How to See Through Limiting Beliefs

Welcome to The Art of Accomplishment, where we explore how deepening connection with ourselves and others leads to creating the life we want with enjoyment and ease. I'm Brett Kistler, here today with my co-host Joe Hudson. Ah, hoo boy.

How are you today? Oh, it's been a lot, man. It's been good. It's been good. I am, I'm in Denver, Colorado, and, uh, just Did a session with like 350 people at this company. It was really fun.

Yeah, very cool.

And you can see the hotel room. I mean, everybody listening to the podcast, the podcast, look at this thing. I mean, it's like sumo wrestler with bunny ears on is the art in the walls of this hotel room.

Yeah, that is pretty bizarre. And you've got some antlers in the back.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess every room— it's a huge hotel, 15 stories, and every room is decorated differently. And every floor of the hotel has, um, has like a theme. So one's like a video arcade theme, and one's a comedy theme, and one's a horror theme. It's crazy.

Is there— are there any rooms with a Limiting Beliefs theme?

Uh, I don't know. I, I think with that sumo wrestler with the bunny ears, there's nothing limiting us.

Uh, well, at least At least we can make a podcast on the limiting beliefs theme.

Yeah, let's do that.

Great. Yeah, a little while back we did one on limiting beliefs and sort of defining what are they and how is it that they run our lives when they're unexplored and how we can start to explore them. And we've gotten a lot of questions and requests from folks wanting us to go a little bit deeper into limiting beliefs and really more into how to see through them and dismantle them and do all the, all the jiu-jitsu that we can do to, uh, find deeper freedom. So how do you feel about going into that today?

It's good. You know, I've been— we've been, um, creating new curriculum around limiting beliefs, so I've been thinking a lot about it. It feels really good to talk about it.

Awesome.

I think the, the thing I want to start off with is that in the last podcast we talked about the fact that it was like, this isn't like— your beliefs don't disappear, that they're, they're integrated. Meaning that when you see through a limiting belief, it doesn't mean— let's say the limiting belief is, um, life is hard. And that might be like a compulsive belief in the limit, you know, and limiting. And it doesn't mean that belief goes away, it means it gets integrated. It means that sometimes you might think life is hard, or sometimes you might have the thought life is hard, but it doesn't create constriction in your system. And it might mean that before you thought about it every time you had a certain emotional experience, and now it's— you don't think about it that way, or that it doesn't have the same trigger, the same hold. That, that the integration is seen through the limiting belief doesn't make it so you can't have the belief, it makes it so that the belief integrates into a more peaceful existence. And I think that's the— before we get started, I just want to re-emphasize that.

Yeah, yeah. So seeing through isn't making it absolutely transparent and you have— you don't see it anymore, or that you can't see it, or that you are in opposition to that belief in any way.

Great. That's the best way to say it, is you're not in opposition to that belief. That's a great way to say it. I wouldn't say it's— I would say that it does remain transparent. You'll start to see that, um, the belief is, is optional. Yeah, but it doesn't mean that you'll never have it. Yeah, and it is just gone. Yeah, right, exactly. Yeah, right. Yeah, transparent in the way that you can see it, see through it. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, well then how do we do that? How do you— how do we see through?

Okay. 2-step process. Let's go.

So yeah, I believe, I believe these things. I believe these beliefs.

Yeah, just go, go, go, go to somebody who'll, who'll pump you up and convince you. That might last a little while. No, um, so there's two kinds. I think the, the thing that I'm seeing really clearly now is that there's the kind of limiting belief that gets stuck where— and that's one that you're aware of. Oh, I'm aware that this is a limiting belief, but I, I still believe it and I can't get out of it. And when I say believe it, I don't mean intellectually believe it. It means like it's the rest of your body believes it and maybe even intellectually you believe it. Yeah.

And what does that mean, like, for the rest of your body to believe it?

So everybody here and listening to the podcast knows that it's better for them to be healthy, physically healthy. And so you can know that that's an intellectual knowing. But until your whole system gets it, you're not going to take action to be healthy. So, so what I mean is like the other word that they use for this is like grok, right? So meaning that it's understood not just intellectually, like you fully get it. And so when I say that the whole system hasn't gotten it, means that the actions aren't aren't coming from that understanding. They're coming from a different understanding.

Got it. So I'm sitting on a couch and I've got this belief that it's better to be healthy, and I see all the ways that I could do something to be healthier, and my body doesn't actually produce and follow through on an impulse to become healthier.

Correct. Yeah. For some reason. Instead, it beats— it's instead of beats you, you beat yourself up for not doing the work or whatever that would be, or you just ignore it or you do avoidance or whatever it is. Yeah, got it.

So how do you, how do you see through limiting beliefs?

