"I can't handle change." Have you every had that thought? It's a sticky kind of thought. The good news is that it's not true. In this episode, we'll discuss the concept of self-limiting beliefs, particularly that notion 'I can't handle change.' We'll explore how such beliefs can be pervasive and detrimental, often rooted in early life experiences. Best of all, we'll offer some practical strategies for overcoming these beliefs.
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review us wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts!
Sources and Notes:
- Joy Lab Program: Take the next leap in your wellbeing journey with step-by-step practices to help you build and maintain the elements of joy in your life.
Full transcript and links mentioned here.
Please remember that this content is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended to provide medical advice and is not a replacement for advice and treatment from a medical professional. Please consult your doctor or other qualified health professional before beginning any diet change, supplement, or lifestyle program.
Please see our terms for more information.
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call the NAMI HelpLine: 1-800-950-6264 available Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. – 10 p.m., ET. OR text "HelpLine" to 62640 or email NAMI at helpline@nami.org. Visit NAMI for more. You can also call or text SAMHSA at 988 or chat 988lifeline.org.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the Joy Lab podcast,where we help you uncover and
(00:03):
foster your most joyful self.
Your hosts, Dr. Henry Emmons and Dr.Aimee Prasek, bring you the ideal mix of
soulful and scientifically sound tools tospark your joy, even when it feels dark.
When you're ready to experiment withmore joy, combine this podcast with the
full Joy Lab program over at JoyLab.coach
(00:25):
Hello, I'm Henry Emmons andwelcome back to Joy Lab.
And I am Aimee Prasek.
Today we are talking about ourelement of hope and a big obstacle
that can stand in the way.
It's essentially the beliefthat I can't handle change.
Now.
It's no mistake that this is, thisepisode is coming after all of these
(00:49):
ones that we've said, you, you canhandle change, you're wired for change.
And that's because I think some ofus still might have that little voice
answering back that says, well, not me.
I can't handle change.
this one is for all of us, friends,because that's very common.
(01:12):
So, Henry, I just kinda wanna handit to you first here to share some of
your 30 plus years as a psychiatristto say more about what this phrase
belief means, because I wouldguess you have heard it -----a lot.
I have heard it before.
Yeah.
Over 30 plus years.
You know, you, you hear a lot of things.
(01:33):
But, yeah, so when, when somebodysays, I can't handle change, I often
think that I what they actually meanis, I can't handle too much change.
Or maybe I can't handlechange that I don't like.
Because I think if you asked mostpeople whether they'd like their life
(01:57):
to change, they, they would say, yes,I, I would like my life to change.
And they might even describe a fewthings that they'd like to get rid of
in their life that they don't like anda few other things they'd like to add
to their lives that they wish they had.
So I think it is unwanted change.
(02:18):
Right.
Like the loss of a job, the death of aloved one, the end of a relationship.
You know, these big things,these are, these are, these
are really hard to handle.
Because they're just too muchor it's too much all at once.
It's happening too fast.
You know, I am so often struck by seeingsomeone as a client who clearly is very
(02:46):
resilient and very healthy, and hasnever really had a problem before with
their mental health, but they have gonethrough a season in their life when
two or three or maybe more things haveall occurred, big things have occurred
in this relatively short period of time.
(03:07):
Even if it's over a year or two,that's, that's pretty short if you're
dealing with really big things andit just overwhelms their system.
Their resilience was reallyhigh, but they got depleted, or
it's just drained them too fast.
And then for the first time in theirlives, they start to feel really
depressed or anxious or they can't sleep.
(03:28):
And you know, once any of thosethings start to happen, then
other things begin to fall apart.
And then I think often peoplecome to this, this thought that
there's something wrong with me.
I'm, I'm broken, I need to be fixed.
Some version of that.
(03:49):
But actually, these are things thatwould take down almost anybody,
you know, and you could consideryour action, your, your reaction to
this to actually be pretty normal.
So I, I also think that there's an elementof not truly wanting things to change.
(04:10):
We might say that we do, but intruth, a lot of us don't, you know,
not genuine change, not the kind thatmight mean you're not just changing
your circumstances, but you'rechanging yourself, your inner self.
changing how I relate to the circumstancesof my life, for example, rather
than the circumstances themselves.
