Overcoming Limiting Beliefs with Self-Hypnosis

Limiting beliefs are deeply rooted in our minds. Even when it seems you are ready to do something you really want to, they stop you from doing it. Procrastination is not only limiting your potential, but it’s also frustrating. It’s also easy to get into negative spiraling due to procrastination. That’s why self-hypnosis for limiting beliefs is such an important tool in modern mindfulness.

What Exactly Are the Limiting Beliefs?

As with many things, limiting beliefs don’t have one, strict definition. Many people like this definition by Blackman from 2018 that they are:

…assumptions or perceptions that you’ve got about yourself and about the way the world works. These assumptions are ‘self-limiting’ because in some way they’re holding you back from achieving what you are capable of.

Personally, I also like this one:

Limiting beliefs are opinions, beliefs and assumptions, rooted in subconsciousness, that influence the way you look at yourself and the external world. They limit your ability to act, even if from an objective point of view you are ready to act.

There are of course many more definitions. No matter which one you choose, they all come down to the same thing: they are restricting you. Which makes self-hypnosis for limiting beliefs a crucial tool in modern world.

You can categorize them into 3 different types:

  1. Limiting beliefs about yourself
    1. Assumptions purely about you and you alone.
    2. They take many forms, often something like ‘I’m not good enough’, ‘I am not working as much as I should’, ‘I’m too dumb for this’.
    3. May be specific (like: I don’t deserve that job) or more general (like: I don’t deserve to be happy).
  2. Limiting beliefs about others
    1. Opinions stopping you from interacting with others.
    2. Often based on shallow observations and our subconscious beliefs.
    3. Example: you think that your higher-up coworker is arrogant, because he seems to be ignoring you. The truth could be that he is just shy and has his own limiting beliefs.
  3. Limiting beliefs about the world
    1. Often shared by many people, prone to selection bias.
    2. They stop you from acting on a wider range, often limiting you to ‘keeping a low profile’.
    3. Example: you don’t believe that you can live off your hobby, and it’s a waste of time. In a result, you feel guilty about your hobby.

Of course, those types mix with each other. You can believe that only talented people can draw (limiting belief about the world) and that you have zero skills (limiting beliefs about yourself), so you give up entirely.

Now, the question is: how does self-hypnosis for limiting beliefs work? Before we delve into that, we first need to answer where those beliefs come from.

Digital art of woman meditating on her limiting beliefs to picture self-hypnosis as a tool to fight them

The Origin of Beliefs and Assumptions

A lot of our nowadays assumptions, and thus self-limiting beliefs, come from our childhood. Let’s take painting as an example.

You used to sketch, draw and paint a lot as a kid and absolutely loved that. While your parents first encouraged that, they later on scolded you for not learning to read, write and do math.

At one point, you said that you want to be a painter. To which your parents said, ‘Well, that’s maybe a good for a hobby, but you won’t make a living out of it.’

That sentence and belief associated with it are stored in your subconscious mind. While you do not think about it actively, you feel guilty when painting. After all, you could be working at that time, acquiring new skills, taking extra hours etc.

Those kinds of self-limiting beliefs are often associated with strong emotions. The stronger they are, the harder it is to get rid of assumptions.

Returning to the painter example: a lot of people tell you that you have talent. Moreover, you’ve already sold some of your paintings. Yet, you are still afraid of going to exhibitions, marketing your art, boast a little with your friends.

Why? Because of what your parents ‘put’ in your subconsciousness while you were a kid.

And that’s where self-hypnosis for limiting beliefs come in. 

The Power of the Mind: How Self-Hypnosis Helps You Reclaim Control

Hypnosis allows you to ‘talk’ with your subconscious mind while you are in trance state. Thanks to that, you can look at your false assumptions from the perspective of their origin.

That’s what makes self-hypnosis for limiting beliefs such a powerful tool.

So, how can you achieve that exactly?

