Many childhood fairy tales are filled with scary characters like the Big Bad Wolf that are really cautionary tales. Like Little Red Riding Hood, we are taught that we should never venture out into the spooky old woods alone.
As we get older, we outgrow those childhood fears and learn to love scary movies and events. Halloween has turned into one of the most popular adult holidays because we enjoy getting dressed up in costumes and going to haunted houses to be scared silly.
That is all in good fun, but some of those childhood fears tend to linger longer than ghosts and goblins and vampires.
I am talking about the internal fears that hold us back from attaining our full power and potential. We all have them. They show up as limiting beliefs that play like automatic tapes in our subconscious mind.
One of the most important tasks of personal transformation is to bring these fears to consciousness, figure out where they came from, and transform them into more empowering beliefs.
Some Common Limiting Beliefs for Women
Do any of these resonate with you?
- I am not good enough (fear of being rejected)
- I am not smart or talented enough (fear of failure)
- I am always going to be alone (fear of being abandoned)
- I am too much or not enough (fear of not being loveable)
- I am different (fear of not belonging)
Writing Prompt for Transforming Limiting Beliefs
Go back in your imagination to a time in your childhood where this fear originated.
Perhaps your parents scolded you for bringing home a poor grade, and you formed a belief that you were not good enough.
Maybe you got bullied on the playground and you believed that you were different from everyone else and would never fit in.
Describe the event with as much detail as you can. Then ask yourself the following questions to take yourself through the 5 Layers of Powerful Writing.
- Is there anybody on this story I need to forgive (including myself)?
- Based on my life experience, is there another way of looking at this?
- What have I learned about myself with respect to this belief?
- What is a more powerful way of looking at the situation?
- How does my life experience relate to the universal human experience?
I would love to hear what you learned about yourself by writing this story. Please send me a reply or share with like-minded peeps on our private Shero Sisterhood group.