(04:32):
So, when you, when you described it,Aimee, you referred to this notion
that I can't handle change as a belief,
Yeah.
and I'm betting that youchose that word on purpose.
Yeah.
'cause when you put it that way, I thinkit gives us a nice perspective on it.
(04:52):
It is just a belief it'snot Truth with a capital T.
Right.
A belief is just a thought like any other.
The kind that we're having allthe time, except maybe a belief
is we, we elevate it because wethink that it's really important
(05:14):
or we think that it's really true.
So we make it important in asense by calling it a belief.
Yeah, I'm just remembering.
We talked about this, I thinka couple years ago, we were
talking about capital T "truths".
I'll try to find the episode, but Ihad said, my daughter had this like,
daydream moment where she was, I thinkfloating away on a balloon or something
(05:39):
and she, it was giving her someanxiety and so I asked her about it.
I said, well, what happened?
And, do you think that's true?
And she said, well, yeah,my brain thought it.
And I was like, oh man.
I remember the story.
Yes.
The wisdom of a 5-year-old.
Yeah.
We just believe it.
(06:00):
I'm like, you're clearly on theground right now, my friend.
no balloon in sight.
You're good to go.
But yeah, my brain thoughtit, so it must be true.
Yeah.
That snags us.
And, yeah, this one snags us.
I can't handle change.
I think what we're getting intoas well is what's sometimes
called self-limiting beliefs.
(06:22):
So I think... Joseph Blackman, is kindof a pioneer here and has his definition.
I'll share it, "self-limiting beliefsare assumptions or perceptions about
ourselves and the world that hold us backfrom achieving what we're capable of."
So, yes, this belief that I can't handlechange is not a fact, just like you said.
(06:49):
We are fundamentally wiredfor it, for change, to adapt.
We've talked about thatover the last many episodes.
And you noted that, as well, Henry, thatlike a series of events may lead us to
believe this, that I can't handle change.
And so with this a little bit moreself-limiting beliefs, we may also
have like this more unconscious beliefsystem that is feeding this thought.
(07:15):
And these are sometimes calledcore beliefs or principle beliefs.
Negative ones are often calledearly maladaptive schemas.
Essentially it's these kind ofunconscious beliefs we likely got
early on in our lives, even beforeseven, our brains are like a sponge.
So Dr. Maria Montessori, calls thisperiod prior to seven as a time of
(07:43):
absorbent mind in child development,which I think is really interesting.
It's like when we're just kind of soakingup the modeling, the environment...
mm-hmm.
Yep.
The way folks close to us are behaving,the way folks close to us are handling
change what we're told about theworld, what we're told about ourselves.
So we really take in alot during this period.
(08:06):
Some of it not so good.
And in many ways, it kind ofsettles into this deep, more
unconscious part of our mind.
And these beliefs influenceour thoughts, emotions, and
behaviors throughout our life.
And they are not permanent.
They're not concrete.
But unless we see them, unless we namethem, then we can't work with them.
(08:29):
Uh, and they'll continue influencingus kind of behind the scenes.
So, this is actually much of thework we do here at the podcast
and absolutely in the experimentswe do in the Joy Lab Program.
Like we work to see these beliefs and tochallenge them if they're holding us back.
It's the foundational work ofcognitive behavioral therapy,
(08:51):
really, like addressing what are alsocalled the cognitive distortions.
We worked directly on one recently,which was a fallacy of fairness.
I'll link to that in the show notes.
And we work with these distortionsthroughout the Joy Lab Program.
So all of you in the Program,we're working through these.
So, we work on these kind of more negativecore beliefs or distortions a lot here.
(09:13):
It's also somethingdone in schema therapy.
So right message here is thatthese are not set in stone.
The belief that you can't handle changeor specific expressions of it, like
catastrophizing or having a reallycontrolling parent however that might
have taken shape kind of beyond justthis idea, this broad, I can't handle
change, this belief may have reallyjust kind of snuck into you based
(09:38):
on what you witnessed growing up.
And then when you think of it thatway, it's like not even about you.
It's just what
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Well, Amy, you know that I like to,I like to present simple solutions
that are actually kind of hard to do.