  1. Get into a hypnotic trance and go into your safe heaven (if you are completely new to self-hypnosis, read my guide HERE).
  2. Quick tip: spend a little more time than usually here. It’s good to deeply relax when working with self-limiting beliefs.
  3. Visualize the situation, where your self-limiting beliefs take over you.
    1. For example: you procrastinate instead of drawing, because you think your art is bad.
    2. Try to make it as vivid, as alive as possible.
    3. Don’t rush — the better the visualization, the better the effects.
  4. Try to pin the moment, when the self-limiting belief ‘wins’.
    1. For example: you have a pencil in your hand, but then you looked at your favorite artist and thought, ‘I am not like him/her’.
    2. If you can’t find the precise moment, that’s okay. Just pin the whole memory/visualization.
  5. Once you have your pin, try to look at it from a distance.
    1. What exactly were you feeling at that time? Can you name emotions, thoughts?
    2. Don’t identify with them — rather observe them from a 3rd person perspective.
  6. Try to extract the main thought and main emotion.
    1. For example: you can feel sadness, anger and guilt at first. But if you look deeper, you realize that it’s mostly extinguished ambition, turned into indolence.
    2. First thought was ‘I need to work harder!’, but then the main thought was ‘I’d love to paint more, but I don’t feel I’m good enough’.
  7. ‘Package’ both emotion and thought into a box. End visualization and throw the box behind you, then turn and look what happened.
  8. Two things usually happen here:
    1. Either someone from your childhood catches the box.
    2. Your package unboxes into the memory.
  9. If someone catches the box, try to understand why that person did that.
    1. For example: your mother caught the box. She is a lovely, kind lady, however she used to tell you a lot that ‘an artist is someone who starves his whole life!’
    2. Try to connect that person as deeply as you can to your limiting belief.
  10. At that point, you should find yourself in your core memory, when your false assumption first appeared.

With that, you are ready to use self-hypnosis for limiting beliefs and transform your inner narrative.

From Doubt to Confidence: Shifting Your Inner Narrative

Once you are in your core memory, you should find yourself in a situation from your past, that influenced your views.

Taking our example with artist deeper — let’s say you see yourself drawing a cool dragon. Then, your mother walks in and scolds you for not learning math.

She didn’t mean anything wrong — she just feared that you won’t have a job in the future. But due to that, you started feeling bad when you were drawing. What’s more: your mom often said that you can’t make a living as an artist.

So now, even as a well-paid adult, you still feel guilty while painting. Even if you treat it purely as a hobby. That’s when self-hypnosis for limiting-beliefs helps. Because while in that core memory, you can intervene.

Of course — it won’t change the past. It can, however, change the way you and your inner hurt child will look at things.

You can do this in a lot of different ways. For example:

  • Calm down and soothe your ‘past you’ in the core memory,
  • Explain to your mother that you can do both math and art,
  • Show your inner child that ‘adult you’ is doing great and needs not to fear,
  • Exhibit a ‘gallery’ of successful, modern artist, who draw in similar style to yours.

Key thing here: follow your intuition. After all, it’s your memory, and you know best what ‘past you’ needed the most.

It’s also important to, once again, not identify with the feelings of your inner child. Understand them, address them and deal with them. But don’t identify with them — right now you should be someone who helps ‘past you’.

Once it’s done, remember to fill your inner child with positive feelings. Swap sadness to joy, shame to pride, doubt to confidence.

This way, your ‘past you’ knows, that it needs to fear nothing.

Changing Your Story and Transforming Your Future

Of course, self-hypnosis for limiting beliefs is not the only tool you can use. You can also just simply meditate on your assumptions and try to dissociate from them. However, I believe that auto-hypnosis lets you deeply change your story.

With that, you can then challenge yourself. What I mean by that?

After you are done with the whole practice, rest for a moment. You need to digest everything, and probably the whole process was exhausting.

However, as soon as you are fresh, seek out in external world if self-hypnosis for limiting beliefs was successful.

Following the artist example: the next day after the auto-hypnosis, go draw something. See how are you feeling, how are you performing.

Is the problem still there?

Are you still procrastinating?

Or maybe you feel liberated, fresh, full of creative energy?

If you answered YES to the last one, good job! If not — then maybe the problem is rooted even deeper than you thought?

Then, you can try again and seek some other memories. Combine self-hypnosis with different tools, like journaling or meditation. Ask others, or maybe even go to a professional hypnotherapist. Or, if you are already experienced with auto-hypnosis, try more powerful tools.

No matter which you choose and what you achieved, remember: self-hypnosis is here to help you. It’s a tool that allows you to change your story, in order to transform your future into the one that you truly desire.