S10|09 - Power of Belief

Thoughts create our reality- but our beliefs shape everything. Our attachment to those thoughts, especially the ones about US and our identity matters most. As we do the work of non-attachment, recognize beliefs we hold, and shift them- we feel success on the inside and manifest it on the outside. 

In today’s episode you’ll hear: 

• Why our beliefs matter so much, and how to tap into the subconscious ones (so much more than the regular “thought work”).
• What is blocking us from the success we want (and how to shift it).
• The Big Leap’s Upper Limit Problem (and it’s connection to shame work). 
• Doing the inner work, “success is an inside job”.

I would love to support you 1:1 over the next 12 months, deep-diving into everything I talked about today: www.coachcrystal.ca/miracle

---

Links to Crystal’s work, to help on your own inner journey: 

Intuitive Journaling Prompts HERE and a somatic meditation (Move through frustration in 15 minutes or less) HERE, The Art of Non-Attachment Workshop HERE

Get started on this work with daily practice in a journal, Burn This Book (a great intro to mental and emotional wellness) HERE

Work with Crystal 1:1: www.coachcrystal.ca/miracle or in group: www.coachcrystal.ca/creationroom

Grab your copy of Crystal’s feelings wheel here: www.coachcrystal.ca/wheel

Full Transcript

This transcript has been created to provide a text-based version of the podcast episode for accessibility and convenience. While effort has been made to ensure its accuracy, it may contain errors or omissions. Please note that the exact words and intended meaning of the speaker(s) are best understood by listening to the original audio recording.

To experience the full conversation in its authentic form, please listen to the episode directly on your preferred podcast platform.

Introduction

Crystal: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Parenting Coach Podcast with Crystal. Over seven years ago, I felt like I was stuck in this cycle of yelling and reactivity in my parenting that I did not want to be in, but I didn't know how to get out of. I knew how I wanted to parent pretty much exactly, and I'd spent hours reading books, but not finding a way to show up how I wanted to.

That's when I started to turn inwards. My own inward journey was what my family needed. As I changed, everything around me changed. My kids meltdowns decreased by 90 percent or more with no medications or therapy. I stopped yelling, sibling fighting became almost entirely non existent, and I found that this change flowed into other areas of my life too.

My intuition increased. I started to run my life and business in a very different way. If this sounds like something you want too, I can help. Join me each week as I share my journey, including the laughter, fun, hard times, and tears. Tune in for support, guidance, and fun conversations.

Hello, welcome to another podcast episode. Today is another one [00:01:00] from my diary. Another one that I wanted to get in that I've been ruminating on for several weeks and I really wanted to share, um, before the end of the season. I know that you have been hearing me say that all the time, but I'm like, I really, there's some things that are really important.

And yes, for those of you that have been asking, you've been wondering if you can go back and listen to episodes still. You absolutely can. We're going to try to keep it up and live. I don't know how that works, but we're going to try to keep it up and live permanently so that you can go back and listen to the episodes whenever you want.

The Power of Belief

So today we're going to talk about the power of belief. I've talked a lot about thoughts. You can go back and listen to so many episodes that I have about thought work. Um, but I think that there's a real significant difference between a thought and a belief. Yes. Thoughts create our reality. Yes. Thoughts matter.

All of that matters, but it's not actually thoughts that matters as much. As belief, um, we have millions of random thoughts that just float in and out of our head. I have random little thoughts that fly in little memories, little things to help, you know, be like, don't forget about this or this is happening the next day or whatever, [00:02:00] but they're not necessarily beliefs, right?

They just float in and they just float out. It's our attachment to those thoughts that creates the belief. It's that we think them over and over again and they kind of settle down. Like I imagine that I have kind of two different parts of myself and one of them is a little bit more concrete. One is a little bit more stuck.

How Beliefs Shape Our Reality

And those are my beliefs. They're a little bit more solid and everything kind of filters through these beliefs that I have, especially beliefs around myself, identity, what I believe to be possible for myself, what I believe about myself, everything in life filters through that, including my thoughts. So if you go back and listen to my past episodes on thought work and the model and all of that.

It's really helpful and useful, but not understanding that everything is filtered through this belief system of my own identity, um, will make the thought work happen less effectively. You'll be doing it over and over again and be like, why am I still doing this? I thought that I did that work on this before, because it's really those beliefs that matter, especially the beliefs around our identity. It's our attachment to those beliefs. [00:03:00]

Testing and Identifying Limiting Beliefs

 What do you notice kind of just floats in and floats out? And what sticks a way that you can kind of test this is what do you imagine that other people are thinking about you? What do you imagine that they believe about you? Or you can even like kind of imagine a scenario where somebody comes and tells you like a lot of mean things.

And imagine which ones feel like they hurt, like they kind of sink into like a deeper spot, like they touch on a wound somewhere and which ones feel just like random. Like if someone was like, well, you have purple hair or your left eyeball looks weird. I'd be like, okay, like weirdo. Like, why did they say that?

Right. It would just kind of come in. It would come out. I wouldn't even like, I wouldn't even give it a second glance. I would be like, that's a such an unusual and strange thing that they just. I wonder what they're dealing with. I wonder what I would just know. It was like something to do with them, right?

That it didn't have anything to do with me, but there's some things that they say that spark some sort of a nerve. You can feel it on the inside, right? That is because it is connecting to a belief. Probably about yourself, more of a self identity based belief [00:04:00] that's deeper that's under the surface. And when we can figure those out and release those and detach from those and not have those anymore, then they can really say whatever they want.

