Recently I had an experience where my limiting beliefs almost held me back from manifesting something I REALLY wanted to do.
So, instead of letting them run the story in my head, I leaned into it and worked through it.
I really want to share what I learned so that you can just quantum leap over them if they come up for you!
The thing is, one of my closest friends announced she was getting married – in Germany – in only 5 months! Travel is nothing new to me (50+ countries and counting!) but I don’t normally go overseas, especially so far, on such short notice.
All the stories in my head came up.
The timeframe is too short.
It’s so far away.
I shouldn’t leave my family.
It’s so much money to spend on just me.
Trust me, all the stories came up.
I was a little surprised at myself because, like I said, I travel quite regularly. In fact, travel is something I love and can easily justify spending money on. I am one of those people who pack a bag the night before and happily jumps on a plane not quite knowing what to expect at the other end.
Why was I having such a crisis about going NOW?
Then I realised that my life situation had changed and that my life looked pretty different from my backpacking days. The stories I had worked through in the past weren’t relevant anymore and new ones had popped up instead.
- Limiting beliefs came to us from our past.
Previously most of my travel was done when I was single and only had to worry about myself. I didn’t have to take anyone else into consideration. But when I look back on my childhood, overseas travel was looked upon differently for families. We never went overseas as kids and while we did travel a lot, it was always as a family and always in Australia.
Money stories came up as well. Travel overseas was EXPENSIVE back in the day. Heck, it was expensive domestically too! It was road trips for holidays as kids or sitting in a Greyhound bus for 24 hours. We didn’t spend money going on planes when we could spend it on other things as a family.
Finally, time apart from family for my parents was only for work. I don’t remember my parents going away on their own without us. I had no normalisation that it was ok for me to go somewhere on my own now that I was a mum.
These old stories DO NOT SERVE US. In fact, they hold us back! I saw this so clearly when I had the conversation with my husband. He didn’t have the stories playing out in his head, so could see it much more clearly. Which leads to point 2….
- When you give these old beliefs airtime it often takes away their power.
Going through all this took some work! And I was pushed to do this work by my husband (he’s pretty great). When I was complaining about not being able to go, he looked at me and said..
“Why aren’t you going?”
It was then that I realised it was all in my head. There was no one else telling me I couldn’t do it. In fact, it was the other way around! People were encouraging me to go.
As soon as I talked about it, I felt better. I got the thoughts out of my head and could see them from another perspective. When we leave a though stuck in our head, it gets bigger and bigger until it seems insurmountable. What you focus on, grows. Me sitting there thinking that I ‘couldn’t’ go turned into a bigger story than it ever was.
- Remember what is important to you.
Just when you think you have it all worked out, life changes, throws you a curveball and you need to do more work. When your circumstances change, stories will pop up. If you remember what your values, then it is easier to work through them.
Travel and friendship are two extremely important values in my life and I realised that when I wasn’t going to this wedding, I wasn’t living in alignment with what was truly important to me.
So, I booked a ticket. And it made me so incredibly happy. My entire persona changed. And that affected everyone around me. Everyone else got a little bit happier too. Stay tuned for a Germany update!
Do the work. Then go live your best life.
I did a full video podcast on this which is available to watch/listen to on Spotify and You Tube.