A lot of these could be a whole-ass post on their own. Hell, even the sub-points could be a post on their own. So, this is an overview, and is not a comprehensive list of “all the limiting beliefs out there”, but are mainly what I’ve come across. I’ve written elaboration for some of the listed beliefs, but not all of them.
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Common Limiting Beliefs:
😳 I am not enough
—> This is the most common limiting belief I’ve come across, and has a bunch of different manifestations. A common specific form of this belief is, “I must achieve to be enough”. When we’re feeling comparison blues while scrolling through social media, most often this belief is at the root of it.
This also manifests differently depending on race and gender.
—> Gender is a big convoluted bag, but for example: for womxn, the prevailing idea is that we’re not enough unless we’re pretty and skinny. For men/masculine folks, often it’s not being enough unless certain status/income is achieved. And depending on where we are on the gender spectrum, it could be we feel like we’re not enough unless we’re feminine or masculine “enough” in certain ways.
—> In terms of race, I think the limiting beliefs we as BIPOC form based on internalized racism doesn’t get talked about nearly enough. Some examples: Most second-gen folks are familiar with the pressure to succeed and “make it” (I know for Desi culture specifically: this is a holdover from British colonialism). And the sentiment behind the idea “Black folks need to work twice as hard to get half as hard”, applies to other poc too. The side effect of this is a feeling like we need to overcompensate because society tells us we’re not enough, in subtle or overt ways. Beauty standards, and politics of desirability are other examples of internalized limiting beliefs.
Will do more of a post on conditioning based on race in the future. And I think white folks have certain specific conditioning too, but its harder to spot because it’s integrated into mainstream culture. (probably will do a post on that specifically as well).
😳 Scarcity/zero sum thinking
This could be a sub-point of “I am not enough”, and the idea of “I am not enough” often leads to zero-sum thinking, but zero-sum thinking is specifically “There is not enough”. It’s the idea that everything is a pie, and there is a limited portion of it, and if someone else gets a piece that means there’s less for you. If your SO is friends with someone else, that means they have less love for you. If someone else is pretty, that means you’re not pretty. It’s if someone else wins, you lose. It’s competition and scarcity baked into every facet of life.
😳 I don’t deserve to be loved
😳 Nobody sees me / I don’t deserve to be heard, seen, or respected.
Often comes with growing up with emotionally unavailable parents. Definiton of emotional unavailability is, how often and how were your needs met? Consistently, inconsistently, with disdain, etc.? (See attachment theory for more info on this—Amanda Blair’s blog, link below, is a great resource for this).
😳 I have to earn love and attention by overgiving, ignoring my own needs, and making myself take up less space / I can’t receive
Related to the above, and the anxious attachment style. As Amanda Blair writes, “Humans with anxious attachment learned, as kids, to sacrifice their needs and chase their caregivers’ love because the caregiver was emotionally unavailable and abandoning them emotionally or sometimes altogether”.
😳 I don’t matter, I’m insignificant, what I’m doing doesn’t matter
😳 I’m fixed to my current timeline, I don’t have enough time, I made the wrong choices in life.
—> It’s the feeling of finality of decisions, and that “mistakes” fucked up the course of our lives. Trust me, if you’re feeling like you made a mistake or you’ve failed, you just haven’t reached the end of story yet—or are caught in a bad self-narrative.
—> It’s the fallacy of linear time. Physics shows us that time is an illusion, and that really all timelines and all moments are happening at once simultaneously, but we experience time as we do because of our 3-D life. Time is more circular, and troubles and repeated patterns are more like opportunities for mastery of lessons, rather than evidence that we are damned.
—> It’s the societal scripts about what things should happen by what ages.
You could slowly and steadily save up money, be highly strategic and make a lot of sacrifices, and retire by 40. You could struggle with money and debt for most of your 40s, suddenly find your calling and business acumen and become wildly successful, making as much as you did in a year in a couple of months and pay of the debt you’ve had for most of your life. You can climb the ladder, make ‘practical’ choices, be super successful by 27, find it’s not for you, and start from the beginning. You can have a family at 18, and decide to go back to school when you’re 30. You can realize you want kids when you didn’t think you wanted them and go for it at 38. You can be married for twenty-five years, get divorced at 45, and meet the person of your dreams at 50. You can leave an overcritical partner, find they move on quickly and get married and get this perfect life on the outside, feel really shorted by the fates but do your healing work in the meantime, and 10 years later when they divorce, find out your ex was cheating on his wife the whole time, while you’re surrounded by the best relationships you’ve had in your life.
Point is… we have to honour our timelines. Not get caught up in an overly short-term snapshot. And realize we’re not bound by the past, because from a physics standpoint the past doesn’t exist.
😳 I have to work hard to be worthy.
Things are allowed to be easy. Hard work for the sake of hard work isn’t a virtue necessarily, but because of the puritanical roots of colonial North American culture, it is often extolled as such.
I heard this thing (via Chai Chats, link below), regarding the idea that typically people get 3 hours of actual work done in a typical workday, and that “the powers that be” know of this but keep it as such because it’s better for the convenience economy to have people exhausted all the time.
In the resources below, I will link a post from Arden Leigh that has an example of this idea via a Jesus (aka Yeshua) parable. The parable involves labourers working and getting paid the same as labourers working harder.
😳 I am not safe. I can’t trust life. I can’t let go.
This belief manifests in controlling behavior, and often comes from growing up in chaotic, unstable, inconsistent environments.
Depending on the degree of unsafety/instability one experienced, healing this belief usually involves healing the nervous system and/or doing somatic work.
😳 I am not safe to feel my feelings.
😳 Fulfillment is outside of me.
Also common in anxious attachment or codependent patterns.
😳 I am a burden.
😳 I need to be an amicable person. I need people to like me.
😳 Sex is shameful / periods are shameful.
I think these days, wider culture consciously rejects the former, but I find there’s often subtle undercurrents that remain, (counterintuitively) especially in men/masculine folks regarding ‘sex is shameful.’
😳 Romantic relationships matter more than platonic relationships. (Aka amatonormacy).
This belief isn’t necessarily a problem for every single person, but this belief often goes unquestioned and can be detrimental to many folks. Link below for article about the connection between amatonormacy and capitalism.
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Examining our beliefs is important, because they act as a filter through which we view reality. And beliefs can often form self-fulfilling prophecies. They’re usually pretty sneaky to spot, though, so it takes dedicated inquiry to identify these beliefs. Wherever there is a repeated pattern in our lives, however, is a ripe place for inquiry.
Very much related to these, is the idea of cultural scripts—and toxic cultural scripts. What we think of as individual faults and burdens, are often societal/ancestral burdens. ’Cause, listen. I’ll say this in a North American context, but it could apply to the majority of geographic regions: Traumatized Europe escaped Europe and re-enacted the trauma they experienced onto the peoples already living on Turtle Island, and they turned their wounds into prized culture. The unhealed wound is a gaping maw of a void, eating everything in its path, never truly satisfied (#kidcudi), destroying the planet in its endless, hollow-eyed consumption.
So of course we’re going to inherit some things that stink, people. Some of these beliefs, when we heal them, we heal our bloodlines, too.
Resources:
Jesus Post
Attachment Styles
Chai Chats on Careerism
Commentary on Amatonormativity