Do you prefer to listen?
What is holding me back in life and how can I change it?
I’ve been a part of the self-development world for nearly 20 years now and I believe that this is the question that most people are there to figure out, even if they that’s not how they phrase it. Obviously, that’s just my belief, but what I know for sure is that this is the exact reason that attracted me into this world.
So now that I’m 2 decades into this journey, and that I’ve had huge success in my quest to find out what was holding me back and transforming that into powerful action, true happiness, emotional freedom, and now a thriving business helping other people to do the same, I felt compelled to share what it is I discovered, and what really made the difference.
A change of perspective
I’ve always loved this quote from Wayne Dyer as I’ve found it to be so true. So, to apply that thinking to what we are talking about: If you are looking at a what is holding you back from the wrong angle, with the wrong perspective, you will struggle to find the answer. However, if you change the way you are looking at it, that can totally change the way you perceive it, and so, the way you approach trying to change it.
The reason I say this is that I spent 13 years deeply immersed in the self-improvement world trying to figure out what was causing me to suffer and holding me back. In that time I made tiny, incremental shifts that did improve things a little, but it was slow and painful. Then, over 1 weekend I was given a totally different perspective, and from that new viewpoint, and with a new approach, 90% of what was holding me back melted away, never to return. Then over the next few months I carried on freeing myself from the emotional shackles that had been invisibly holding me back since childhood.
When I changed the way I was looking at things, the things I was looking at changed in front of my eyes. And that was just the start. I’ve since seen this in the 100’s of people I’ve worked with over the last 8 years. Given that new perspective, they shifted what had held them back too.
So what is this shift in perspective I’m talking about?
Don’t think – feel
This is a phrase that’s been in my head since I was a kid. I was a huge Bruce Lee fan and this was a phrase he used in his biggest movie – Enter the Dragon. He asks his student to kick him, then asks “How did it feel to you?”. His student replies by saying “Let me think”. Bruce slaps his student and says. “Don’t think, feel. It’s like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don’t concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.”
So, if you break his metaphor down – he’s saying to his student – if you look at the finger (thinking), you are missing all the moon has to offer (feelings). Now that may sound a bit abstract, but it’s exactly what I discovered for myself.
The self-improvement world is obsessed with thinking and speaks very little of feeling. Just about everyone is talking about mindset first, when the body is hard wired to prioritise feelings above thinking. Now, to make myself clear – I’m not saying mindset isn’t important, I’m a big fan of it myself, what I am saying is that it’s about priorities and doing things in the right order.
When looking back at the 13 years I spoke about earlier – everything I did was around mindset. It was all focused on trying to change the way I thought, the story I was telling myself, my beliefs, how I viewed myself, and designing how I wanted things to be in the future. I was basically trying to change the way I felt by changing the way I was thinking. And to remind you – it was slow and painful.
What happened over that weekend was that I was introduced to my feeling system and was trained how to process past emotion, hurt and trauma. I was shown how to reprogram my unconscious mind, calming down my nervous system, and totally changing how my body responds to life. Doing this feeling work completely changed the way that I thought, what I believed about myself and life, the story I was telling myself about all of that, and the way I viewed myself, and this all completely changed overnight. So, changing the way I felt completely transformed the way I thought, and when compared to the other way around, it was very fast and it was painless.
I’ve seen this over and over in Tracy (the co-founder) and the people we work with too. That’s why we adopted the phrase – Don’t think – feel.
So, feeling is where we always start. Then once the feeling level is taken care of, we then teach mindset as then you are no longer fighting against yourself, and shifts become easy.
How does this relate to what is holding me back?
As I said earlier, your body is hard wired to prioritise feelings, and that system has a prime directive which is to keep you safe. When I say safe, I mean physically safe, and emotionally safe. This brings up another one of our core concepts – Emotional Safety.
Emotional Safety
If you want to make it really simple – what holds us back is a lack of emotional safety. What’s not so simple, is working out what is making us feel unsafe, but that’s for another conversation.
So, in basic terms, there is a part of our brain called the limbic system. It’s the ancient part of the brain that processes emotion and is concerned with safety and survival. Within it there is a structure called the amygdala. There are two of them and they are about the size of an almond. Their main role is to check incoming sensory information to see if there is any threat. They are literally checking to see if we are safe.
This is an amazing system and is what has allowed us to thrive and survive as a species. The problem is that in modern life this system tends to get over-sensitised to the point where things that aren’t really a threat start to look like a threat. So, speaking in front of people can look like a threat, walking into a room of friendly people can look like a threat, being yourself can look like a threat, etc. And it’s this mechanism which tends to be the thing that truly holds you back.
For clarity I will repeat it again. The body is hard wired to keep you safe and it will prioritise this over anything. So, to put this into perspective. To your unconscious mind – safety is way more important than your business, your dreams, your happiness, your success, your relationships, your bank balance, anything really.
In conclusion
This is a massive subject, but just wanted to introduce a new perspective and a different way to look at what holds people back.
So, from that fresh perspective – a better question to ask instead of what is holding me back might be – where in life do I not feel emotionally safe?
If this is a question you would like to begin to answer, then why not sign up for our free educational video series – The Core Concepts. In there you will learn in depth about what holds you back and how we work with you to get that stuff out of the way, leaving you empowered to take action and play life on a whole new level.
