Limiting Beliefs
Each of us constructs a view of the world that helps us make sense of our experiences. Our individual world view then sets boundaries and colors the way we see the world, shaping our attitudes, thoughts, emotions and behaviors. One way to illustrate it is as a pyramid:
From a density perspective, behaviors are the densest, appearing fully in the seen world, and each level is less dense until reaching consciousness, which resides in the unseen world. Each level below shapes and influences the levels above. For example, if I believe that people are generally untrustworthy (world view), then I will be skeptical (attitude) when meeting someone new, be less likely to engage them, and when I do I will engage them in a guarded manner (thoughts, emotions and behavior). Conversely, if I believe that people are generally trustworthy, I may have the opposite attitude, thoughts, emotions and behaviors.
Deeper Inquiry
The best way to illustrate this dynamic is from my own life. I shared my childhood with four siblings: two older brothers and a younger brother and younger sister. My next older brother is 15 months older and I have always been close to him. When he was a preteen or early teenager, my parents took him to get his IQ tested. I heard through the grapevine – or maybe from him directly, I don’t specifically recall – that he tested at the “genius” level. As the next several months went by, I quietly waited for my parents to take me to get my IQ tested. They never did. Never even brought it up! As the months went by and the expectation in me waned, I created a story to explain what happened to him and what didn’t happen to me. Remember, no one ever said anything to me directly. My story was my brother was a genius and I was of “average” intelligence. It is how I made sense of the events in the world around me. As the years went by, my external world events confirmed my internal world view. My brother was a National Merit Scholar in high school, I was an average student. In college, our paths ended up converging to graduate from the same university, Indiana University, the same department, Psychology, the same year. Him with honors, me with average grades. He went on to complete a doctorate at University of Pennsylvania. I went on to finish right in the middle of my class in Law School at Indiana University, Bloomington.
Now comes the interesting part. My first job after law school was clerking for Judge Herboth S. Ryder, a Florida Court of Appeals judge in Tampa, Florida. One of the jobs of a clerk is to research and discuss with your judge the previous rulings (precedent) on the legal and factual issues of cases assigned to your judge. One day, after about a year on the job, as I got up to leave Judge Ryder’s office after staffing a case, he said to me “You are the smartest clerk I have ever had.” I was floored! I said, “What did you say?” knowing for certain that I had misheard him. He repeated the statement and I said “Thank you,” leaving the room with my world view rocked. Appellate judges have two clerks working for them and most clerks serve 2 year terms. He had been an appellate judge for over 25 years, which meant he had at the very least a dozen previous clerks. How in the world could I be of average intelligence and be the smartest of all his clerks, clerks who all graduated law school? He was not the type of man to carelessly compliment people. In fact, he was known for his sarcasm and biting wit. I had to either not believe him or change my beliefs about myself. After being opened to the possibility of having more intelligence than I had given myself credit for, I began to see data from my environment that supported my now-expanded view. In private practice, I was given cases no one else could figure out. In working for the State of Florida, I was given the lead in crafting a legal strategy and arguing in appellate courts a series of cases that we ultimately won in the Supreme Court of Florida, saving taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. And when I followed my heart’s song out of law and into social work, I finished my masters and doctorate with all A’s except for one B (that B is another story for another time).
What changed? My belief in myself and my potential. If we look back at my life before Judge Ryder rocked my world view, there was evidence that I had more intelligence than I gave myself credit for: I won a university-wide award for outstanding research in a Women’s Studies topic as an undergraduate. I scored in the 89nd percentile on my LSAT and in the 92nd percentile on the bar exam. But I discounted all of these with my limited belief. Thank you for indulging me in telling this story about my path.
And I know that the intelligence I carry is not mine. It is the intelligence of Source flowing though me. Source is a mighty river flowing through all of life and each of you. Our experiences in our physical form create a dam blocking the flow of the Creative Force of the Universe. The locks that keep the water behind the dam are our limiting beliefs. We hold the levers that open the locks wide to let the Creative Force of the Universe flow freely though us.
What beliefs do you have about yourself that limit who you are and what you do in the world? Our world needs us to expand our belief in and about ourselves in order for us to manifest our potential. None of us will be served by playing small. Fling wide the locks of limited belief and let Source flow freely through you!
Creating breakthroughs
In closing, here are some statements that I know to be true for me. Test them out in your heart to see if they ring true to you:
- We are each born with unlimited potential.
- In childhood we construct a limited world view that helps us navigate the seen world.
- What we believe is what we see.
- Seeing ourselves as human beings maintains our limited views of ourselves and others.
- Seeing ourselves as spiritual beings expands us into our potential and brings more Love into the world.
This is part 9 of a 12-part series. I would love to hear from you at challenges@thomascapshew.com I have not yet selected the topic for my next installment so if you have any ideas, please share with me! May your path be filled with health, joy, clarity and Love! Tom