Yeah, so the, the, the first thing is that there's two kinds, I would say two ways of looking at limiting beliefs. There's the ones that are, um, the ones that you just haven't seen, you don't know that they're a limiting belief, and then you find out they're a limiting belief and And then there's the kinds that you know are a limiting belief that you haven't fully integrated, and therefore you're still acting as if you're still acting by those limiting beliefs, even though you might intellectually see through them. So the first one, for instance, might be something like, oh, I have a boss, and you never think about the idea that you have a boss being a limiting belief. But you notice one day that you say it to yourself and you're like, oh my gosh, I have a boss, and it causes constriction, which is how you know it's a limiting belief. And then you might really be able to see, actually, I don't have a boss. What I have is a client who, um, I'm a business and I have only one client. I have an undiversified revenue stream. And so I, I don't actually have anybody who's in control of me or is in authority over me. I just have a client. And that might create a lot of freedom for you. And, and then you just see it, the epiphany happens, and it's over. The limiting belief is gone. As compared to the second kind, which would be something like, oh, I should be healthy. And intellectually, you know it's good to be healthy, but the rest of your system hasn't gotten on board with that, and so there's no action that shows that being healthy is an important thing to you. Instead, there's maybe self-abuse or avoidance or something like that. And so those limiting beliefs are usually something that have two components. The first component is that there's an emotional hook that's sticking them in place, and the other one is that there's some basic beliefs that are in play that are holding it in place. And so How to unstick the emotional stuff is not something we can do on this podcast. Maybe on a future podcast we can talk about it. There just won't be time. But I would love to talk about seeing through limiting beliefs and how awareness can just do that, and some of the basic limiting beliefs that make a whole bunch of other ones stick in place.

Yeah, awesome. So, I mean, let's, let's start with what makes us not see limiting beliefs.

Yeah, um, the first one is that there's a logical fallacy. So we just have like a, an error in our thought. Like we haven't, we haven't really looked at it deeply enough to see through the belief system. The other one is just ignorance. Like we don't know that there's a possibility. Like maybe nobody's ever conceived of the fact that their boss is just one client. And then, but the most common one is that there's some consequences involved where we don't want to have to face those consequences. So we keep ourselves in the dark around the limiting belief. So for instance, the consequence of the boss one might be something like, oh, oh, if I don't have a boss, I don't actually have safety here. And so I don't want to look at that. I like to work under the illusion that because I have an employer, that it's safer than being an entrepreneur. And so I'm going to not want to see those consequences. Or maybe a limiting belief is something like, I can't do it. And but if you do do it, it means that you're going to have to— or if you believe that you can do it, then it also means that you might fail. And you don't want to have to suffer the consequences of feeling like a failure. So it's easier to just believe that I can't do it. And so that's the other thing that keeps the unseen ones in place. And the kind of the quickest hack to seeing if you have one of those things is you just look for a comparable in the space. You just say, oh wait, is there entrepreneurs that feel safe? Oh, is there entrepreneurs that are actually more secure financially than me in a job? Oh yes, there are. Therefore, there must be something that I'm not seeing. Or, um, is there, um, people who can enjoy failure? Is there people who failed several times and then succeeded, i.e., Abe Lincoln or Sam Walton? Uh, and that can allow you to see how your your limiting belief is untrue or can be untrue from a certain point of view.

Yeah, yeah. So you're pointing towards— there's, there's the possibility that people can have different beliefs and it can be easy for them to have failure or to experience failure, to experience whatever emotions come from the consequences that we might be avoiding behind our own limiting beliefs. And so how do, how do we make it easier to see them? How do we make—

yeah, so the, the first thing is that it it— the, the belief is to see that the belief, it's not about being true or untrue. So usually that's where somebody gets stuck. It's like, is that a true belief or is that a non-true belief? And that is just not the way to see through limiting beliefs. The way to see through limiting beliefs is just to see that there's constriction when you have the thought. You have the thought and then you have constriction. That is a limiting belief. It's not whether the belief is true or untrue. And so an example of this would be, let's say, let's say you have two people that you're gonna hire for a job and they have identical resumes, they have the same experience, there's nothing differentiating them except for one thing. And the one thing that's differentiating them is one of them thinks, "I can do this job well," and the other one thinks, "I can't really do this job well." Who are you going to hire? And it doesn't matter if that idea is right or not right, true or not true. And what matters is that they have the more useful belief system. They have less constriction in their system around taking this job. And, and that's what you're looking for. It's never about a good or a bad idea.

