A 3 Step Method for Healing from Painful and Limiting Beliefs
Take loving action to move forward on your healing journey with these three steps.
In this blog, you’ll learn:
A Gestalt Therapy method for changing limiting beliefs.
You’ll learn how you came to have your current beliefs about yourself and how to stop believing things that keep you stuck
About Stephen King’s limiting beliefs
About my limiting belief and how I overcame it using the three-step method I’m teaching you
The audio version is below the paywall.
Paid subscribers: Remember we have our weekly Q&A tonight at 6 PM EST. There’s no recording, as this is an informal meeting. I hope you can make it!
August updates for paid subscribers:
I will be away in August, so we will meet for one hour tonight and one hour on August 29th rather than half an hour each week like we normally do. The link for tonight’s meeting is below.
This morning I was listening to, On Writing, by Stephen King, a book about his journey as a writer. When he was a kid, his teacher found a sci-fi story he wrote and asked him why he’d “write junk like this in the first place” when he was so talented. Why would he waste his abilities like that? King goes on to write,
“I had no answer to give. I was ashamed. I have spent a good many years since–too many, I think–being ashamed about what I write. I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction and poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent. If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that’s all.”
Despite all his success, King worried his writing was junk well into his 40s because someone told him it was junk, and he believed them. This is a great example of how the messages we get as children become what we believe about ourselves. These beliefs stick with us until we actively work on releasing them.
Additionally, King says that to this day he won’t share anything he writes with his family because his parents told him his writing was a waste of time, he’d be poor his whole life, and what he wrote was “weird”. He wrote his first story in second grade, but no one encouraged him until he got to high school.
Like King, as children, you got messages about who you are, what you are, what you should do, what you shouldn’t do, what makes you worthy, unworthy, good, bad, etc. Those messages got internalized and became the beliefs you have today. In Gestalt therapy, we refer to those beliefs as “introjects.”
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As adults, some of our introjects hold us back. They make us doubt ourselves, our worth, and our capabilities. King introjected the belief that he should be ashamed of his writing, which no doubt impacted his ability to write and his confidence. When I was in 3rd grade, I gave an opening speech for a play my teacher had written. I finished the speech and was so excited and proud of myself when the audience clapped. I ran backstage to find my teacher, expecting him to be excited, too. Instead, he was scowling at me. He said in a disgusted tone, “You spoke WAY too fast!” He shook his head and walked away from me. I was crushed. I felt ashamed, and I have been terrified of being on stage ever since. I introjected the belief that I don’t deserve to be seen and that I’m a bad public speaker. I struggled horrifically with public speaking until my late 30’s. I remember doing class presentations and feeling like I was going to faint. My knees would shake, and my body would sweat. My mind would go blank. Of course, those experiences didn’t make me think I was good at public speaking; they confirmed that I wasn’t. But really, that introjected belief from my 3rd-grade teacher was the problem, not my ability to speak to an audience. Nonetheless, I avoided doing talks or even social media for a long time, which held me back. I wanted to say yes when I was asked to be a speaker at an event, but I said no. I even said no to being on television at one point! Luckily, opportunities came around more than once, and later, when I was ready, I began to say yes. But to this day, public speaking is hard for me. It’s not impossible or debilitating like it once was, but it’s not easy, and it’s not fun.
When we are children, we don’t question the messages we get. We just have experiences and form beliefs. When my teacher reacted to me that way, I didn’t question why he acted that way or if he was right or wrong. I just felt shame and believed I’d done a bad job. As adults, however, when we recognize negative beliefs about ourselves or introjects, we have the opportunity—and capability—to do what’s called “undoing our introjects” by questioning them. As an adult, I realized why I struggled with public speaking. I went through a process of being angry at that teacher, realizing he was the problem, not me, and that public speaking is a skill that I could learn. I stopped believing that I didn’t deserve to be seen or to speak to an audience. Over time, I began to do it, and I got better at it. That is a simplified example of the process of undoing an introject. It’s empowering! This process leads to healing from old, negative, painful beliefs that were never true and still aren’t. It’s also a way to get clear about who you are and strengthen your sense of self.
The most important thing to know about introjects and undoing them is this: you are the one holding onto your current beliefs, and you don’t have to keep doing that to yourself. No one else is making you doubt yourself or hate yourself. You don’t need anyone else to stop believing you’re not good enough. When I learned this, I felt empowered because I realized I had agency over what beliefs I took forward, and so do you when you use this three-step process:
Identify your introjects. The first step to healing from old, negative, painful introjects that are keeping you stuck and unhappy is to identify them. Start by making a list of introjects you’re aware of, and note new ones as you become aware of them. Common introjects include things like:
I’m not lovable
I’m not enough
I’m too much or too little
I’m not attractive if I’m not thin
I’m not worthy if I’m not attractive to the male gaze
My breasts are too small
My butt is too big
I’m not a good writer
I can’t be happy if I’m not in a relationship
I can’t take care of myself
I don’t make good decisions
I don’t follow through
I’m irresponsible
The list is endless. Usually, those big, all-or-nothing statements you make about yourself are introjects. Most people aren’t always one way.
Question your introjects. The next step is to choose one introject and question where you got that message. Sometimes, you can think back to one isolated event. But often, the origin of an introject is less overt or obvious. For example, a lot of introjects women have about themselves come from the patriarchy. That’s not one isolated event; it’s a system within which we live. Give yourself time and space to explore experiences that could have led to developing your current introject.
Decide whether or not you agree with your introjects. Once you have an idea of where it came from, look at whether or not you still believe it. Sometimes, you’ll find that you believe it in part, but there’s more to it. Other times, you’ll know you disagree with it right away. Often, getting clarity on what you believe is a process that takes time.
IMPORTANT: Here’s the trickiest part of this process: it’s important to remember that our brains take in data that confirms what we believe and misses data that confirms otherwise. Read that again because it’s very important. That is why Stephen King continued to believe his work was junk despite all the evidence that it wasn’t, which came in the form of book sales and publishing deals. He recounted many examples of rejection beginning from a young age. In theory, our brains do this for survival. If we remember danger, we’ll avoid it and live longer. That is helpful in the jungle but less helpful in other scenarios.
Identifying and undoing our introjects is a way to take action and move your healing journey forward. You have more power than you know. Drop your questions in the comments below, and let’s discuss them!
Join me tonight for our weekly Q&A at 6 pm EST! RSVP here: https://lu.ma/mkuiup8y