(10:01):
So I'm gonna do it again.
Opportunity for lifelong learning.
There is a better way to say that.
So I wanna, I'll talk a little bit abouthow I think of freeing ourselves from
these self-limiting beliefs, which Ihonestly think the, the way to do this
(10:22):
is fairly simple, but it is quite subtle.
So bear with me a little bit here.
Remember, this is the sort of thing thatgets so much easier with practice and
we are all about practice at Joy Lab.
So, so I'll start with the subtle partfirst, and that is in order to let go
(10:47):
of these beliefs we have to be able toobserve ourselves as having thoughts.
Hmm.
We have to be able to see that themind is just generating thoughts.
It's doing it all the time.
The vast majority of them arenot true or they don't mean
anything, but it's just what we do.
(11:08):
We have to be ablethough, to witness that.
Yeah.
This is really hard at, at first.
Because we identify so closelywith our thinking mind.
Almost all of us do.
We think that's it, that that's thewhole of our inner lives is these,
these thoughts that we are creating.
(11:30):
hmm.
We think that's who we are.
And that, and that these thoughtssomehow together make up our identity.
But if you learn towatch yourself thinking.
You start to realize that there is partof you that can sit back and observe
these thoughts, but is not the partthat's actually generating the thoughts.
(11:54):
And I know that this sounds reallyfuzzy, so let me talk about a
illustration for how to think of that.
So I like to think of this asthough you are sitting on the
side of a bank of a stream.
Okay?
So just picture yourself out in nature.
Maybe a nice, a, a not too wild of astream where things are, are floating
(12:18):
by and you can see occasionally astick or another piece of debris that
just starts on, the upstream sidecrosses through your vision, your
level of awareness, and then it's gone.
So those things that arefloating are like your thoughts.
The part of you that's sittingthere on the bank watching them
(12:41):
is like your observing self,the inner witness, if you will.
It is not mystical.
It's not that special.
It's just another partof our inner selves.
So this part of you that is sitting besidethe stream is also able to observe a
(13:04):
belief that is maybe holding you back.
Sometimes these, these big beliefsare like something that's particularly
interesting that's floating by onthe stream, like an object comes by
and instead of just being a stick, Idon't know, maybe it's some piece of
(13:24):
furniture from, the how from a flood orsomething and it catches your attention.
It's a big different kind of thing.
And it seems to you as if it'smore important than the others.
Maybe it's more real.
Could be just 'cause it's bigger or it'smore intricate or more beautiful than
the other things that are coming by.
(13:46):
Your job as an observeris just to notice it.
So in the case of sitting watching yourthoughts, you just notice the belief.
You don't have to do anything else.
You don't have to change it becauseas soon as you see that this is just
(14:06):
a thought, this is just a belief, justan elaborate set of thoughts maybe
that you've made up about yourself,as soon as you see that it loses some
of the power it has over you withoutyou doing a single thing to change it.
You see it and you might say somethingto yourself like, wow, look at that.
(14:28):
That's interesting.
Look what I created all those years ago.
Now this is important.
You don't need to get mad atyourself that you created it, or
to feel that you're deficient orthere's something wrong with you.
No, you don't do any ofthat judgment or self-talk.
You just notice it.
(14:50):
You accept that it's there and that itis something that you yourself created.
It's important to recognize that.
And then you do the simplestand most powerful thing.
You simply let it go.
Sounds simple, I know.
(15:11):
But in a sense it is just as thoughyou, you, you release this thing back
into the stream after you've pluckedit out and looked it over, you just
put it back in and let it float away.
And you can use yourimagination in that way.
You can picture yourself doingjust that if you'd like, and then
watch it floating down the stream.
(15:33):
Now one and done is not gonna,is not gonna cut it for some
sort of long held belief.
You might have to do this manytimes before it really loses
its hold on you and that's fine.
Don't worry about that.
You got plenty of time.
Your only concern is that you'redoing it right now in the moment that
(15:55):
you become aware that that belief isthere and that it is holding you back.
So if you can just keepnoticing, keep letting it go.
Believe me, over time it will loseany effective hold that it has on you.