The other—

the same thing with like the, the metaphor we've been using, the I have a boss metaphor. Or belief. For some people, 'I have a boss' is not a constrictive thought at all, so it's not a limiting belief for them. They're like, 'Yeah, I have a boss, it's great, my boss is great, I love having a boss, this is wonderful.' And for some people, it's like, 'Grrr,' every time they think that they have a boss, they get constricted. And so then that's something for them to see through. So it's really not about— and, and in one way, it's absolutely true for both people that they have a boss, and For another way, it's absolutely true that they don't have a boss, that they have one client and they have an undiversified revenue stream. And so it's never about right or wrong. It's about what's the thought that serves you best. The way we know it serves us best is if it's creating constriction in our system. And so as soon as you get that, it totally helps you see through limiting beliefs.

Yeah, so it's more about the limiting aspect of it than that there's a belief that you have and it's true or not true. It's not even that you're trying to prove these beliefs as false.

Right.

Except as an exercise to believe them a little bit less, or to see through what you need to see through to let go of the constriction and find freedom. And it's about the, the limitation. And as the limitation lifts, you can have the belief and other beliefs.

Yeah, so that's exactly right. The whole thing about working with limiting beliefs, the underlying principle is that you're constantly creating spaciousness. And so you're taking something that creates constriction and you are finding spaciousness with it. And one way to do that is to see the untruth in it. And One way to do that is to see that it's not your thought, that it was given to you. One way is to visualize yourself in a world where that isn't your thought anymore. One way is to see that there are people who have been very successful with a different thought around the same subject. So all of those things can create more spaciousness in the system. And so You're not looking for your brain to tell you, oh, I don't believe this anymore. You're looking for your body to tell you, oh, that thought doesn't create constriction in my system. And, and I have other thoughts that I believe that, that are more useful to me, and I know that because they don't create constriction in my system.

So, so what are some of the basic beliefs that keep these stuck ones stuck?

Yeah, um, there's 3 main categories of these beliefs. The first one is I'm bad. The second one is it's hard. And the third is, um, I'll be unsafe. Those are the 3 categories of beliefs that— and it even works with like letting go of limiting beliefs. I can't let go of limiting beliefs because I'm bad. I can't let go of limiting beliefs because it's hard. I can't let go of limiting beliefs because I won't be safe. Those are kind of the 3 main categories that help a belief get stuck in, you know, halfway understood where our mind might get it, but the body doesn't get it.

What do you mean by bad and what would make that be a stuck belief?

Yeah, bad would be like, you should be ashamed, you're responsible, you tried and you can't, I'm, you know, broken, I'm broken, there's something essentially wrong with me. It's any way in which you tell yourself that something can't change because you're flawed by nature.

What would make us think that we're bad by nature?

Yeah, I mean, oftentimes we're told that. Most of us were raised with shame as a tool of control. So we've been shamed to, you know, guilted or shamed you know, you're naughty. Like, I mean, I, I've seen parents tell their kids they're naughty 5 times in an afternoon. And so it's really hard if you get told that for your whole life to come out of it and think, oh, I'm not naughty, I'm good, I'm inherently good. So that's one example. Um, the other thing is that, um, you can— you start looking for evidence that you're bad because other people attack you. So instead of somebody attacks you and you think to yourself, oh, that's because they're having a bad day, they haven't had enough coffee, they are projecting, they're having an issue, you think, oh, I've done something wrong, I'm bad. And so you start using that as evidence that you're bad. Anything that goes wrong, oh, it shows that I'm bad. Um, and the other way is to look back on actions that you've had and you think, oh, 'If I was good, I wouldn't have whatever cheated on my husband,' or 'I wouldn't have like eaten the food.' Like, 'I know, like, my brain tells me I shouldn't, but I'm still doing it. That's because there's something wrong with me. I'm broken. I'm bad.' Um, instead of seeing it as ignorance, instead of seeing it as not ignorance in a bad way, but ignorance like not knowing the right tools for the job. So we get told it and then we find evidence. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, that ignorant piece is interesting. So you, you might see the belief, you might know that it's a limiting belief at the time. Like, yes, I know that if I work out, I'll feel healthier and I'll feel better, and I still am not doing that right now. Yeah, so even proving it with present actions that are ignorant, correct, seems like a thing.

Yes, exactly. Yeah, well put.

But what's— so what's the ignorant piece if you If you see the belief and you don't take the action, it's like ignorance in the body, in some deeper level.

Yeah, you don't— like, you're not ignorant of the idea. So as an example is, you're not ignorant that being healthy is, is a good choice. You're ignorant of how to dislodge the thought that you're bad in your head, which causes you to take actions to prove you're bad. Or you are ignorant of how to motivate yourself to be healthy, or you're ignorant of the fact that being healthy can actually be really fun and it doesn't have to be a chore that oppresses you. So it, it doesn't mean that you're— because clearly if you fully understood it, you would do it. Yeah, right. But in, but in their mind is, I'm— I understand it, but I'm not doing it, so I'm bad, instead of, I don't fully understand it, how do I find out?

