115: Get Out From Under The GRIP of Your NEGATIVE STORIES
16 Mar 2017 · 12 min
Lori Harder explains how the stories you tell yourself about who you are limit your happiness and keep you stuck. She shares a technique: identify a limiting belief, write an affirmation to replace it, and repeat it until it becomes habit. Telling your stories to others in community weakens their grip.
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Foreign. Welcome to the Earn your happy podcast. I'm Lori Harder, founder of The Bliss Project, 3 Time Fitness World champion, fitness expert and cover model, turned self love junkie, lifestyle entrepreneur and author.
Each week I'll bring you a guest.
Or a thought that will help you bust through your fears, connect to your soul and get focused and calm clear so you can elevate your life, business and relationships. We don't wait until we're ready for someone to tell us we're good enough. We take what we want and we anoint ourselves. Get ready to earn, own and unapologetically rock your happiness every single day. Are you with me? Here we go. Foreign welcome back to the earn your happy podcast and it is time for another quickie because there is always time to fit in inspiration. And I just want to say a massive thank you to all of you for showing up, to tuning in, to sharing. Because when you guys share with your loved ones, it not only helps the podcast and helps me get amazing guests on for you, but you truly become the light for that person. And you never know who is on their knees praying for an answer of a story of maybe somebody I interviewed that, you know, helps pull them through and reminds them that there's something so beautiful on the other side. So I can't do this without you. So just deepest gratitude every single week because I love doing this that I get to come up here and have extended conversations with you because clearly I have a lot to talk to you about. So you guys, I just got back from the Bliss project and it is like a three day wedding. I think I've told you guys that before. It's like planning a three day wedding. And we go into planning a year prior to the Bliss project, like I'm already thinking about 2018 and how I can make it even more amazing. And some of the highlights from this last one, it was literally last week. So to be honest with you, I am still recharging and I'm just still soaking it in, marinating, hearing all of the insane stories. I mean it's 350 women and I can honestly tell you that one of the biggest things and what I wanna talk to you today about is that when we come together like that, we learn that stories don't have the power that we think that they have. So we walk into that room and we think nobody understands or nobody's like me or nobody struggled as hard as me or these people are going to think I'm a freak or if I share this story, I'm not going to fit in or has anybody else done something like this or I'm terrible or I can't forgive myself or something I've done, I, you know, something I can't look past or I can't forgive this person or this experience or whatever it is. And we realize when we all come together, we all find that so many of us are sharing a similar story. And when they are shared and when we connect and when we allow ourselves to let the walls down and to get vulnerable enough to connect and take the risk of getting vulnerable and connecting, knowing that, yes, you could get hurt again, but knowing that if we continue to keep showing up, something beautiful is going to happen. When we share these stories, they lose their power. When we connect into a trib and know that we have so many amazing people cheering us on, wanting to support us, wanting to give us love, wanting to give us ideas around how to break through something, how to let go of something, how to forgive someone. You know, the different tips and experiences from all of these people, what happens is we elevate, we grow, we're able to release, we're able to not have to carry that 10 ton story on our back, right? Whether it's something that we can't forgive ourselves for, something we can't forgive someone else for, why did this happen to me? Or feeling like a victim. It's basically like taking that story off of your back that you have been toting around for the last lord knows how many years. For some of us, it's been since we were 6 years old or 10 years old or whatever that story is. And we're able to just kind of say, okay, okay, I don't need this anymore. Right? Because we know that stories can happen the moment we're born. It's like we're adopting somebody else's belief of what they saw the world as, or as they saw a certain event. Because one thing that I want you to really focus on is no matter what you're thinking or what you're believing, it is something that can be changed. It is something that can be unlearned. You're not set in your ways. So whether it's a belief that we adopted that our mom believed about the world, or our mom and dad believed about the world and money, maybe that life is hard and that money is hard to come by, that's something that we really need to look at and say, hmm, am I just adopting this belief and this story about this? Or is this really how I feel about it? Maybe I should go look at Some of the beliefs and stories of the people who don't feel this way about money or about life, Right? So they come from just all of the different people, all the different things that we're hearing, we're seeing the perceptions of all of the others around us. But when we decide to make a change, that's when we have to recognize that story and say, hmm, where is that coming from? Do I really want that to be my story as well? And if not, you say, I recognize you as a story, right? So when the old story about me having anxiety comes up, because that truly is a story that I developed when I saw my mom have anxiety, when I heard a lot of women around me have anxiety, I said, oh my God, I must have anxiety too. And guess what happened from that day forward that I saw my mom have a panic attack? I decided to get panic attacks, and it was very real to me. And it's still very real to me. I can still, if I go down that rabbit hole, if I start thinking about it, I can pretty much create one just on demand. Panic attack on demand. Like, is that a business? I'm pretty sure I could create it. Like, we could all log on and we could all create them in two seconds. And for real. It's the same exact as uncreating it. So what I do is I recognize when I'm going down that spiral. Is this a story? Okay, this is my normal story of I get an anxiety when I do this. What if I don't want it anymore? I recognize this now. I'm choosing to insert an affirmation or a new story, right? So what I'm going to do is create an affirmation around that. Okay? I