I love that it's even, I'm thinking aboutthe context of these core beliefs too,
(16:19):
or these deeper, maybe self-limitingbeliefs that maybe when we were
younger, we collected a lot of sticks.
Yeah.
We're just kind of full of these andottomans and old, like garbage, all,
all sorts of stuff that we've putinto our system that we can, through a
(16:40):
process like this, start to remove them.
And I think sometimes we'll throw'em upstream and then they'll come
back and we'll grab 'em again.
'Cause we're like, oh, I miss you.
You know, you offered methis weird sense of comfort.
Then we threw it back upstream.
But like at some point we won't grabit again quite so easily and it'll
go
(17:00):
all the way down.
And,
but that's an invitation.
And then I like the visual of sortof like clearing out some inner space
to really step into our authenticity,to step into who we are, not maybe
some of these limiting beliefs thatwe acquired, early on or even more
recently, that might be holding us back.
(17:21):
Yeah, I do think of it kinda likeclearing out debris and some of
it is pretty heavy that we've beencarrying for a long time, and boy,
it just frees up a, a lot of energy
yeah,
and space.
space.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And energy.
I think that's a good point.
'cause it takes a lot of energy tokeep that stuff all stuck in there.
so yeah.
(17:42):
What an invitation.
I love that practice, Henry.
Yeah.
And so that's kind of a lot of what'ssometimes called top down work we do here.
Kinda that mindful, almosthigher level process, practice.
And we also couple it here at Joy Labwith what's sometimes called bottom up
approaches where we kind of work fromour physiology or from our behavior,
(18:04):
behavioral activation, we talked aboutthat a few episodes ago, in ways to impact
our beliefs, thoughts, and emotions.
So, Henry, you offeredthat wonderful practice.
Kind of that top down.
I'm gonna offer a bottom up practicefrom Vincent Van Gogh to close us today.
I think where the, the point is inthis practice is that we can identify
(18:25):
the belief and we'll essentiallyprove it wrong through behavior.
Here it is (18:30):
"if you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, by all means
paint that voice will be silenced."
I love it.
It's good, isn't it.
Paint away friends.
Thank you for listeningto the Joy Lab podcast.
If you enjoy today's show, visitJoyLab.coach to learn more
(18:53):
about the full Joy Lab program.
Be sure to rate and review us whereveryou listen to your favorite podcasts.
Please remember that thiscontent is for informational
and educational purposes only.
It is not intended to provide medicaladvice and is not a replacement for advice
and treatment from a medical professional.
Please consult your doctor orother qualified health professional
(19:15):
before beginning any diet change,supplement, or lifestyle program.
Please see our terms for more information.
Welcome to the Joy Lab podcast,where we help you uncover and
(00:03):
foster your most joyful self.
Your hosts, Dr. Henry Emmons and Dr.Aimee Prasek, bring you the ideal mix of
soulful and scientifically sound tools tospark your joy, even when it feels dark.
When you're ready to experiment withmore joy, combine this podcast with the
full Joy Lab program over at JoyLab.coach
(00:25):
Hello, I'm Henry Emmons andwelcome back to Joy Lab.
And I am Aimee Prasek.
Today we are talking about ourelement of hope and a big obstacle
that can stand in the way.
It's essentially the beliefthat I can't handle change.
Now.
It's no mistake that this is, thisepisode is coming after all of these
(00:49):
ones that we've said, you, you canhandle change, you're wired for change.
And that's because I think some ofus still might have that little voice
answering back that says, well, not me.
I can't handle change.
this one is for all of us, friends,because that's very common.
(01:12):
So, Henry, I just kinda wanna handit to you first here to share some of
your 30 plus years as a psychiatristto say more about what this phrase
belief means, because I wouldguess you have heard it -----a lot.
I have heard it before.
Yeah.
Over 30 plus years.
You know, you, you hear a lot of things.
(01:33):
But, yeah, so when, when somebodysays, I can't handle change, I often
think that I what they actually meanis, I can't handle too much change.
Or maybe I can't handlechange that I don't like.
Because I think if you asked mostpeople whether they'd like their life
(01:57):
to change, they, they would say, yes,I, I would like my life to change.