Yeah, maybe I was ignorant of the belief underneath it. So I might, I might believe that it's great to be healthy, but I might not be, I might not be seeing the belief underneath it, that the belief that I'm broken and bad.

You're right. Or the belief that it's hard to be healthy, or the belief that if I get healthy, I'll be unsafe. Like, I know a lot of overweight people who stay overweight because they got molested at some point in their life. And as soon as they see through the molestation and they realize that they can be attractive and safe, they start losing weight. So there's a ton of things that could be in there. It's— and, and, and, but instead we say, oh, we know it, we're not doing it, therefore we're bad.

Yeah. Okay. So how, how do you know that you're not bad?

So what's interesting is like, if you've been trying to do something, let's, let's use like the be healthy example, and you've been thinking about being healthy and trying to be healthy for 20 years, that shows me that you're strong. That shows me that you have persistence. That shows me that you care about yourself. That shows me that you're not giving up. It shows me some self-awareness. It shows me an urge for, um, leaving ignorance. And all those things are really good things that you would call, oh, that's good. That's it. That makes, those are some of the components that make up what we would call a good person. And so we're not looking at any of that stuff. And so every single place where you think that you're bad, I'm sure that there's 20 or 30 pieces of evidence in that same thing, just like I just said, that would actually show that you're good. The other thing is that when people think I'm bad or I'm broken or something, and you start digging down with them, and you say, okay, what exactly is it that makes you bad? Okay, well, I'm, I'm overweight. Okay, well, there's a lot of overweight people. Are they all bad? No, no, no, they're not all bad. Okay, then what exactly is it that makes you bad? And if you keep on doing that, they can never get to an answer. There's no answer for that. There is no essence thing, like, and, you know, I, I haven't worked with murderers, so maybe the murderer can actually say that, but I would suspect even a murderer would be able to see other murderers as not bad people.

I mean, we've spoken with Emil as an exact perfect example.

When we had that conversation with Emil, his journey was to stop calling himself bad, stop having that judgment because it was holding him in a pattern. And so, he had to be able to see through that belief system to actually get the freedom and be the kind of person that he and society wanted him to be. A great example of it. And for you guys who— there's a podcast on Emil that you can go listen to. It's a just— he's an amazing human if you haven't heard it.

Emil DeWeaver in our catalog.

Yeah, um, so that's another way that you can see that it's like you're not bad. And, and then the other thing is, if you really want to prove it to yourself, for the next, say, 3 months consistently say that you're inherently good. Instead of saying, "I'm bad," or thinking to yourself you're bad, think, "Oh, I'm inherently good," and see what happens. Because a lot of the times, we are the things that we tell ourselves that we are. So if you tell a kid he's naughty all the time, they're gonna act naughty. That's how it works. If you tell yourself you're good all the time, then there's a good chance— go test it, don't take my word for it— that all of a sudden you start acting in a way that's good, or at least seeing your actions as good. Because sometimes our idea of good is, is just some more morality or something like that. That's not actually the feeling of goodness. And so I would say test the belief, see if you're bad or if it's just that you've been telling yourself you're bad so long that you are acting like it. So those would be the 3 things that I would suggest if people really truly think that they're bad that they can do. And discover otherwise.

And so the next one you mentioned was that it's— people believe that it's hard. What do we mean by that? That it's hard to see through and find freedom?

Yeah, I mean, it generally means that like there has to be a lot of effort, it's gonna, it's gonna suck, they're gonna have to endure it, you know, that it's like there's gonna need to be a lot of trying, that it can't be simple, or that they can't enjoy the process. That's usually— so people are like, oh, changing my limiting beliefs is hard, assumes like a chore, like a level of oppression, like a— instead of, oh, I can like work for 10 minutes, change a limiting belief, and I immediately have some freedom, which feels better, and then I can do it again. This is great, right? Or therapy— oh, it's going to be really hard to go to therapy, or it's going to be really hard to start a business. And there's some people— again, you can just go to the comps— there are some people who really, really have enjoyed starting their business. So there's a way to do it to enjoy it, but the idea is it's going to be hard, and then that immediately clogs the— makes it harder to see through limiting beliefs.

Yeah. And then on the other side, how hard is it actually to just continue to oppress ourselves?

Yeah, totally. Right, to endure shit is hard. Exactly.

Yeah.

But to tell yourself you have to endure stuff is hard. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. So, so why, why, why does that persist? Why does that— why does the belief that something's hard persist when in reality it's actually harder to continue?

