The Limiting Belief that Keeps Us from Having Fun
Inside Out Weight Loss
Renee Stephens
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Episode 25 - The Limiting Belief that Keeps Us from Having Fun

Ever notice how some people love to have fun and seem to be good at it? On today’s show learn how to change the limiting belief that gets in the way of having fun, and in the way of being Naturally Slender. Also, learn a simple daily practice to make sure you have the right new beliefs to create the future that you want. Finally, Renee offers a few more words on graduating to be Naturally Slender.

Transcript

Transcript

Announcer: This program is brought to you by personallifemedia.com.

Renée Stephens: Welcome to Inside Out Weight Loss. I am your host, Renée Stephens, and together we are accessing the control panel of your mind, body, system bringing ease and joy to your weight loss journey and fullness to the rest of your life.

Today on the show, how to beta test your new beliefs and the limiting belief that keeps us from having fun. For example, the first idea that pops into your head might be the opposite of the limiting belief. If you believe that I am not worthy you might think, OK I am worthy.

Well, that may be a step in the right direction, but it might not be the final destination, the final new belief that you want to create. If they believe that they are not worthy of having fun, if they believe that somehow they don’t deserve to have fun, then the thought of having fun can actually get in the way of moving forward. It can be a very ineffective motivation strategy because it can trigger feelings of unworthiness, of guilt, of not deserving what it is that you want.

What kind of person are you more attracted to: someone who runs themselves down and looks haggard and exhausted and unhealthy, who even though they are trying to help or someone who looks vibrant and healthy and fit and well and who just exudes positive energy. Who would you rather go to to help you?

As we begin today, it is time now if you haven’t done so already, to set your intention for this episode. Slide down inside of yourself, sink down and become present with you, wherever you are, whatever you are doing. This time is for you.

Is your intention today to renew, to revitalize, to clear the fog from your future and see the light shining on your path, to smell the fresh spring air of new life, new hope and new possibility, to feel the warmth of the sun or the coolness of the gentle breeze that refreshes you? Put down your baggage. Let go of the heaviness of the past and feel the bounce in your step, the lightness to your movement and the brightness of your future. Set your intention now.

My intent is to bring my message to millions starting with you. My intent is not only to show you what’s possible but to take you there as quickly or as slowly as you like. My intent is to end the weight struggle and replace it with fulfillment and fun.

So, as you listen go ahead and open up energetically and connect with all of the other listeners of this show across space and time. Feel their presence. Send them your support and feel theirs as it comes back to you 50,000 or more times magnified. Open up to the power of collective intent, to the power of collective support.

We’ve spent a series of episodes on limiting beliefs. We have discussed what they are and how they affect us. We realize that they really run the show, that if you have been doing all the right things and not getting the results that you want, then there is probably a belief that is holding you back.

We learned how to identify our limiting beliefs by thinking of our goal and noticing what is holding us back. We even learned five specific questions to ask that can accelerate your process of identifying and changing your limiting beliefs.

We also learned the essentials of belief change: step one, identify the limiting belief. We can do this as I just mentioned by identifying what it is that we want and finding out what has been holding us back.

What is the second step: bringing doubt to your belief by questioning it; making yourself wonder if it really is true or maybe not. And, the final step to changing your limiting beliefs is, of course, as you probably know by now, identifying the new and empowering belief that you want to have.

And, there is something that I would like to expand upon about creating a new belief. You may have to play around with this one for a while to get it just right because when we identify a new belief the first phrase, the first new belief that we come up with might not be the perfect belief. It might be a step in the right direction.

For example, the first idea that pops into your head might be the opposite of the limiting belief. If you believe that I am not worthy you might think, OK, well I am worthy. Well, that might be a step in the right direction, but it might not be the final destination, the final new belief that you want to create.

So, you might want to have a beta test of your new belief. What is a beta test, you ask? You might know this from software releases, from websites where you see beta on it. A beta test is what product testers use to see if their products have legs in the marketplace.

