EMHH Episode 38: How Limiting Beliefs Keep You Stuck

Do you think you lack the talent, opportunity or confidence to ride better? Do you think your horse is too stiff, spooky or lazy to do the things you really want to do?     

If you answered yes to even one of those questions, you have have a limiting belief. And you're not alone. Virtually all of us have a BUNCH of limiting beliefs in different areas of our lives. And that's a shame. Because limiting beliefs prevent us from creating the life we really want. 😢

In this short episode, you'll get easy action steps that will help you recognize and dismiss limiting beliefs from your mind. And have fun doing it.😊🐴      

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TRANSCRIPT

Hello and welcome to Easier Movement, Happier Horses. Today I wanna talk about limiting beliefs because limiting beliefs hold us back and they hold our horses back too. In other words, they're not having the limiting beliefs, but we kind of put them on our horses, right? We create these stories about ourselves, about our horses. And this is really important to remember,

is that these stories or limiting beliefs that we, that we have, were usually not created from any sense of logic. In other words, we didn't sit down and, you know, compare data and do an analysis of why should we should feel this way about ourselves or our horses or this way. But eliminating belief about yourself probably occurred because somebody at some point,

maybe a parent, a teacher, a friend, a bully down the block, whoever said something about you that, that affected you. In other words, it had emotional weight to it. And when it has emotional weight, we tend to give it more value. We think it's more important. We think it's true. And these could have happened. A limiting belief could have gotten started when you were quite young,

or it could have gotten started relatively recently. Okay? You know, when you are a fully grown adult, right? It doesn't, they don't have to start in childhood. They can, they can start at any time. The other thing to remember is that they're, you have many limiting beliefs that are unconscious. In other words, you, you may not even be aware of them.

Some, we know we have, Oh, I'm not this, I don't, you know, I don't draw, well, I don't sing what, whatever the case may be, but there's also a lot of unconscious ones. And they're tricky because they're running in the background all the time. It's like software that's running, you know, your operating system and you're not aware of it,

right? So we wanna, we wanna bring them to the surface. So I just finished up a wonderful people were so amazing. Five day challenge. In my free Facebook group, I have this free Facebook group called Happy Healthy Horsewomen. And we just did this really fun five day challenge. And one of the things we talked about was limiting beliefs because,

because I was inviting them to think about new possibilities for themselves and for their horses. And so to do that, you really have to become aware of the fact that you have limiting beliefs that are not allowing you to have those new possibilities. And then when you recognize you have limiting beliefs to start to change them, and this is a very deep subject that I'm going to do a whole workshop about,

but today I just wanted to do a little shorty episode to give you one example of a limiting belief and to start to give you some tools to turn that around, okay? Because first of all, this is a very common limiting belief and it's also one that you can apply the tools to other situations. So let me give you what the limiting belief is.

I hear this over and over again, is that people will tell me that, you know, they don't feel that they have the physical abilities that they had when they were younger. Okay? So maybe the twenties happened a long time ago that they were in their twenties, or maybe they are only in their thirties, but they had some kind of injury,

or they just feel like wear and tear has taken its toll, whatever the case may be. But they feel like they don't have the physical resources that they did when they were younger. Now, let me tell you what's really funny about this. Is that not funny, haha, but I felt this way in my twenties. So when I was in my late twenties,

I had, well actually I started when I was very young that I had a lot of physical pain, like a lot, lot of pain. And when I was in my late twenties, I remember thinking, cuz then I started to get other kinds of pain. Cuz then before that, starting when I was a teenager, I had a lot of hip problems and then I had knee problems.

And I had, later in my twenties, I got very severe bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome. I, I had a whole number of things and that had a lot of nerve damage, et cetera. But I remember then also having neck issues and back issues and thinking, well, I have to expect this. I'm getting older. I mean, come on.

I was like in my twenties when I thought that. So that's crazy. But I hear this a lot. I had a number of years ago, I had a woman who happened to be a physician. She was in her late thirties. And she said to me, she had a number of things going on with her. She's a dressage rider. And she said,

Well, I'm, you know, I'll be 40 in a couple of years. So of course I have this. Like, she just totally expected it, totally expected it. And I was like, Whoa, whoa, whoa. Cuz at that point, at that point I had dis you know, I was already now a Feldenkrais practitioner. I had totally transformed my life.

My aches and pains and limitations had gone away. So I knew what was possible. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa. And what was really cool about that, she was somebody that she started sending her patients to me when, when they would present with, like, one lady had, for example, a really longstanding neck problem. So this woman who was,

I'm gonna say she was maybe late forties when I, when she came to me, she had had this neck problem for many years. She told me and tried all different kinds of therapies and chiropractic and all kinds of different things and nothing helped. And so when she went to her doctor, who happened to be this client of mine, the doctor said,

Look, there isn't much we can do to help you, but Mary can't. Now it isn't that I have any magical powers, it's because of the work I do, the approach I teach, which other people do as well, called the Feldenkrais method. And this woman, I mean, it didn't, it wasn't one session, it was a number of sessions.

She worked with me. She could not believe the difference. And I remember one day when she, she emailed me and said, Oh my gosh, Mary, for the first time in so many years, I didn't think about my neck today. She said, You have no idea how liberating that is. So before me, she had this limiting belief that her neck was just gonna get worse cuz that's what other people had told her.

Okay? But I worked with her in such a way that I gave her the physical proof that she could improve. In other words, I, I helped her through these gentle, like, awareness exercises. We call them Awareness Through Movement lessons that I we did, that she could free up other parts of her body that would allow her neck to be free.