Yeah, one is we don't know how to— sometimes we don't know how to do it, so we, we just say it's hard because we haven't done it before. Uh, there's this latticework of ideas on giving up limiting beliefs, and if we don't know that, it seems hard rather than Oh, here's the path to get there. And we can talk about Lattice Work a little later if you want. And then, um, the other reason is because emotions hold them in place. And so since people don't know that, they think, oh, letting go of a limiting belief is hard, or letting go of a behavior is hard, until they realize that it's really about an emotion that they're not fully feeling, loving, and accepting. And when they do that, then the behavior can immediately change. So there's all sorts of reasons people think it's hard, but it's just like drywall. You know, if I'm going to put up drywall, I'm going to think it's hard. And if someone who's done drywall, you know, for the last 10 years puts up drywall, they don't think it's going to be hard. And, and so as soon as— if I'm— if I go to the person who knows how to hang drywall and he's like, here it is, it's easy, do it like this, then it's immediately going to be easier for me. So like anything, a lot of the hardness is, is about ignorance, and we've been trying the same thing in the same way over and over and over again. I'm going to be healthy by losing weight. I'm going to lose weight by reducing calories. 20 years later, it's hard because it's not working, but there might be 10 other ways to lose weight that we haven't tried.

Yeah, so the, the seeing, seeing through a limiting belief intellectually and then not having that fully grok in our system continues to prove that, see, this belief must be true because I keep falling back into it. Just like if you're trying to hang drywall with like a putty, like a screw that doesn't work. It's just going to keep falling. You're like, drywall is hard until you figure out.

Yeah, exactly.

Until you see what's holding the limiting beliefs into place.

Exactly. But it's, it's, but it's not hard as it turns out. Like, you have changed, you personally, everybody has changed thousands of limiting beliefs in their lives and they've done it without even noticing it. Our neurology is set up not to notice all the limiting beliefs that we've seen through. Because we like to think that we have like a coherent sense of self, and that coherent sense of self needs a set of beliefs that you've pretty much been believing for a long time. So we don't look back and go, oh my gosh, my beliefs have completely changed. Um, but you're— and so let me give you some examples. Your belief of God between the time you were born and now has— there's been multiple versions of God in your mind, most likely. And, and they have shifted and they have become less and less limiting. Your belief of God has become less and less limiting. Same with money, same with, um, drugs, same with, um, education, same with work, same with effort, same with every single thing that you can think of. You thought about it differently when you were 8 than when you were 23 than you do now, which literally means thousands. Your idea of faith, your idea of love, your idea of sex, your idea of all of them have changed. So thousands of your limiting beliefs have changed without any effort at all. You don't even know who the hell did it. You didn't even notice it was done. It's super easy. And, and when you fully let that in, then it— then you can see that it's not that hard.

Well, you're also implying there that the progression of limiting beliefs is that we just tend to become more freer from them. And is— to what extent is that true? To like how much Can you adopt a new limiting belief and then become more and more stuck in it and not realize that? You're like, "Wow, I didn't realize over the last 10 years my relationship with money has become even more and more fraught and limiting.

How'd that happen?" Yeah, I think I was projecting there more than anything. You're right, absolutely. I've definitely seen people, particularly like men who haven't been doing a lot of work um, when they hit their 50s, they can get— become more and more constricted, more and more anger, more and more, you know, uh, more and more limiting beliefs. It can definitely happen that way as well. Um, and, and again, they didn't try to do it. Like, they're just switching one limiting belief or another without any— without any effort. So it's, it's— it doesn't take a lot of effort to change your beliefs. And, and if you can bring consciousness to it, it gets even easier. And you can make sure that they're positive.

Yeah, yeah. And I guess that's, that's the kind of thing that can lead to the difference between becoming old and cranky and limited and living in a very small world, and then the people who in their age age very gracefully and are loving and open and laugh a lot and still excited to learn new things. Yeah.

Yeah, it's funny. Um, I had a, I had a, uh, my first therapist, you know, I said she was older and her husband and her were just adorable and lovely and I loved being around them. And I asked them like, how did this happen? Because I was watching my parents do something very different. And she said, you know, I, I've looked at all of our friends and the, the people who really decided to to have a life of, of self-discovery, all, all have become more open and more loving, and the ones who, who chose not to have all, all gone the opposite direction. That you really have to make that choice. And, and I, I, I haven't really looked at it like completely. Like, I would like to find some counterexamples, but I can't think of any counterexamples of that now that I'm in my, you know, 50s. I see the same thing. It's the people who've really spent some time at it, their world gets bigger, more expansive, more free, more joy, more laughter. And the ones who haven't, they, you know, who chased after something else to make them happy, it just shut down on them.

Yeah. Okay, so we've gone through these, the underlying belief that we're bad or that it's hard to see through beliefs or hard to change. And then there's the third one that you mentioned, that we will— we feel like we'll be unsafe if we stop believing this. Yeah, we stop being limited by, by a particular belief. And what do you mean by, by that?