If it is a software product or if it is a website, they may put it out there to see how the programming stands up against use from millions of users. If it is an actual toy or product, they might release it to some children to see how they use it in real life. It is an experimental; it is a test. It is one past alpha which would be the original idea towards beta. Let’s put it out there and see how it holds up.

So, we want to have a beta test for our new belief. What’s a good way to do that? Well, affirmations are actually a great way to do that. We can use affirmations as a way to test our new beliefs. When you identify a new belief that you want, you know one stated in the positive I want you to try it on by using it as an affirmation.

Repeat it to yourself over and over to see how you like it. Repeat it while standing in line, while driving, while doing the dishes or the laundry or whatever it is that you do, and notice how it makes you feel. This is a very important piece. I want you to notice how it feels in your body. Let the wording evolve, if appropriate.

You might change something like ‘I am safe and healthy’ to ‘I feel safe and healthy’ because, perhaps, by changing ‘I am’ to ‘I feel’ you get a deeper resonance, a deeper hit from that new belief. You might change something like ‘I am easily becoming slim’ to ‘I am easily slimmer every day’. Maybe, that feels better for you. I don’t know exactly what it will be because only you can determine that by trying it on for size, by doing your beta test.

And, by the way, when you have a belief that you like post them to the blog at www.personallifemedia.com/renee so others can share in your new, empowering beliefs. If you have seen Louise Hay’s new movie, I think I mentioned this a couple of episodes ago, it is called, “You Can Heal Your Life”, you will remember her saying that it is not the affirmation per se that is so powerful but how it makes you feel inside. In law of attraction terms, this would be said as the new belief or affirmation raises your vibration through the new feeling state that you create.

So, here’s a good question. What if you can’t feel anything? What if you say all of these beliefs and you get nothing? If there were a seismograph attached to you on the new belief it would be flat lining. What if that is your situation? And, I want to tell you that I have seen plenty of clients in that situation.

These are clients who really aren’t feeling. They don’t know how hungry they are. When I ask them to keep a hunger diary before we begin our work together, they are always a five. Their hunger level is always a five because they have no feeling.

I want to spend some time discussing this because it is very important, and so, we will devote time on a future episode to this very topic. But, for now suffice it to say that if you can’t feel there is a block. There is a block inside of you that is preventing you from feeling. It is not that the feelings aren’t there. It is that they are blocked, and when you remove that block it will open you up to much more fully enjoying your life.

So, we will talk about some of the causes of that block which include trauma in a future episode. And, we will also discuss how to resolve the trauma, how to resolve the sources of that block so that you can open up to really fully enjoying your life.

In a moment I would like to talk to you about a specific limiting belief that can really get in the way of having fun. But before we do, let’s take a break now to support our sponsors. This is Renée Stephens, and you are listening to Inside Out Weight Loss on Personal Life Media.

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Renée Stephens: We are back now. Before the break we were talking about beta testing your new beliefs and things that can block you from feeling your way to an empowering new belief.

Now, I would like to talk about a belief that I have noticed can get in the way of having fun. A colleague of mine wrote me the other day. He is in the process of losing some weight and has begun listening to this show. He told me that he had used away from motivation to keep himself exercising for a long time. Now, if you remember from one of the early episodes away from motivation are those things that you really don’t want, the things that you want to move as far away from as quickly as possible.

And, he had found that this away from motivation had been very inconsistent for him, that it caused him to exercise intermittently, and remember that away from motivation can be very intense and powerful to get you going but tends to fade as you get far enough away from what you don’t want.

Now, your away from motivation could be a specific number on the scale. It could be a clothing size. It could be when your pants become too tight around the waist. In fact, this colleague of mine shared that a friend of his says that when he gets to a 32 inch waist it means that he has to pay attention, that that is too big for him and he immediately has to take action until he gets back down to a 31 or a 30 inch waist.

