What are Your Limiting Data Points?
What are the data points in your life that have limited you? Those events that you remember - small or big- that you can recall today that shaped you, even if you didn't know it at the time.
They are the memories you recall when someone asks you about your childhood. They might not be the events you talk about, but they are pivotal data points that affected your life.
The Making of a Limiting Belief
I was four. I was lying on the floor drawing an elephant from the coloring book using tracing paper. I was staying in the lines, perfectly. My grandfather walked in the front door. "Look at this grandpa!"
I was so proud. He leaned over me, checked out my work, and said, "That's not really drawing you know. You're only tracing the elephant."
Kaboom! "I can't draw."
Did that one phrase cause my belief? Who knows? But it was the beginning of it.
From that day forward I knew in my heart that I couldn't draw. I never liked any of my drawings because "I can't draw". It was the story that I told myself.
In every opportunity, I reinforced for myself this belief. I enrolled in an advanced art class, way above my capability, just to prove myself right. I bought advanced cartoon drawing books, totally skipping the basic ones. I suck at drawing.
I Didn't Mean to Screw Up My Kid
He didn't mean to affect me for life, but that doesn't matter, what Grandpa said did affect me. And through that I acquired a limiting belief.
And the reason I know that this affected me is because I can remember it. I was wearing blue jeans and a red shirt. I was lying on the carpeting by the front door. The elephant had a tuft of grass tucked in its trunk. I can remember how hurt I felt.
Does that mean everything you tell your child will limit them. No. A parent can inadvertently instill a seed for a limiting beliefs in their children through well meaning advice or protective measures.
As a child ages, and if this seed gets reinforced through patterns of thinking and behavior, a limiting belief develops. Beliefs are formed by continuous exposure to certain ideas.
They are our personal opinions which becomes self evident to us, (not necessarily to someone else.) You could think of a limiting belief as all the reasons you want to do something but you say, "Yeah, but." And we all have them.
Growth and Healing
The relationship between parents and children can be seen as a dynamic where both parties have the opportunity to grow and heal. We trigger our children. Our children trigger us.
If a child’s strong emotion triggers a parent, it might be because the parent wasn't allowed to express that emotion when they were a child.
The parent then reacts in a way that is out of proportion to the current situation, and mirrors the reaction they experienced or witnessed in their own past. In this way, a parent passes on one of their beliefs to their children.
Likewise, peers and social groups can shape the child's beliefs through media and culture, television, personal experiences and failures, even cultural norms. Even a subtle or unintentional comment can lay a seed to a deeply ingrained belief. - Grandpa with Janet at age four.
It Was All in My Dreams
The limiting belief that I wasn't good at drawing showed up in my dreams over 40 years later, and in ways that I wouldn't have recognized if I didn't know how to interpret my dreams.
It showed that the effect of being criticized for my creativity had, and continued to affect me. That led to other events in life which not only affected my confidence in showing off my creative expression, but affected my ability to show others when I was hurt - instead, I put on a smile and pretended all is well. It also taught me not to speak up to authority.
When we can identify these data points in our life that affected us, and in doing so bring them to our conscience awareness, then we can start to heal them.
Over 40 years later and I still wasn't confident enough to show off my creations.
But now I knew why, the catalyst. And I had dreams I could use, employing a dream rewriting technique, to help me heal.
Identifing the Things that Hold You Back
Maybe you can't sing. Maybe you can't dance. Maybe you can't do cartwheels because somebody told you you couldn't when you were a child and that memory stuck with you and got reinforced and reinforced in life and then replayed like a hamster wheel in your subconscious mind.
Ok, you don't care about doing cartwheels now. But you do care about feeling confident to do the things you do want to do. And maybe that's what got damaged.
So what are the data points that run like cartwheels in your mind? And how do you think they've affected you?
It's guaranteed that they show up in your dreams. Your dreams reveal exactly how those childhood events affect you. Dreams reveal suppressed memories; and memories from birth as well. Shine a light on them and they can start to heal.
5 Questions to Help Identify Limiting Beliefs.
If I were more confident, I would ...
I would do that, but I can't because...
That's impossible because...
What does somebody else do that I think is okay, but if I do it, it's not?
What am I afraid will happen?
Your Dreams Know
But don't worry if answering those questions feels a bit daunting, Maybe there are things you can't see or don't want to admit.
But your dreams admit them. Your dreams identify all of the things that hold you back in life.
So, let's start looking at your dreams and identifying your limiting data points. It could lead to a rebirth of creativity in your life, like it did for me.
I still can't draw very well, and I can't do a cartwheel that doesn't look like a right angle ruler, but that doesn't stop me from feeling confident enough to try, and to be seen.