And they might even describe a fewthings that they'd like to get rid of
in their life that they don't like anda few other things they'd like to add
to their lives that they wish they had.
So I think it is unwanted change.
(02:18):
Right.
Like the loss of a job, the death of aloved one, the end of a relationship.
You know, these big things,these are, these are, these
are really hard to handle.
Because they're just too muchor it's too much all at once.
It's happening too fast.
You know, I am so often struck by seeingsomeone as a client who clearly is very
(02:46):
resilient and very healthy, and hasnever really had a problem before with
their mental health, but they have gonethrough a season in their life when
two or three or maybe more things haveall occurred, big things have occurred
in this relatively short period of time.
(03:07):
Even if it's over a year or two,that's, that's pretty short if you're
dealing with really big things andit just overwhelms their system.
Their resilience was reallyhigh, but they got depleted, or
it's just drained them too fast.
And then for the first time in theirlives, they start to feel really
depressed or anxious or they can't sleep.
(03:28):
And you know, once any of thosethings start to happen, then
other things begin to fall apart.
And then I think often peoplecome to this, this thought that
there's something wrong with me.
I'm, I'm broken, I need to be fixed.
Some version of that.
(03:49):
But actually, these are things thatwould take down almost anybody,
you know, and you could consideryour action, your, your reaction to
this to actually be pretty normal.
So I, I also think that there's an elementof not truly wanting things to change.
(04:10):
We might say that we do, but intruth, a lot of us don't, you know,
not genuine change, not the kind thatmight mean you're not just changing
your circumstances, but you'rechanging yourself, your inner self.
changing how I relate to the circumstancesof my life, for example, rather
than the circumstances themselves.
(04:32):
So, when you, when you described it,Aimee, you referred to this notion
that I can't handle change as a belief,
Yeah.
and I'm betting that youchose that word on purpose.
Yeah.
'cause when you put it that way, I thinkit gives us a nice perspective on it.
(04:52):
It is just a belief it'snot Truth with a capital T.
Right.
A belief is just a thought like any other.
The kind that we're having allthe time, except maybe a belief
is we, we elevate it because wethink that it's really important
(05:14):
or we think that it's really true.
So we make it important in asense by calling it a belief.
Yeah, I'm just remembering.
We talked about this, I thinka couple years ago, we were
talking about capital T "truths".
I'll try to find the episode, but Ihad said, my daughter had this like,
daydream moment where she was, I thinkfloating away on a balloon or something
(05:39):
and she, it was giving her someanxiety and so I asked her about it.
I said, well, what happened?
And, do you think that's true?
And she said, well, yeah,my brain thought it.
And I was like, oh man.
I remember the story.
Yes.
The wisdom of a 5-year-old.
Yeah.
We just believe it.
(06:00):
I'm like, you're clearly on theground right now, my friend.
no balloon in sight.
You're good to go.
But yeah, my brain thoughtit, so it must be true.
Yeah.
That snags us.
And, yeah, this one snags us.
I can't handle change.
I think what we're getting intoas well is what's sometimes
called self-limiting beliefs.
(06:22):
So I think... Joseph Blackman, is kindof a pioneer here and has his definition.
I'll share it, "self-limiting beliefsare assumptions or perceptions about
ourselves and the world that hold us backfrom achieving what we're capable of."
So, yes, this belief that I can't handlechange is not a fact, just like you said.
(06:49):
We are fundamentally wiredfor it, for change, to adapt.
We've talked about thatover the last many episodes.
And you noted that, as well, Henry, thatlike a series of events may lead us to
believe this, that I can't handle change.
And so with this a little bit moreself-limiting beliefs, we may also
have like this more unconscious beliefsystem that is feeding this thought.
(07:15):
And these are sometimes calledcore beliefs or principle beliefs.
Negative ones are often calledearly maladaptive schemas.
Essentially it's these kind ofunconscious beliefs we likely got
early on in our lives, even beforeseven, our brains are like a sponge.
So Dr. Maria Montessori, calls thisperiod prior to seven as a time of
(07:43):
absorbent mind in child development,which I think is really interesting.
It's like when we're just kind of soakingup the modeling, the environment...
mm-hmm.
Yep.