So, if you have a very tight range of comfort and the weight or the size is uncomfortable for you that sets off your internal alarm bells is close by, then that might work very well for you to maintain your motivation or to keep your motivation going over the long haul. However, if you are away from motivator is something that is far away from where you’d ultimately like to be, so if you are away from is when you are, you know, 50 pounds up in weight and you really want to be 50 pounds down in weight, then by the time you are five pounds away from the 50 pounds up.

Let’s see if I am saying this correctly. In other words, you are 50 pounds overweight. You lose five pounds, and now you are beginning to feel safe so you ease up. That is not going to work so well to get you to the place that you want to be.

What is the alternative? Well, what is interesting about what this colleague of mine said is that he wanted to have fun. He thought to himself, gosh, what could I do that would be fun? And, he thought, hmm, well I remember as a kid I used to love swimming. All summer long I would swim, swim, swim. It was wonderful, and so he found a swimming pool near where he works and lives and has begun swimming. And, he loves it. He finds it so much fun to swim that he is now swimming every day.

He created what kind of motivation? He created a towards motivation that keeps him going, towards having fun, away from whatever his away from was but towards having fun. And because he loves to indulge himself in fun every single day, he is swimming every single day so it is working great for him.

What I thought about his idea of having fun and how much he enjoys having swimming, of course, I think having fun is a great thing, but I also recognize that not everyone is going to be motivated by the thought of having fun. How can this be, you might be asking? Doesn’t everyone want to have fun? Certainly, if you watch most kids, boy oh boy, there is nothing that excites them like having fun.

But, for a lot of my clients when they begin, having fun wouldn’t be enough. Why not? Why wouldn’t that be enough motivation to get them going, because they have a limiting belief that gets in the way? What could that limiting belief be? Think about it. If they believe that they are not worthy of having fun, if they believe that somehow they don’t deserve to have fun, then the thought of having fun can actually get in the way of moving forward. It can be a very ineffective motivation strategy because it can trigger feelings of unworthiness, of guilt, of not deserving what it is that you want.

And so, that kind of belief is really worth changing because, my goodness, fun is well, fun. So, let’s look at this one for a moment. Not worthy, hmm? Not worthy of having fun, not worthy of being slim and fit and attractive and smart and wealthy. Let’s just throw it all in there – healthy, wise, not worthy. Hmm. OK.

According to whom are you not worthy? Who gets to decide who is worthy and who is not worthy? Who is the authority? Is it God, Jesus, Allah, Mohammed, the Buddha? You know what they would say, don’t you? I think that they would all agree. Of course, you are not worthy. Is that what you expected me to say? They might say, of course, you are not worthy.

No, none of us is worthy, as a matter of fact so who the heck cares anyway because in a way that’s the truth, isn’t it? None of us are worthy. Either we are all worthy, or we are all unworthy because if you go to the eyes of spirit or God or Buddha or Allah we are all the same.

Worthiness doesn’t really make sense from that perspective, does it? And, if you say, well I am not worthy according to my parents; that’s a common one. Well, what makes your parents worthy of deciding whether or not you are worthy because aren’t they just human beings like the rest of us?

So, my advice is this. Accept that you are not worthy. Neither am I, and let’s go have fun anyway. What do you think? And as you are contemplating this or maybe you are going to decide through it all, well my goodness, I must be worthy. I am worthy because I have worked hard, and if that is how you choose to believe that worthiness happens, then great you are worthy. Maybe, I get to be worthy under that scenario, too. Huh. That’s kind of nice, huh.

OK. So, now I invite you to think about this belief of unworthiness from a different perspective. I want you to think about it from the perspective of putting yourself first. You know everything I know about life I learned sitting on the airplane in the safety demonstration where they say put your own oxygen mask on first before helping those around you, even if they are small children because guess what? If you don’t put your oxygen mask on first you won’t be around to be able to  help other people.

So, when you realize that putting yourself first, that being worthy, that enjoying yourself even, that taking care of yourself is an enabler, a facilitator for every other good thing that you want in your life for yourself and for others. Unless you realize that, you won’t put yourself first, but when you do how wonderful that will be.

