Affirmation: “I am limitless.”
Journal Prompt:
What do I need to let go of, right now, to love myself more?
Self-Care Ritual:
I love elephants!
They’re one of my favorite creatures, and I’ve made a hobby of studying them throughout my life. They’re strong, and capable creatures. They live to be about 70 years old, on average, and although a female can give birth every three to four years, most females only bear between two and four calves in their lifetime.
Elephants can also be trained to do just about anything. I’ve seen elephants dance on their hind feet. I’ve seen them wear a saddle, and carry cargo and passengers (and I got to go for a ride!!!). I’ve seen elephants used as farm animals, pulling plows and pushing over trees. I’ve even seen elephants who can paint, holding a brush in their trunk!!!
Did you know, an African elephant calf will weigh about 250 pounds when it’s born? And they stand about 3 feet tall!!! When it has grown to it’s full size, it can weigh between 5,000 and 14,000 pounds, and reach heights between 8 and 13 feet?!?
They say elephants never forget anything.
Sadly, this is how humans are able to keep them captive. It’s sad, and I don’t agree with it, but it is a reality. Even in some sanctuaries, tethering is used at night, to keep the elephants from wandering off.
But I bet you’re wondering what this has to do with today’s self-care ritual, right?
Well, when a baby elephant is born into a life of captivity, it is often fitted with a metal cuff around one of it’s legs. The cuff is then connected to a length of heavy chain. The chain is attached to a large wooden spike, that has been hammered deep into the ground.
The baby elephant is strong, but not nearly strong enough to pull the spike out of the ground. Although it will try, for quite some time, it eventually comes to understand that it cannot break free. And it stops trying, because it believes that it will never be able to.
The baby elephant now has a limiting belief.
It knows it is limited to length of chain it is attached to. Because it tried to break free, over and over, but wasn’t able to do so, it believes it is an absolute fact, that it never will be able to.
But remember, that baby elephant only weighs about 250 pounds. By the time it is one year old, it will have more than doubled it’s birth weight. That now 600 pound elephant might more easily break free of that restraint, but…
…it believes it can’t, so it doesn’t even try.
By the time the elephant is an adolescent, about 12 to 15 years of age, it is reaching its full size. That means the elephant now weighs around 10,000 pounds!!! It could ABSOLUTELY, with just a slight tug of the chain, pull that spike out of the ground! In the blink of an eye, that elephant could be free! But…
…it believes it can’t, so it doesn’t even try.
A limiting belief has successfully held the elephant captive.
For my 3rd birthday, I got a cute little pink tricycle.
I recall riding it on our back patio.
I would circle around and around in a loop, always staying on the concrete. My older brother, who was about 5 1/2 at the time, had a two wheeled bike that he was riding around too. But he was going out in the yard, in a big figure 8. He would ride in giant circle, around the perimeter of the yard, then bump back up over the edge of the concrete, and make a smaller loop, with me, on the patio.
Well, that big brother of mine, was kind of a stinker. And at one point he decided he wanted to ride my tricycle. So, he told me it was his turn, and persuaded me to get off. Then he sat down on my trike, and took off with it, on his jaunt around the yard. And I was left standing there, with nothing to ride.
Now, anyone who knows me, knows I’m pretty adventurous. I generally have no problem believing I can do something I’ve never tried before. This trait is not new in me, either. It has apparently been a part of my DNA since I was a very little girl…
A little girl of about 3 years old… 😉
So, I decided I was going to ride my big brothers two wheeler.
I’d watched him enough to know how he got onto it. I’d seen how he positioned himself when he rode. I knew how he used his foot to push himself off the edge of the patio, and I knew how to pedal from my own experience.
So, by all my 3 year old wisdom, I should have been able to find success.
So I put my leg over the bike, grabbed the handle bars, and pushed off just like I’d seen him do a hundred times or more,. I hopped up on that banana seat, straight and tall, and felt the full excitement of moving forward.
Then the front wheel turned one way,
the rest of the bike went another,
and I went flying off, over the handle bars.
What I hadn’t taken into account, was needing to know how to balance myself on those two skinny wheels. Not to mention the fact that once I got up there, my short little legs wouldn’t reach all the way to his pedals.
I landed head first, hitting hard against the concrete of the patio,
and my head split open like a watermelon!