The way folks close to us are behaving,the way folks close to us are handling
change what we're told about theworld, what we're told about ourselves.
So we really take in alot during this period.
(08:06):
Some of it not so good.
And in many ways, it kind ofsettles into this deep, more
unconscious part of our mind.
And these beliefs influenceour thoughts, emotions, and
behaviors throughout our life.
And they are not permanent.
They're not concrete.
But unless we see them, unless we namethem, then we can't work with them.
(08:29):
Uh, and they'll continue influencingus kind of behind the scenes.
So, this is actually much of thework we do here at the podcast
and absolutely in the experimentswe do in the Joy Lab Program.
Like we work to see these beliefs and tochallenge them if they're holding us back.
It's the foundational work ofcognitive behavioral therapy,
(08:51):
really, like addressing what are alsocalled the cognitive distortions.
We worked directly on one recently,which was a fallacy of fairness.
I'll link to that in the show notes.
And we work with these distortionsthroughout the Joy Lab Program.
So all of you in the Program,we're working through these.
So, we work on these kind of more negativecore beliefs or distortions a lot here.
(09:13):
It's also somethingdone in schema therapy.
So right message here is thatthese are not set in stone.
The belief that you can't handle changeor specific expressions of it, like
catastrophizing or having a reallycontrolling parent however that might
have taken shape kind of beyond justthis idea, this broad, I can't handle
change, this belief may have reallyjust kind of snuck into you based
(09:38):
on what you witnessed growing up.
And then when you think of it thatway, it's like not even about you.
It's just what
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Well, Amy, you know that I like to,I like to present simple solutions
that are actually kind of hard to do.
(10:01):
So I'm gonna do it again.
Opportunity for lifelong learning.
There is a better way to say that.
So I wanna, I'll talk a little bit abouthow I think of freeing ourselves from
these self-limiting beliefs, which Ihonestly think the, the way to do this
(10:22):
is fairly simple, but it is quite subtle.
So bear with me a little bit here.
Remember, this is the sort of thing thatgets so much easier with practice and
we are all about practice at Joy Lab.
So, so I'll start with the subtle partfirst, and that is in order to let go
(10:47):
of these beliefs we have to be able toobserve ourselves as having thoughts.
Hmm.
We have to be able to see that themind is just generating thoughts.
It's doing it all the time.
The vast majority of them arenot true or they don't mean
anything, but it's just what we do.
(11:08):
We have to be ablethough, to witness that.
Yeah.
This is really hard at, at first.
Because we identify so closelywith our thinking mind.
Almost all of us do.
We think that's it, that that's thewhole of our inner lives is these,
these thoughts that we are creating.
(11:30):
hmm.
We think that's who we are.
And that, and that these thoughtssomehow together make up our identity.
But if you learn towatch yourself thinking.
You start to realize that there is partof you that can sit back and observe
these thoughts, but is not the partthat's actually generating the thoughts.
(11:54):
And I know that this sounds reallyfuzzy, so let me talk about a
illustration for how to think of that.
So I like to think of this asthough you are sitting on the
side of a bank of a stream.
Okay?
So just picture yourself out in nature.
Maybe a nice, a, a not too wild of astream where things are, are floating
(12:18):
by and you can see occasionally astick or another piece of debris that
just starts on, the upstream sidecrosses through your vision, your
level of awareness, and then it's gone.
So those things that arefloating are like your thoughts.
The part of you that's sittingthere on the bank watching them
(12:41):
is like your observing self,the inner witness, if you will.
It is not mystical.
It's not that special.
It's just another partof our inner selves.
So this part of you that is sitting besidethe stream is also able to observe a
(13:04):
belief that is maybe holding you back.
Sometimes these, these big beliefsare like something that's particularly
interesting that's floating by onthe stream, like an object comes by
and instead of just being a stick, Idon't know, maybe it's some piece of
(13:24):
furniture from, the how from a flood orsomething and it catches your attention.
It's a big different kind of thing.
And it seems to you as if it'smore important than the others.
Maybe it's more real.
Could be just 'cause it's bigger or it'smore intricate or more beautiful than
the other things that are coming by.
(13:46):
Your job as an observeris just to notice it.