don't get anxiety when I. Or I get anxiety when I public speak. That was my story forever. I getting anxiety when I public speak or when I have to be the center of attention or anything like that. Like, literally, you guys, I would rather jump of an airplane without a parachute on then public speak. That's how I felt. It felt like death. So I. I obviously wanted to be a public speaker. That was one of my main goals. Lord knows why it happens that way. Like, the one thing that you desperately want to do that your whole purpose is around is typically exactly where your fear is. Am I right? Anybody got their hands up, like in their car or wherever you're listening. So I had to create an affirmation around this. And sometimes we can't jump to, like, I'm the person best public speaker in the world, and I feel Amazing. So what I had to say is, I thrive when I public speak, or I thrive when I'm in public or I enjoy public speaking. And what I do is, every time I'd feel anxiety around it, I would immediately switch my thoughts to, nope, I recognize you. And I also recognize that as a story that I've chosen to adopt, and I say, I choose to see this a different way, I'm going to choose again, right? Because our thoughts are just a choice. That's it. Sometimes it doesn't feel like a choice, and I get that. But honestly, it is just a choice. And it's gonna take a lot of time to start choosing again, right? So it's a habit. It's a habit to choose the crappy things that we've been choosing, and it's easier and we're addicted to those habits. But in time, you can break those habits, right? So instead of reaching for that thought or like people who reach for cigarettes or alcohol, instead of reaching for it, because we really are reaching for a thought instead of reaching for that, we're going to choose again. So I'm going to have something ready to choose again, right? So if you want to quit smoking, instead of reaching for a cigarette, maybe some people insert gum or they insert a wok, or they insert, you know, a big glass of water or whatever works for them. So instead of that thought, insert a new thought, but it has to be ready to grab. That's what affirmations are awesome for. So for me, it was, I thrive when I am speaking in public, or I thrive on stage, or I love being the center of attention. Things like that. Just anything that is a better thought, but you gotta have it ready. So if you have your main story, write it down. What's your story like? Are you anxious about going to the gym? Do you believe that you will never be able to lose weight? And that's the. The mantra that you play in your head over and over. Are you fearful around something that you know that you need to do in order to become the person that you want to become? So write the story down and then create an affirmation around it. Like, what is that statement that when you think that old story or that old thought, you're gonna say, o, oh, I see you. I see you trying to keep me small. I see you trying to keep me safe, but I don't need you anymore. And then you insert your new one. And it's a program that you run over and over again, and it creates that habit. So you guys, this is probably one of the biggest things that we talk about at the Bliss Project on day one, basically, on Saturday morning. Because we all have a story. We all have a story, and if we cling to it, we get to keep it, right? So Jim Kwik says we get to fight, or if you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them. If you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them. So if you're, like, squirming around right now listening to this, like, no, no, no, she doesn't understand. This is my story. If you're fighting for it, you get to keep it. But if you fight to break through, you get to break through. So what is it that you really want? And start fighting for that. Start breaking the habit. If you really, really want something, you're going to make a conscious choice to catch yourself and start being aware. Because willingness and being aware, right? Awareness and willingness are, like, the two things that will get you out of anything. So don't feel guilty about your story. Don't feel bad that you have a story. We all have one. So become aware and become willing to start shifting it. And this takes time. So create that affirmation. When you catch it, insert it, and then do it again, and then do it again, and then do it again. You guys are gonna do this thousands of times a day, no joke. And eventually you're gonna notice that the time in between is so much shorter. You're gonna be like, wow, I'm not even sitting in that crappy story anymore. I'm immediately able to kind of jump to, okay, that was old. This is the new here we go, right? And you're much more willing, much more able to start taking leaps and start taking. Taking steps forward into what you want to do when you are coming from a beautiful place in your mind, right? When you're not feeling like you're stuck in that story, but, like, you can move through it. So this is what we want to do, is we want to have that clear place in our brain where we can start releasing that story. And it's not bogging us down, because we know that story is robbing us of our happiness and all of our energy. And when you don't have energy, you don't have energy to do the things that you want to do. And energy is, like, our most massive asset in order to move forward and go towards those goals, right?
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So you guys, I have so much more to share from the Bliss project. I don't even know where to begin. So I think that I'll just kind of spread these out throughout the quickies over the next few weeks and I would love to hear from you. Go ahead and comment on my Instagram or Facebook. Let me know what your new affirmation is. I would love, love love love love to hear and watch you just call it out and take its power away because stories really cannot grow in the light. So until next time, you guys, make sure that you share this with somebody that you love who needs it and earn your happy. Bye everyone. Thank you guys so much for spending this time with me on the Earn your happy podcast. I am so glad that you stopped by. If you could take one second to share this episode with someone you think would love it, that would be absolutely amazing and we would be forever grateful. Also, please leave us a review if you feel so moved by going to itunes and leaving us an honest thought and honest comment. Tell us what you think, tell us what you want to hear more of. It would really help us out on our journey to helping thousands and thousands of people. Until then, don't forget, get to earn your happy. Thanks again guys. Bye bye.
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