotional Freedom Technique Tapping heals.
Emotional Freedom Techniques (tapping) is clinically proven to lower stress, tension, anxiety, past trauma to enable health, happiness and vitality.
EFT TAPPING Protocol to Clear Limiting Beliefs:
Step 1
Identify the presenting limiting belief and the associated emotional intensity.
Step 2
Get a TRUTH rating for the limiting belief (also known as the validity of cognition, VOC).
Ask the client to repeat "I am not good enough" out loud and then say "On a scale of 1 to 10, how true is it, where 10 is really true and 1 is not true at all?” And then tap around this.
Step 3
Tap on the presenting limiting belief and emotions bringing the SUDs down.
Step 4
Identify reinforcing events as well as previous events related to the presenting issue.
Step 5
Get to a root memory or event.
Ask "What does this problem remind you of?” "When have you felt like this before?" “When else?” “When was the very first time?’’, “How old was I? And what was happening?”
You have just uncovered a memory or a series of memories associated with the feeling and belief.
Step 6
Tap with the initial incident and bring the SUDs down.
Start the tapping protocol using simplified tapping by tapping on the Karate Chop and saying:
“Even though I have this ..... (incident/event/ memory name) and I can feel it in my ..... (location) and it is a ..... on 10 (1,2,3 etc. on 10) and it makes me feel ..... (name of feeling or sensation) right here at ..... (part of the body where the feeling or sensation is), I love and accept myself.”
Step 7
Then tap on the facial and upper body points using the reminder phrases (the phrases that include information on the story name, number and feeling), while saying the reminder phrases out loud:
Eyebrow: This ..... (incident/event/memory name)
Side Of The Eye/Temple: Number ..... (SUDs)
Under The Eye: So ..... (feeling or sensation)
Under The Nose: Makes me feel so ..... (feeling or sensation)
Chin: This ..... (incident/event/memory name)
Collarbone: It makes me feel so ..... (feeling or sensation)
Thumb: I just feel so ..... (feeling or sensation)
Index Finger: In the ..... (location)
Middle Finger: This ..... (incident/event/memory name)
Little Finger: So ..... (feeling or sensation)
Step 8
Take a gentle breath in, and release it out, and then take a sip of water.
Step 9
Test the original limiting belief—you will notice a cognitive shift.
Step 10
Use argument tapping to clean up any remaining conflict with the belief. For example,” Yes, I am not good enough”, “No, I am not”.
Step 11
Ask the client what they choose for themselves instead. Then do the final rounds of tapping on what they have chosen.
Step 12
Get the client to imagine stepping into the future and notice how things are different.
Limiting beliefs may also be described as tail-enders, which are subconscious objections to moving towards the desired state. For example, the desired state may be to weigh 55kg and the tail-enders may be as follows:
- I will never lose weight
- It’s too hard
- That’s a dream
Treat tail-enders like limiting beliefs using the above protocol.
It didn’t work overnight. It took a couple of sessions and several tapping rounds. It was not an easy task because I had to come out of my comfort zone which was a cosy blanket for me as well.
Once I overcame this limiting belief, I started feeling more confident about myself. I started trusting my decisions and recognising my qualities. It started changing my life 180 degrees. I started accomplishing things which seemed to be very difficult for me earlier.
To sum it up, limiting beliefs can restrain you from growing and spreading your wings, but you can overcome it with the above tapping sequence. Get to the core of your limiting belief, get through it, break free, and soar!
Love,
Dr. Rangana Rupavi Choudhuri (PhD)
P.S. Want to discover if EFT Tapping is right for you? Book a Complimentary Discovery Call.
How To Self-Heal & Become An EFT Practitioner
Discover how EFT Tapping can help you to self-heal or to become professionally qualified as a Certified EFT Practitioner. Emotional Freedom Techniques (Tapping) is clinically proven to lower stress, tension, anxiety, past trauma to enable health, happiness and vitality.
In summary, limiting beliefs are usually associated with insecurities or underlying unresolved emotions. You can identify those emotions using EFT. Tapping on those memories can help you rise above your limiting beliefs.
Resources:
- EFT Advance course manual Vitality Living College
- https//: www.blog.trello.com
- https//: www.habitsforwellbeing.com
- https://changingminds.org
- https://www.inc.com
- https://www.forbes.com
- https://www.lifehack.com
Disclaimer: The information on this website is purely for educational purposes and does not in any way replace the requirement for medical and psychological diagnosis and treatment. Please seek professional medical and psychological diagnosis and advice for all medical and mental health conditions. It is advised to always book any consultations with qualified professionals.
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