So in the case of sitting watching yourthoughts, you just notice the belief.
You don't have to do anything else.
You don't have to change it becauseas soon as you see that this is just
(14:06):
a thought, this is just a belief, justan elaborate set of thoughts maybe
that you've made up about yourself,as soon as you see that it loses some
of the power it has over you withoutyou doing a single thing to change it.
You see it and you might say somethingto yourself like, wow, look at that.
(14:28):
That's interesting.
Look what I created all those years ago.
Now this is important.
You don't need to get mad atyourself that you created it, or
to feel that you're deficient orthere's something wrong with you.
No, you don't do any ofthat judgment or self-talk.
You just notice it.
(14:50):
You accept that it's there and that itis something that you yourself created.
It's important to recognize that.
And then you do the simplestand most powerful thing.
You simply let it go.
Sounds simple, I know.
(15:11):
But in a sense it is just as thoughyou, you, you release this thing back
into the stream after you've pluckedit out and looked it over, you just
put it back in and let it float away.
And you can use yourimagination in that way.
You can picture yourself doingjust that if you'd like, and then
watch it floating down the stream.
(15:33):
Now one and done is not gonna,is not gonna cut it for some
sort of long held belief.
You might have to do this manytimes before it really loses
its hold on you and that's fine.
Don't worry about that.
You got plenty of time.
Your only concern is that you'redoing it right now in the moment that
(15:55):
you become aware that that belief isthere and that it is holding you back.
So if you can just keepnoticing, keep letting it go.
Believe me, over time it will loseany effective hold that it has on you.
I love that it's even, I'm thinking aboutthe context of these core beliefs too,
(16:19):
or these deeper, maybe self-limitingbeliefs that maybe when we were
younger, we collected a lot of sticks.
Yeah.
We're just kind of full of these andottomans and old, like garbage, all,
all sorts of stuff that we've putinto our system that we can, through a
(16:40):
process like this, start to remove them.
And I think sometimes we'll throw'em upstream and then they'll come
back and we'll grab 'em again.
'Cause we're like, oh, I miss you.
You know, you offered methis weird sense of comfort.
Then we threw it back upstream.
But like at some point we won't grabit again quite so easily and it'll
go
(17:00):
all the way down.
And,
but that's an invitation.
And then I like the visual of sortof like clearing out some inner space
to really step into our authenticity,to step into who we are, not maybe
some of these limiting beliefs thatwe acquired, early on or even more
recently, that might be holding us back.
(17:21):
Yeah, I do think of it kinda likeclearing out debris and some of
it is pretty heavy that we've beencarrying for a long time, and boy,
it just frees up a, a lot of energy
yeah,
and space.
space.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And energy.
I think that's a good point.
'cause it takes a lot of energy tokeep that stuff all stuck in there.
so yeah.
(17:42):
What an invitation.
I love that practice, Henry.
Yeah.
And so that's kind of a lot of what'ssometimes called top down work we do here.
Kinda that mindful, almosthigher level process, practice.
And we also couple it here at Joy Labwith what's sometimes called bottom up
approaches where we kind of work fromour physiology or from our behavior,
(18:04):
behavioral activation, we talked aboutthat a few episodes ago, in ways to impact
our beliefs, thoughts, and emotions.
So, Henry, you offeredthat wonderful practice.
Kind of that top down.
I'm gonna offer a bottom up practicefrom Vincent Van Gogh to close us today.
I think where the, the point is inthis practice is that we can identify
(18:25):
the belief and we'll essentiallyprove it wrong through behavior.
Here it is (18:30):
"if you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, by all means
paint that voice will be silenced."
I love it.
It's good, isn't it.
Paint away friends.
Thank you for listeningto the Joy Lab podcast.
If you enjoy today's show, visitJoyLab.coach to learn more
(18:53):
about the full Joy Lab program.
Be sure to rate and review us whereveryou listen to your favorite podcasts.
Please remember that thiscontent is for informational
and educational purposes only.
It is not intended to provide medicaladvice and is not a replacement for advice
and treatment from a medical professional.
Please consult your doctor orother qualified health professional
(19:15):
before beginning any diet change,supplement, or lifestyle program.
Please see our terms for more information.
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