Yeah, so unsafe means that I'm going to be abandoned, I'm not going to be loved, something bad will happen, the other foot is going to fall. Um, anything like that, anything that it's like you're, you're not going to be okay. And it's a more nervous system kind of way of looking at it. But yeah, that's, that's a belief that'll get in the way of people. And I think even one of the things I'll say about this is that there's actually a marker when you start doing some of the deeper self-discovery work. There's these moments that you have that are like, oh gosh, I'm not going to be able to relate to anybody anymore, or oh my gosh, like, I'm gonna lose some friends, or oh my gosh, like, am I going to be able to operate in society, or oh my gosh like, will I be able to keep my job? And I used to— those used to scare me. Now they excite me. Anytime I have that thought now, I'm like, oh cool, I'm on the precipice of a very cool change. And, um, that fear is kind of like a road sign of that. Um, so it's, it's, it's awesome. But for many people, it— until it's seen through, it becomes a reason to stop. Looking through the limiting beliefs.

Yeah. What's an example of how— how did that shift occur for you, moving from— moving from that, ah, into, oh, I'm on the precipice, it looks like my entire life is about to fall apart right now. Great. That clearly doesn't mean that it's going to be worse objectively in the future than now.

That's crazy. Oh my goodness. I Yeah, it's just, it just happened so many times. There's just so many times that that happened that, and I'm not speaking about like, oh my gosh, like my business is about to be destroyed. Though, now that I think about it, the times that I have thought that, that have led to like huge growth too. But I am speaking particularly to that belief system of, of like, oh, I'm not gonna be able to relate to people anymore. That, that happened so many times. And then at the end of it, I was so much happier and so much more at peace that I realized, oh, this is a good sign to it. I can say that the times that I've been not scared for my physical life, but scared for business or scared for marriage, I've also, you know, um, I'm just checking to see. Yeah, they— I can't find one at this moment that hasn't led to some sort of personal breakthrough or some sort of deeper way of looking at the world. And, or a deeper understanding that allowed me to live the life that I wanted to live with more ease. So yeah, even that apparently. Yeah, yeah.

So what makes us, what makes us adopt these beliefs that we're, that will be unsafe?

Yeah, well, um, getting punished as a kid, being unloved or abandoned as a kid, you know, you learned that. If, and the other thing is there's this kind of, there's this weird like human brain logic thing that happens, which is bad stuff occurs, like pain occurs, things, you know, you know, people hurt you sometimes, you know, bad things happen, economies collapse, things you don't have any control over. And, and, and so there's this kind of this weird learned, like, oh, I was happy and then this bad thing happened, so I can't be happy. Because then the next foot's next foot's going to always fall. I can't trust that it'll be good because the nature of things that are good and smooth and peaceful is that they do not last forever. Um, the only way they last forever is of an internal mindset, but the actuality of the earth around us is that it is in constant flux. And in that constant flux, bad things happen— what we call bad things happen. And so we learn the lesson that they're always going to happen. We never— like, nobody has ever— well, Some people have, but very rarely do you ever hear somebody go, "Oh, things are horrible right now, so something good must happen right now." And it always happens that way. Like, there's always something good that happens after the bad, and— but we never think that way. We— because our brains are neurologically set up to look for cause and effect to avoid negative effect. And so that's also part of the reason that we, we think that we're going to be unsafe.

Yeah, um, it's like, oh, it's only, only uphill from here.

Yeah, but the weird thing is, exactly right, it's very rare for someone to think that. And what's interesting is that neurologically speaking, it's like— and they did this study in war that— and it's true in climate change— it's like when somebody has experienced devastation very close to them that didn't affect them, like a bomb going off in the apartment next door or their city getting ruined by a big flood, that they are less likely to believe it will affect them in the future, which is amazing to me. Yeah, because they, they're like, oh, I survived it, so I'll probably survive the next one, which is interesting. Or some people think, um, some people think that what's happening is like a cognitive— what's the word for it— cognitive— I can't remember the word, but, um, that basically they have to believe it can't happen to them or they would have to leave the situation. And since they stay, they have to believe that it's not. So it could be like a self-selecting bias, but it is a phenomenon studied.

Yeah, that's interesting. I could see on one hand there's like a confirmation bias, and I'm speaking like, yeah, from being a BASE jumper and having a lot of people die around me, there's like, oh well, if I'm still alive, then that must mean I'm 'one of the people that does things in a way that has me still alive, so I'm safe,' right?

Right.

Uh, and then there— yeah, another one could just be the pain of this danger is like increasing, and I need to dissociate from it more and more so that I can continue to feel safe. And I could imagine both of those happening at the same time can lead to this, this phenomenon.