Think about people that you know who take good care of themselves. Let’s talk for a minute about Oprah Winfrey. Now, Oprah lives in a beautiful house or homes. When I have seen her magazine, it looks like she has multiple, beautiful homes all over the place. She has a fetish for shoes. She loves to take good care of herself and guess what? Because she does take really good care of herself she is able to help so many millions of people in the world, that her taking good care of herself enables her to share all of the wonderful things that she does with the rest of the world.

What kind of person are you more attracted to: Someone who runs themselves down and looks haggard and exhausted and unhealthy, who even though they are trying to help, or someone who looks vibrant and healthy and fit and well and who just exudes positive energy? Who would you rather go to to help you?

So, if you are a parent because I know that this kind of belief is rampant among mothers, especially, but also fathers, people who take care of young children that, oh, the family comes first. The children come first. My husband, my wife, my partner comes first. My family comes first before me. I’ll sacrifice myself for them.

But, what happens then. Well, number one, you have less to give. Number two, people are less attracted to you because you are not radiating the life energy that is yours naturally. You are blocking it. And number three, at a certain point you won’t even be around to be able to give to these people that you care about so much.

You know putting yourself first is, in fact, kind of a selfish thing to do. But, I remember reading Ayn Rand way back in the day. Ayn Rand was my father’s favorite ever author. He was a real objectivist. But in her book, “Atlas Shrugged”, she talks about being selfish as a good thing. She talks about acting in our rational self-interest, and I actually really like that idea because by taking care of ourselves, by putting ourselves first we, therefore, have more to give to others.

We are in the flow of life energy, and we can allow that flow to spread from us, be magnified through us and spread to other people. But, when we cut off that flow by not taking good care of ourselves we block it, and we become rundown in the service of what we are hoping to do, which is help others. But, it just doesn’t work very well.

One of my clients recently came to me, and we realized that she had been putting herself somewhere around fifth or sixth on the list of her own priorities. Her self-care was that far down the list. It moved up. She put herself to about third on the list, and that allowed her to lose about 15 pounds, to start exercising two to three times a week, and that’s good.

Now, if she wants to go to the next level she is going to have to bump up her self-care all of the way up to number one. Why? So that she will have more to give, more energy and more vitality to share with others and more ability to enjoy and have fun in her life.

So, if you are not having enough fun in your life, if fun is a concept that seems foreign to you take a look at your beliefs. Take a look at where you put yourself on your own priority list. Take a look at how worthy you feel to enjoy life and have fun.

We are almost out of time today, but before we go let me talk to you for a moment about graduation. We talked about this last episode as well, and we mentioned that graduation to becoming naturally slender is as simple as gratitude. It is arriving at a place of sincere gratitude for where you have been. It is understanding the gifts from this journey. What are they? What are the gifts from the journey that you have been on?

We will talk more about this next episode but continue to think about it, to journal about it. How could I possibly be grateful for the struggle that I’ve had? Next on the show, dealing with the much maligned plateau.

That brings us to the end of our show today. Thank you for being present. Remember that research clearly shows that those with a good support structure around them are the most successful at reaching their weight loss goals. Do you have a support structure? Invite your friends and family.

Recruit your friends, family or co-workers to join you on this journey, and join the Inside Out Weight Loss Yahoo group moderated by listeners. There is also now a MySpace group started by a listener, and I am hoping that soon someone will start a FaceBook group as well.

Have a question or comment for me, call 206.350.5333 and leave a message. I may play your question or comment on the air. For other shows on the Personal Life Media network, please visit our website at www.personallifemedia.com. There is loads of intriguing content to feed your mind, body and spirit.

This is your host, Renée Stephens and I am on a mission to eradicate the weight struggle from the planet, replacing it with light, love and fun. Join me as we evolve the world by evolving ourselves. Take good care.

One final note. If you would like to help me end the weight struggle and free as many people as possible to live their best lives and you have a corporate gathering, event or conference that you would be interested in having me speak at, please send an email to [email protected]. That’s Renee, R-E-N-E-E @personalliemedia.com. I look forward to connecting.

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