10/26/2020
I had a therapist years ago who, whenever I would ask her a question would respond with, “what do you think”? And I felt like saying, “well if I knew that, I wouldn’t be paying you $150” lol.
🤓 But seriously, some of my early experiences I had with therapy and therapists, created a limiting belief - that therapists have to practice in a certain way, a different way than I did - and so with that limited, black and white thinking, I had no options - I had to either be a therapist (like them) or do something else.
It took years or me to draw the connection between my past, my beliefs and my career frustration.
I always loved my social work jobs, but felt limited by them because they didn’t pay what I needed to make to start a family. Therapy let me do what I loved and support a family, but until I did the limiting belief work, I wrote that option off because of my rigid, misguided thinking about it.
👉The way I figured it out, was the same way I guide clients now – using simple exercises designed to quickly get to the root (pun intended – ha) like a Belief Tree.
👇🏻Follow along with mine so you can do one yourself.
Draw a tree - the roots, are your beliefs, the trunk are events associated with the belief, the branches are your feelings that go with the belief and the leaves are the outcomes or symptoms of the belief – basically what is or isn’t working in your life.
✏️ So using my limiting belief about therapists, I would write, “you have to practice a certain way to be a therapist”, “I’m not cut out to be therapists”, and maybe even “there is something deficient about me” in the roots of the tree.
✏️ In the trunk I would write “my therapy experiences” “therapist school” and maybe “Dad’s therapy beliefs” (my Dad was a Freudian psychoanalyst).
✏️ In the branches, I would write the feelings that went along with the beliefs and events “imposter” “not trained enough” “worried what others think”.
✏️In the leaves (my current situation then), would be “stuck in my career”.
Before this process, while I had done lots of therapy and thinking about my beliefs, I had never realized this specific, hidden belief which was holding me back.
🌦Once I brought it to light, I was able to question it, look for evidence to support or contradict it and realize that what had seemed like the only “truth” about therapy was just my own, erroneous beliefs I had unconsciously created.
I was able to recognize my unconscious, deep seated feelings about feeling not good enough, trained enough or smart enough and use exercise to release those feelings, and then I was able to create and install new beliefs that gave me permission to practice exactly how I wanted, even if others didn’t approve.
That shift and process is what I continue to use in my own life and with clients and is the foundation of my Badass Boundaries program, where, together, we identify your limiting belief, where they came from, we release and transform them, install new, healthy, accurate beliefs and weave your new awareness into your daily life to prevent “falling off the wagon”.
I offer Badass Boundaries 1:1 and in small group, online, over six weeks. The October group is full, but I will be adding one more in 2020 at only $500 - 50% off it’s regular, pre-pandemic rate, and $1000 for the 1:1 program which is also 50% off for the rest of the year.
If you would like to get to the bottom of your blocks, message me 💕