Yeah, yeah. But in general, what we do is we go, oh shit, I'm not safe. And then our nervous system is on alert all the time, looking for the next thing that's going to happen, which makes seeing through limiting beliefs very challenging. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, so let's say we have everything going on around us, the universe is stochastic, and how do we prove that we are safe? What is— how do you, how do you prove the other side of this belief?

Yeah, you're, you're not safe, right? You're not safe. This one's a tricky one because you're, you're definitely— you're gonna die. Right? Like, we're all going to die. And so ultimately, in that way, there is no safety. The only safety that you can have, the only security you can have, is, um, is the security of, of knowing yourself. It's the only security you can have in this life. And I remember I picked up this— I was like 20 years old, I was in Santa Cruz. I think I was probably like smoking pot and hiking and playing music or something, and there's this guy hitchhiking and He was a short skinny man in robes, and— but he wasn't— he was just in robes. He wasn't a monk or anything. So I picked him up hitchhiking, and I was like, for some reason I asked him, what do you think the biggest problem in America is? He goes, oh, everyone's insecure. Everyone feels insecure, I think was his exact word. And, and I remember thinking, do you mean like, are they like not confident insecure? Are they insecure, like, um, like they don't feel safe, insecure? And so I asked him, he says the same thing. There's no difference between those two in his world. And so it always like struck me that that feeling of safety— and you could see he clearly felt very safe and very secure— it's a very internal thing. So, um, so I would say, but on a practical level, we feel a lot more insecure, unsafe than we actually are. So, oh, I'm going to start a company, that's unsafe. But a ton of entrepreneurs have done it successfully and have become far, far more secure. So look, wherever you think you're insecure, you can probably find somebody— or unsafe— you can probably find somebody who's done it and has been successful in it. Um, as far as being abandoned, everybody can find a community. You can be a sociopath who wants to kill people and find a community of other sociopaths who want to kill people, like in ISIS. Um, the other thing is you can look and you can say, hey, I've— you've thrived. Like, look at your life up until now. You probably, for most people listening, you know, have had, you know, your career has gone in not— maybe not the trajectory that you wanted, but it's gone up into the right. That you, um, that you, you know, have fed yourself the whole time, that you have had friends the whole time. So you've been waiting for this impending doom that hasn't occurred. Um, and so those are— there's all pieces of evidence in that. And what our brain likes to do is, just like the 'I'm bad,' it likes to look for, 'Yeah, but this one thing went wrong.' instead of looking at all the things that went right. So that's another, but inherently we're not safe.

I guess like what if it seems like that trend has been in the opposite direction? Let's say for somebody who had it made and then the pandemic hit and then they socially distanced for a long time and now they're really, really socially anxious and their job fell apart because their industry fell apart and their Yeah. You know, they, they, they don't feel like they have a sense of community. They don't feel, and they, they could look for evidence to the opposite somewhere.

Yeah.

But it feels like the trend for them has just moved in a further from that. And how, how for those people would they looking for somebody out there who's successful might just make them feel more comparison, more bad.

Yeah. So, so what you're describing probably is someone who's you know, depressed or suffers from a lot of anxiety. And so is it the fact that they're not safe, or is it the fact that they think they're not safe? Or they— is it the fact that they're bad, or the fact that they think they're bad that is causing that reality to unfold? Now, obviously that's not true for everybody, um, but what's the more useful thought? What's the thought that's less limiting? Is it that I'm safe, or is it that I am— again, say it's not about truth or not truth either, it's about creating spaciousness. And so is their thought, I'm not safe and I'm bad, is that helping them get out of that situation? Is it creating constriction in their system? Is it useful? Or is, uh, seeing through that thought in whatever way that they have to or can? And there are— and so the other thing is you can move to the comparables, which is there has been plenty of people who have been in that situation job isn't gone away, community has gone away, wife, kids have gone away, went to jail, whatever, who have created, like Emil Weaver, a great life for themselves and have contributed to society and have love in their life. So how did that happen if, if they're inherently unsafe or they're inherently bad? So there's always a way to look at it, but again, it's not about That's— that is exactly where the trap happens, is like, no, but it's— this is a correct thought. And, and correct doesn't matter. What matters is does it create constriction or not constriction in your system? Yeah, great, great call out.

Yeah, so ultimately, ultimately it's, it's seeing that we are still here despite everything we believe about ourselves and have believed about how we might not make it. Here we are. And yes, like, the ultimately the evidence of the fact that we are presently here and thinking these thoughts and doing this exploration and listening to this podcast is evidence.

Yeah, and it's just useful and it's less constrictive.

So what, what else makes it that breaking limiting beliefs seems to be, seems to be hard?

