What thoughts do you fixate on?

What thoughts do you find yourself coming back to over and over again?

What have you begun to take for dogma based on the stories you tell yourself?

Where have you put emphases that never deserved your time in the first place?

Our thoughts, over time, become our beliefs. We think the same things so many times over that our brains begin to see them as truth. Those beliefs, those truths, can then start to manifest themselves all over our physical being; in the slump of our shoulders, in the wrinkles between our brows, in the crick in our neck, pain in our bellies. There is no disconnect between our mind and our bodies.

When is the last time you felt stressed, and all of a sudden your chronic back pain flared up or your shoulders tighten up? We are an interconnected network of information constantly changing based on the information we take in and tell ourselves.

So those thoughts we come back to whether helpful or unhelpful become our beliefs. They shape us into who we are as individuals. The problem comes, when those thoughts turn into self-limiting beliefs.

We sell ourselves short because somewhere down the line we were given incorrect or incomplete information and maybe that information is now outdated but we haven’t looked to find a new version of truth.

The more we dogmatically say “we are this, we are not this”, the more we limit our ability to grow and change. The more we step away from opportunities, possibly, based on nothing more than a one time experience, we stop ourselves short of really living.

When we limit ourselves based on incorrect or incomplete information, we will never reach our own full potential.

For example, I thought I was bad at school growing up. I didn’t do well when called on in class. I would get so flustered that even if I knew the answer, my mind would block me from coming up with ANYTHING to say. So, I began to believe I just wasn’t good at school. I didn’t give my self the opportunity to realize that maybe there were some classes I liked more than others, or ones I was better at, I just figured I wasn’t great at school. That thought started in grade school, and stayed with me for over 15 years.

That’s just one example, but I can think of many different ways I have thought a thought so many times that it became a belief, and I’m sure you can too.

I urge you to start listening for those thoughts that tend to repeat in your head. Maybe they are helpful! Maybe you find ones that make you feel empowered, nurtured, fulfilled. Keep those ones (obviously), write them down and think about why those feel so good to you.

For those thoughts you start to hear that make you question your worth, or take you into a fear mindset, the ones that take you out of the moment, write those down too. How do they make you feel? Are they really true? Where do they stem from? Is it a thought you’ve turned into a belief? Does it still align with the person you want to be?

The more we can begin to increase our awareness of what our thoughts are telling us, the more we can take the control back, because once you are aware you can’t be unaware. Yes you can put your head in a hole and act like you aren’t paying attention, but do you really want to live like that forever?

Do you really want to live parts of your life based on incomplete information instead of letting go and feeling the lightness of that freedom?

If you feel overwhelmed by the process, if you are not sure where to even start or how to listen… you start by just paying attention. Finding little bits of space in your thoughts when you’re driving in the car or making dinner. What are your thoughts saying? Just start by listening. The more we listen, the more we start to connect the dots, the more those thoughts start to evoke feelings, those feelings start to bring up memories. From there we can start to make decisions based on the information given and the power we now have to make the change.