And when she started to feel that, she realized, you know, she could incrementally improve. So it's like we worked, and, and this is how you really have to approach these things. You work on the level of the body and the mind. Cuz again, if I could just sit there and talk to her about neuroplasticity, you know, that's the brain's ability to adapt and,

and change, create new neural connections in response to the current environment. I could talk to her about all the neuroscience, but until her nervous system experienced it, her limiting belief was gonna stay stuck. And so this is what I find over and over again, okay, is that you, you can change the limiting belief through the avenue of, of felt experience.

Like, of having the physical sensations. This is why I'm on such a mission, right? And I'm, I offer, you know, the Feldenkrais Method to people. And, and we're gonna have a free class. So please, please sign up for that. Sign up to my email list at MaryDebono.com/rider, you get three free videos.

But then you'll also be invited when I schedule the free Feldenkrais class. Cause I want you to experience this. What I want you to experience is the idea that you can effortlessly improve your movement, your flexibility, your balance, your coordination, right? All that good stuff. And it could be done through this sense of ease and pleasure. That is key.

If you do it through this whole idea of no pain, no gain, that's going to backfire. That's going to, to give your nervousness in the experience of more limitations. Hey, we don't want that. We want this feeling of expansiveness, right? That is how this works. This is super, super important. So it's not about muscling through things because that just basically validates your limitations to your brain,

right? It says, Well that takes a lot of effort. That's hard, that's hard, that's hard, right? It keeps you, you keep kind of proving your limitations. We don't want that. We want you to dial back and do it through this sense of ease and pleasure. And that's how you really get your nervous system on board. This is how your brain can work for you.

So, you know, talking about limiting beliefs, you know, the, like, the dark side of the mind, like yeah, you can use your, your brain to hold you back or to propel you forward and invite new possibilities. So we want you to invite new possibilities into your life, okay? And that is through this idea of experiencing ease and pleasure through movement.

Okay? So this is a common one. Of course. There's many, many different limiting beliefs about all kinds of things. This also, by the way, ties into not just physical abilities, but your confidence, your sense of confidence, because that's often tied into what we feel we can do physically, right? When a person gets more physical resources,

in other words, they're, they become more balanced on their horse, They're more secure in the saddle, right? Their legs drape, you know, comfortably around their horse, right? They have this effortless, elegant posture that will automatically help you feel more confident as well. And then there's other things we do. I have, you know, confidence anchors and all kinds of other ways of,

of improving your confidence. But this, this is very strongly related to the physical abilities, okay? So having these experiences of not muscling through it, but working with your nervous system from a place of ease and pleasure is a really powerful way to start to change those limiting beliefs you have and move them into empowering beliefs, right? Inviting new possibilities. Okay?

So this is really, really important. So I have so many examples of limiting beliefs that probably will resonate with you cuz there's so many common ones that we have. But start with this idea, like, ask yourself, you know, do you feel like your best days are behind you for whatever reason? And I don't care how young you are, right?

Like, you might be just 18 right now and you're listening to this and you might think, Well, when I was 16 I did such and such. You know, you, if you think about it from the, the, with the lens of learning that you're learning new things, you can keep improving. There is no limitation, right? You can keep improving.

So this is really, really important. But again, to convince your nervous system of this, it's important to have the physical experience of it. And that's why I do what I do and I teach the classes I teach, et cetera, and have the programs online for people because I want them to experience this so they can improve both in body and mind.

And by the way, all this stuff applies to your horses as well. Having that felt experience. And I teach this, I teach the hands on work so that you can do similar things with your horses, where you can improve their movement, their comfort, reduce their aches and pains, and have them feel more confident in body and mind as well as having that really,

really strong connection. Okay? So again, I just wanted to keep this short and quick for you and I so so appreciate you listening, but start to become aware of if, if, if a limiting thought pops up, be aware of it. Oh, and let me add one more thing. When you become aware of the limiting belief, cuz I hope you do become aware of them because that's the first step,

right? Is becoming aware, become aware of them, and then thank yourself. Like, in other words, celebrate, celebrate. Now you think, well why am I celebrating a negative thing, Mary? It's a limiting belief. No, celebrate that. You noticed it. This totally changes the energy of it, Okay? And puts you in that state of gratitude,

which is so important. It changes your heart rate variability, it puts you in a higher performing state. Like it changes you physiologically. So when you're grateful, So if you think, Oh wait a minute, I just said that, you know, said that limiting thing to myself, right? Or just judged myself very harshly, applaud that, celebrate it.

Say, Oh, I'm so glad I noticed that and mean it. I'm so glad I noticed that because now I can start to have more awareness of it and I can change, and then I'm gonna leave you with a question. Questions are great, right? They really help our kind of train our brain to, to look for solutions, to look for answers to our questions.

So one question you might wanna ask yourself is, what if the most amazing, wonderful thing happened today? Ask yourself that, whether that's related to your horse, to work, to family relationship, it doesn't matter, or just have it very open ended. What if the most amazing, wonderful thing happened? And then see what your brain comes up with,

right? See what your brain comes up with about that. Because when you ask these type of questions and, and say it to yourself, you know, have a particular tone that, that sounds good to yourself when you say it right? Because that affects how your brain processes it. So, so do that for yourself, okay? This is going to get you started on getting rid of those negative beliefs and,

and, and getting rid of, of you know, that what we call, what I'm jokingly calling the dark side of the mind, like the, the, the way you're using your brain to limit you. Let's get rid of that. Let's just stop that right now and start to use it to improve your life. So again, let me ask you,

what if the most Wonderful, amazing thing happened to you today? And then see what you come up with, okay? And I'd love to hear from you. Feel free to email me, [email protected]. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. I so appreciate you and I can't wait to talk to you again soon. Bye for now.