Yeah, and we mentioned the Latticework piece, and I would want to go into that for a second, which is Yeah, so you have one belief, you can see through it, but the behavior doesn't change. But there could be like a lattice work of belief systems that are holding that in place, that behavior in place. So for instance, let's say something happens in your life, um, that your company is going to do cutbacks. Probably something a lot of people are feeling right now, and and then the first thought that you find is a limiting belief is like, what's happening is wrong. Okay, that's that. I feel a constriction. That's a limiting belief. You work on it, then you might find out like, I don't like what is hap— I don't like what's happening here might be another belief that is part of the limiting belief latticework. And then, then you might find out change is hard. Oh, this is going to be change, and change is hard. And then maybe change is unsafe. You might be another belief system, and then it'll be, I'll be punished, because every time change happened in your house, you got hit, right? Or, or mom or dad yelled, or everybody was anxious. Oh my God, we're going to the airport! Oh, every time the airport trip, everyone's freaking the hell out. Did you get the thing? Where's the passport? Fuck, I don't like change, right? And then you— so then it's like, oh, it isn't safe, then I'll be punished. So then you'll notice that the belief system is, when change is happening, I'll be punished. And then maybe the belief is in there that I'm bad. And so there's like, there's latticework of beliefs that can happen. And so we work on one, nothing's changed, okay, instead of like actually looking at the whole latticework of beliefs that can be seen through.

Yeah, and that can sort of explain, I think, some of the emotional undertone of if you're looking at the surface level belief of like, I'm losing my job and this is bad, this is wrong, Yeah, then the actual emotional component of that might be all the way down at the bottom of that structure of I am bad.

Yes.

Or I'll never be able to find another job, or I was just faking it through this one anyway, now I'm screwed, right? You know, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and it could be maybe multiple ones, like the— at some point you're like, it, you know, there might be anger there. Yeah, in one of the belief systems and fear in another belief system. So yeah, and that's where the emotional components becomes a really important thing, is like to really understand the emotions that hold these things in place.

Yeah. So, so then what do we do when we, when we see that? I mean, this latticework looks like it's a fractal that can just—

it's a vast fractal that can go on forever. Yes.

And all of it might just land in the same place of I am unlovable, I'll be alone, I'm gonna die.

Yes. It could all go back to the fact that you exist in the first place, so there's some you that needs to be protected, or, or I'm bad, or I'm unsafe. There are some core ones, um, but each time you feel constriction, there's an opportunity for more freedom in a belief system. And the first thing is just trust the awareness, and we'll go into like how to unhinge the emotional part of it, and maybe we'll have one on like ways to flush it. That's a little bit more intricate than the last, uh, limiting beliefs episode. But, um, but really to trust your awareness, to just know that if you can see it clearly, you can feel it clearly, you can create the spaciousness that the rest can take care of itself. Indeed, like, to some degree, um, putting a whole bunch of effort to change it after you see it is telling yourself that you don't see it. Right? Like, if I get 2 2 4, I don't tell myself, I got to remember 2 2 4. I, like, I, I, like, I, I will be— how do I make sure that I know that 2 2 4 from this point on? You know, like that. You don't do that because you got it. You don't need to do that. So if you are asking yourself, oh, what do I have to do to, you know, to unstick a limiting belief, it means that you haven't seen through it all the way. And so trusting the awareness is an incredibly important thing. And then, um, and then we'll do some tools that really help with the emotional stuff. And then, you know, inquiry, as we talked about before in the last podcast, is really, really good. Is to— anything that creates that spaciousness, inquiry is part of it. But anything that creates spaciousness from between you and the thought, or that— or spaciousness within you and when you're thinking about beliefs in that pattern, like, how do you create spaciousness?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And in that piece of creating spaciousness while going through this process, I, I can just imagine a common sort of self-help trap of, oh, like, these things in my life are happening and I don't want to be happening. I'm feeling constricted around it, and I've got to find the limiting beliefs. And I think I see them, but I don't see through them because I don't believe it, and my body's still constricted. So now I've got to dig harder, and then that becomes another constriction. How do we—

another limiting belief.

How do we stay out of that?

Yeah, so order of operations. Yeah, like everything that you just described, your voice even constricted describing it. So those are all, again, limiting beliefs. And so, I mean, I— so the, the cute answer is— and I think the way I answered this in the end of the last podcast actually was, um, was, you know, you work on that limiting belief. The other answer I could have is like, be gentle. Like this is— like, you do this naturally. A thousand times you've done it in your life. Like, be gentle within the process and allow yourself to unfold. It, it— you have to— it requires a lot of effort not to evolve, not to shift, not to, um, mature. It requires a lot of effort to do that. So let go of the effort, allow gentleness to do its work.

Yeah, beautiful.

No, pleasure.

Yeah, thank you, Joe.

Thanks, Brett. Thank you.

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