Removing Shame and Shedding Limiting Beliefs: If Your Life Feels Small, It’s Time to Shed Your Limiting Beliefs

Last week, we talked about how shame disconnects us from our true self. Shame and limiting beliefs are like two sides of the same coin. Shame tells us that we are bad and wrong, and often, limiting beliefs can tell us that others are bad and wrong.

Often, a limiting belief isn’t something we even realize we agree with until we… stop believing in it. That’s what makes them so hard to identify! But typically these are beliefs we have about what leads to success, what’s going to get us a “good” life or make us a “good” person.

It’s like some sort of script we believe we have to stick to if we want the fairytale ending. And usually, we’re so young when we get handed this script that we don’t even have the tools to question whether it’s true or real or leading to any kind of happy ending that we actually want!

Let me give you an example…

Here’s one most people from most conservative cultures can relate to.

I was raised with very clear feedback on what was bad vs good. I’ll talk more about this in a future chapter when we talk about breaking up with good girl culture, but for now I’ll say this:

I was taught growing up that drinking is bad. Smoking is bad. Having sex before marriage is bad. Dressing provocatively is bad. Cussing is bad. Watching “R” movies is bad.

You get it.

And these points were driven home so much to the point where I genuinely believed during my childhood that not only were these acts bad, but the people that did them were bad people.

It’s like there was this equation, where a good life and a good person plus any one of these bad activities made a bad person. And the only way I could have a good life was to perfectly avoid all these bad activities.

It wasn’t until I went to college and was away from my hometown and around new faces that I realized, “wait a second…some of the nicest people I’ve met do these things.” Maybe they aren’t bad people? Maybe they don’t have bad lives?

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**When truth meets limiting beliefs, they’re exposed for what they are: fear.**

Like me, maybe you were also taught that there is a right way to do things and a wrong way to do things. Right choices. Wrong choices.

For example, going to college after high school– right choice.

Getting married after college– right choice.

Having children, ideally immediately– right choice.

But the truth? Let’s talk about the truth.

There is no right or wrong choice. There is only truth.

There’s only what’s right and true for each person.

For example, if someone wants to be an architect, they have to have a specific license and the only way to obtain this is by going to college. So college would be the most true path for this person. Not because it’ll guarantee them a “good” life, but because it’s required for the path they want.

If someone wants to be a professional makeup artist, maybe college is a true path for them or maybe, working at a makeup counter, interning for an incredible makeup artist, or moving to LA and honing their craft working on movie sets is a truer path for them.

One of these paths looks more conventional, and one might involve more risk, but one isn’t good and the other bad. One isn’t right and the other wrong. Either choice could be the wrong fit for the wrong person.

And yet too often, we find ourselves believing that there’s only one way to a good life, only to realize too late that we were lied to.

If this is you, no judgment from me.

I’m the forty-something divorced entrepreneur wearing crop tops in my conservative southern hometown, selling nude female figure paintings online, writing about the moon’s cycles.

I’ve seen some shit. I’ve run headfirst into some limiting beliefs and spent years tearing them down in the search for truth.

Once you uncover a limiting belief, it’s kind of like pulling a loose piece of yarn from a knit sweater. Everything is going to unravel. You won’t be able to stop seeing those limiting beliefs.

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So take your time, hold on to what is true, and know that the work you’re doing is worth it because those limiting beliefs aren’t helping you or protecting you. They are simply lies based in fear, and they’ll make you crazy! They’ll have you believing that a good and full life isn’t possible for you. That because you did everything “right” and life is still hard, you must be broken.

You’re not broken. And you’re not alone. But you have been believing a lie, and it’s time to start finding the truth.

And that’s why we’re on this path back to you.

dive even deeper on this topic here

To read more about shedding limiting beliefs, come join my course The Path Back to You. We have extended cuts of not just this week’s post but every week in this series. It’s so much great content, journal prompts, playlists, and more to help you rebuild your life when all these limiting beliefs get torn down. Click here to learn more and join us!