Whilst we all dream of finding that healthy and fulfilling romantic relationship, unfortunately it's not always that easy and many of us experience obstacles that stand in our way. Whilst it may be true that we may have less time to think about dating and less 'real world’ opportunities to meet a potential partner, one of the most powerful barriers we face is the presence of our own limiting beliefs.
These deeply ingrained thoughts and perceptions can shape our actions, decisions, and ultimately prevent us from experiencing the love and happiness we’re looking for!
Limiting beliefs are annoying because they feel real and sometimes we may not be totally aware that they are driving us to feel, act and behave in certain ways that damage our chances of finding our ‘soul mate’. In my work with single women wanting a relationship I help them to challenge any negative or unhelpful beliefs and this is an integral and important part of our work together.
In this blog we will look at how limiting beliefs form, how they can block our journey to finding a healthy relationship, and discover the top five limiting beliefs that my clients have told me get in their way. I’ll also make some suggestions on how to overcome them.
Understanding How & Why Limiting Beliefs Form
Limiting beliefs are often shaped by our past experiences, societal influences, and negative self-perceptions. They can develop as a result of childhood upbringing, traumatic events, or even the messages we have internalized from media and society. These beliefs settle deep within our subconscious mind, creating a lens through which we view ourselves and the world around us. Unfortunately, when it comes to relationships, these limiting beliefs can hold us back from finding and nurturing healthy love.
The Impact of Limiting Beliefs on Our Search for Healthy Love
Limiting beliefs can significantly hinder our ability to find a healthy and fulfilling relationship in several ways.
Firstly, they can create a distorted and negative perception of ourselves, leading to low self-esteem and a lack of self-worth. These beliefs might make us feel unworthy of love or convince us that we are destined to be alone.
Secondly, limiting beliefs can lead to fear and anxiety. We may fear rejection, abandonment, or getting hurt again based on past experiences. This fear can prevent us from opening up, trusting others, and fully embracing the potential of a new relationship.
Lastly, limiting beliefs can cause us to settle for less than we deserve. We might convince ourselves that we don't deserve a loving and respectful partner, or that we should accept less than ideal treatment. These beliefs can trap us in unhealthy patterns and prevent us from seeking healthier alternatives. They can mean we don’t even ask for what we need or assert any boundaries when we get treated badly.
Top 5 Limiting Beliefs (that hold my clients back from finding healthy love )
1) "I am not lovable": This belief convinces us that we are unworthy of love, leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy where we sabotage potential relationships or settle for less than we deserve. When I come across this very common belief in my clients I remind them that we are all born loveable and it's just a case of reminding ourselves of this regularly!
2) "All relationships end in heartbreak": This belief stems from past hurt and creates a fear of getting hurt again. It can make us overly guarded, preventing us from fully investing in new relationships. Sure, heartbreaks happen, but they don't define all relationships. Don't let this belief make you build emotional walls and miss out on the magic of a new connection.
3) "I have to be perfect to be loved": This belief places unrealistic expectations on ourselves, leading to a constant need for validation and fear of vulnerability. Perfection doesn’t exist and our imperfections make us unique, they make us, us! Believing we have to be perfect, stops us from being fully ourselves in a relationship or on dates. This tends to block us from making genuine connections and prevents us from accepting love and support as imperfect beings.
4) "There are no good partners out there": This belief arises from a negative outlook and a feeling of lack that can feel very real, if we’re either not getting much interest from suitors or we've had a string of 'bad' partners in our past. The trouble is, believing that there are no single potential partners out there can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy. It binds us to the thought that a healthy relationship is way out of our reach and narrows our search for love. This belief can stop us even to bother trying to find a partner or noticing someone when they may be right in front of us!
5) "I don't deserve happiness": This belief undermines our self-worth and prevents us from pursuing happiness in relationships. It can create a cycle of self-sabotage and accepting toxic dynamics. Believing we’re not worthy or deserving can lead to us accepting bad behaviour or a lack of respect from a partner because we think we are lucky to be with them. Not a nice way to feel at all!
Overcoming Limiting Beliefs for Healthy Love
Here are a couple of ways that I suggest you start to challenge and change these unhelpful beliefs (or any others that you may identify you're holding onto!):
1. Identify and challenge your beliefs: Start by becoming aware of your limiting beliefs and questioning their validity. Challenge the negative thoughts by seeking evidence to the contrary and reframing them in a more positive light. Ask yourself these questions: Is this a helpful belief? Is it even true? Am I willing to work on believing something more positive and helpful?
2. Practice self-compassion: Cultivate self-compassion and treat yourself with kindness. Understand that everyone has flaws and imperfections, and you are deserving of love and happiness just as you are!
If you are interested in joining us to work through what may be blocking you from finding a wonderful and authentic and loving relationship, read more about the Healthy Relationship Roadmap Program here.
Who are you attracted to? And what’s behind that?
Do you have a type? Are you often attracted to a certain sort of look or personality in a prospective partner? Can you identify any connections between previous relationships and how you felt in them?
This is such an interesting subject that when we become aware of, we can make decisions about who we want to be with in a loving relationship! And it may well be someone very different to your 'normal type'.
In my Healthy Relationship Roadmap Program we go into past patterns and evaluate what has been good that we want to keep and what we definitely want to leave behind; certain types of relationships and situations for example. Having this conscious awareness of any patterns allows us to make different choices for our future love life.
Often we are not fully conscious of our main limiting beliefs to do with relationships. We may have created certain beliefs and made decisions as a child, both from our own experience and from observing the important relationships around us growing up.
Before we are really aware of these beliefs under the surface they are able to drive us and may affect the type of people we are drawn to. We are 'unconsciously' creating our experience.
What does unconsciously creating our experience mean?