I immediately started crying, and that made my mom come running.
My brother jumped off my tricycle, and came running over too.
When mom asked what had happened, he told her, and she started yelling.
She was mad at him, for riding my trike.
She was mad at me, for trying to ride his two wheeler.
She was chastising us both for being so stupid.
Then we were riding in the car, on our way to the doctors office. And my mom was continuing to rant. She was yelling about how my brother had been in charge of watching me, and how could he have let me do that. She kept yelling at me about how stupid I was, for thinking I could ride that bigger bike.
Once we were there, all the natural pain killer had worn off, and a new level of pain began as the doctor was poking around on my head. I couldn’t see what he was doing either, and that made it even more terrifying. Then the nurse and my mom held me still, while he put several stitches into my wound.
It was all quite traumatic.
Every detail of it was burned into my mind.
When I saw a two wheeler, I would think about that day…
…and how I’d tried to ride my brothers bike, and had failed.
…and how much it had hurt, to hit the concrete, and then to get stitches.
…and how scared I’d been at how big a fuss my mom had made.
I would become frozen, and unable to even try.
I wouldn’t go anywhere near a two wheel bike after that.
I believed, without a doubt, I would not be able to ride it.
And the fear of the negative outcomes of any attempt, only served to solidify the belief.
I was like the elephant.
My limiting belief ended all ideas of me riding a two wheel bike until I was in between 4th and 5th grade. When the fear of looking silly for not knowing how to ride a bike, became stronger than my limiting belief. I eventually got past it, but I wasted a lot of fun bike riding years, allowing that belief to control me.
Today’s self-care challenge is about identifying your limiting beliefs, and rewriting them, so you can begin to grow.
A limiting belief is anything, from thoughts to opinions, and even traumatic events or the actions of others, that keeps you from doing something. They tend to be negative ideas, that you believe to be the absolute truth, and they stop you from moving forward. They limit your truest potential.
Here is a four step plan, to help you become limitless…
Step 1: Think about times in your life where you felt you couldn’t do something. Think about scenarios where you acted in a negative or toxic way. Write out whatever comes to mind, no matter how far back, or how small you think it might seem.
Now read through your list. Acknowledge each thing you wrote, and accept that these ARE your fears. But know, starting right now, they do NOT have to continue limiting you!
Step 2: Choose one of the things from your list that you’re ready to rewrite. Let your intuition guide you, as it will know what you’re ready to face.
Say it out loud.
When your mind to hear the words, versus just seeing them, it activates a higher level of processing. Now ask yourself what the underlying root cause of the limiting belief is. Ask what took place, that instilled the belief in you.
When you ask your mind a question, it starts looking for an answer; and it won’t stop until it comes up with one. (That’s why, out of nowhere, we’ll recall something we were trying to remember previously. Isn’t our mind awesome?!?)
Sit quietly, listening to what your mind reveals to you. And write it down.
NOTE: A lot of our deepest limiting beliefs come from traumatic childhood memories, or things others projected onto us because of their fears. Be gentle with yourself, and go slow, but don’t let the fear win. Knowing the root cause gives you power, so you can begin the process of removing your limits.
Step 3: Now that you know the root causes for your limiting belief, you have everything you need to begin rewriting the story! Take what you just learned, and change the focus of those negative patterns. Decide what you want to believe instead, and write it down. Then, say it out loud, so your mind receives the new information audibly, and can begin integrating it into your life.
Step 4: Once the new belief is in your head, it will take some time to sink in. You can encourage the integration by doing two very important things.
#1) Write the new truth on a piece of pretty paper, and put it where you will see it every day. Recite it, as an affirmation, as often as you see it. Over time, it will begin to become ingrained in your mind, and your actions will begin to reflect it back to you.
#2) Begin seeking out evidence of your new truth. Find people who already live their life in the truth you are claiming in your own. Being around them, and seeing them live it out, will help you feel more comfortable in it. They are proof it IS true, and it can happen for you too.
Now that you’ve done the steps, I hope you feel more confident in being able to rewrite the other limiting beliefs in your life. When you feel ready, go back and work through the rest of the list you made in Step 1. Just keep making the effort, and before you know it, you’ll be sharing your new skill with other people, and helping them rewrite their stories too! And always remember…
YOU ARE LIMITLESS!!!