We are always creating our circumstances and we tend to be driven by our thoughts, feelings and beliefs. If we hold limiting beliefs from our past and childhood wounds, it means that without us being fully aware of it the child that still lives within us is driving us to create our reality today. If deep down, we hold limiting beliefs of not being enough or not being loveable we will often choose situations and people that prove these beliefs right.
The mind loves what is familiar, it is wired to notice and guide us to the familiar pathway. This is because it’s easier and the mind is basically wired to keep us safe. Anything familiar is deemed as safer for us (even if it’s something we claim we don’t want). Because we have already experienced it, it’s already a ‘program’ in the mind. Anything unfamiliar requires more effort by the mind to suss it out for potential ‘danger’.
So how does this affect who we are attracted to?
There are some theories that we pick our love interests and partners because they remind us of how we felt as a child.
There’s that familiarity again, but the theory goes that because it's human nature to love and be loved, we’re always repeating similar experiences to our childhood ones.
According to this theory we are drawn to prospective partners who have similar traits to our parents (Mum & Dad) or other caregivers, or who remind us of how we felt as a child. We are driven with the notion of getting our unmet childhood needs satisfied.
So it’s like we’re constantly replaying the movie of our earlier years in order to create a happier ending, where all of our unmet needs for unconditional love and care are fulfilled. This can be a life-long search until we realise that it’s not up to our significant other to meet our childhood needs for love!
That's our job!! As children we did need that love and care to survive, but as adults what we need is us to love us!!
Once we love ourselves we can invite someone else in who also loves themself. Were choosing healthy love, not expecting someone else to fill the void that was left for us as children. The only person that can do that is us!
By gaining this awareness, we have more consciousness on why we are drawn to certain people. Fascinating stuff!
The aim of the game is to be consciously creating. But what does this mean?
To be consciously creating our circumstances means to be aware of our past unconscious decisions and the results or experiences that those decisions led us to. The next step is to decide we want something different and to begin to ‘create’ with intention, to be conscious of what we want and to make decisions that align with this new vision. When you become super-clear on what you don't want you also gain such clarity on what else is possible for you! And that's exciting!
What about you?
Are you a single woman who wants to be in a relationship, but you know you sometimes get in your own way of being happy in love? If so, the Healthy Relationship Roadmap Program will support you to work on releasing the past (including any limiting beliefs that have been holding you back) and healing your relationship with you first.
When you truly remove these blocks to love, it's only a matter of time before you find that lovely partner you've been waiting for!
To find out more about the program and apply click here!
Hypnotherapy & Rapid Transformational Therapy (RTT) help us change negative thought patterns!
As a hypnotherapist I know the life-changing power that changing your thoughts and beliefs can have! Hypnotherapy & Rapid Transformational Therapy (which utilises hypnosis as well as other effective modalities like CBT, NLP and Gestalt Therapy) help people to gain awareness on certain patterns and triggers; where they come from and when and why they started in our lives.
Self-Awareness Leads to Change!
Even just understanding the root of some of our negative emotions, habits and behaviours can set us free, as we understand that the subconscious mind has held outdated and unnecessary coping mechanisms from the past and they are no longer relevant to us today.
When I work with clients who want to improve their relationships or attract healthy love into their lives, we dig into any blocks that may be in the way. These may be in the form of limiting beliefs about themselves and relationships. Once they understand what may be standing in the way of them finding healthy love, they can naturally let go of these blocks and take the necessary actions to actually meet a potential partner.
“What self-acceptance does is open up more possibilities of succeeding because you aren’t fighting yourself along the way.”- Shannon Ables.
Having clearer awareness of our patterns and core beliefs, feelings and behaviours is empowering. It gives us confidence that we can change our relationships in the future. It also provides the opportunity to connect and forgive ourselves for anything we did or let happen in the past.
With self awareness comes self love, acceptance and compassion. With an understanding of why we think, feel and act in certain ways, we know what our triggers are and are able to self regulate to avoid reacting in the same negative ways we did in the past.
This self awareness really does set us free because once we know why we have made certain choices in our past or are triggered by certain situations we have the choice to change, to choose a better way. Once we know our part played in any unhealthy patterns we can start to make different choices.
We can also challenge our limiting beliefs which have been guiding us to choose or accept less than we’re worth. We understand that we’ve been governed by false limiting beliefs and this empowers us to make changes.
Our subconscious mind is receptive to new ideas and beliefs!
In hypnotherapy & RTT we then use hypnosis to 'wire' in new and more helpful beliefs and ideas that will help us with any issues such as lack of self-esteem and confidence, communication, boundaries and dealing with any triggers which may have caused insecurities or emotional reactions in the past!
This takes a bit of repetition, but the mind will absorb new replacement ideas when it hears them regularly for a period of time. I get my clients to listen to a powerful hypnotherapy audio for at least 21-28 days and they report feeling different and better about what we focussed on changing or improving. Also, they often tell me that they notice they are behaving differently too and our actions produce our results in life, don't they :)
Here are some comments from clients who have noticed incredible shifts after hypnosis:
"The best thing been since the session has been feeling able to communicate my feelings and needs. Feeling like a mental blockage has been removed and some energy has been released."
"The best thing been since my session has been the confidence I have gained in myself. My acceptance and gratitude towards my past. I feel supported within myself, which is something I used to seek in everyone and everything else around me."
"Relationships have been my biggest challenge, no matter how much I tried, I kept meeting guys that were not treating me right to somewhat abusive. The best thing that happened in my life after my RTT experience, is I have met a super wonderful man that genuinely cares and loves me."
"RTT helped me to build the strength and conviction that I am lovable and respected by men. Now when I meet up with the man I'm dating, I feel confident and in control which is such a relief. I am enjoying his company and making sure to take care of my needs at the same time. He is loving my confidence and clarity."