They can have whatever belief they want about you. They can think whatever they want about you. They can have opinions on you, about you, and it doesn't bother you. You get that freedom of just like releasing that detachment space from other people's opinions, thoughts, ideas, beliefs, and you get to decide what is true for you.

So belief is powerful, so much more powerful than just our thoughts, especially when it comes to the beliefs that I hold about myself. 

The Art of Non-Attachment

I did a workshop recently. It was called the art of non attachment. You can find the link in my, um, show notes. I'm also going to try to add it as a bonus episode on the podcast.

So if you hear that, then you can go listen to that on the podcast. Also won't make quite as much sense because it was like I did some screen sharing and showed some visuals that you won't be able to see when you're listening. Um, but you'll get the gist of it. Um, and [00:05:00] one of the things that we did there was we wrote down a list of desires.

Things that we really wanted, this could be the kind of relationship that I want. This could be the kind of parenting that I would like to have this week, the kind of behaviors I'd like to see in my child. This could be outcomes within, um, health or within wealth accumulation or within my business. Um, it could be anything, any sort of goal, any sort of dream that you have, and you just take some time to write down all of those desires.

And then we went back and we tapped into the energy around the desire, because that's what really matters, which ones feel hurried, which ones feel graspy, which ones feel rushed or needy or completely impossible. If we're in that kind of an energy about those beliefs, that means we are attached. That's what the, um, art of non attachment was all about.

When we are attached, um, we're attaching our self worth to that external thing. We need that external thing to happen in order for us to then believe something about ourselves that we don't currently believe. I'm going to say that one more time, cause this is the important piece we [00:06:00] need: to get that thing or change that thing.

That's why we feel so needy and graspy about it in order for us to believe something new about ourselves that we don't currently believe.

Releasing Attachment and Shifting Energy

 Now we might consciously have a lot of great beliefs about ourselves, but we're talking about those subconscious deeper, more solid concrete type beliefs. And so you can imagine actually, as you go through that list, you can think, okay, well, what would I feel and what would I believe to be true if I achieved that thing?

That I don't believe now, this sounds like a simple question, but it's actually not. It's pretty complex when you think about it, when you're like, okay, wait a second. So in the future, if I had more money in my bank account, if I looked a different way, physically, if I was a better parent, what would I feel?

How would my nervous system feel? And what would I believe to be true about myself? And therein lies the attachment there. And you can see that we're looking for something outside of ourselves, some sort of [00:07:00] external thing in order to validate us, to fill us with self worth. And it's the external things that will never make us feel that way.

We might achieve the thing. And then our brain's going to be like, no, we actually still don't actually believe that thing. We might have a hundred people tell us how beautiful and lovely and amazing we are and smart and talented and all of those things, but it doesn't actually change the belief that's within us.

I was just coaching a client on this because we were digging into her subconscious beliefs. And again, remember these aren't necessarily conscious, right? Consciously, she did not hold this belief about herself, but subconsciously there were some beliefs around her not being smart enough, her not being intellectual enough, um, her not valuing or being valued for her academic abilities, I guess. And, um, she didn't believe this consciously. This was definitely a subconscious belief. And as we dug a little bit more into how that felt for her, she realized like, I don't even fully believe this. Like, I know that it's there, but it's not all the way there. And I like to call that that liminal space.

I read about liminal space when I was reading about manifestation and liminal space is the space where like, you're not fully in the [00:08:00] new belief, but you're not fully out of the old belief. And you're kind of just like, Hovering in the middle, like this ghost, like in between places, it doesn't feel super grounded.

And in that liminal space is where I often find myself when I'm like, I'm not totally to my future belief. I'm not totally back in my past belief either, but I'm in this liminal space of belief. And that's part of growth. That's part of the discomfort of this whole scenario. Eventually you will get to more solid ground and you will get to that space.

And, um, actually as we dug into it was really fascinating is the thought that came up to her is like, this belief isn't mine. I think this belief was passed down to me from my mom. And so when we look at our beliefs, we can actually ask questions like that. So I want you to think about questions like that as was this one passed down to me?

Where did it come from? Did my parents model this for me? Do any memories pop up as I think about this belief that I feel like I have about myself. So once you figure out whatever the attachment is, whatever belief you think that you'd have in the future about yourself that you [00:09:00] don't have currently, then you can start digging into where did this come from?

Does this feel familiar from childhood? Do I have any experiences that really cemented this belief for me? And you can allow those memories to kind of pop up. I like to imagine them like I'm an observer. I'm an observer of this memory and I'm allowing myself to kind of just walk through and see what's actually happening there, where the belief came from, from this, a little bit more mature, a little bit more zoomed out perspective.

I can also pop into it all the way, not like an observer, but pop into like the actual memory, like it's happening in real time. And I can feel the energy of that and I can figure out where the belief is in my body. And that is a really powerful experience because I believe that, um, beliefs, they hold energy within us.

It's like, they, they're almost like in a certain spot in our body. And I can kind of feel where that energetic spot is and it can allow it to release. I can, I can give, send it some safety, send it some love, listen to it. It might sound a little bit unusual, but that, that communion that I have with that energy, that time that I [00:10:00] spend listening to it and being with it and feeling it allows that energy to really release.

So I like to look about, about my beliefs around money, about specific relationships, about jobs, things that I want about health, things that I want and really dig into where those beliefs came from. And then also in my body, where do I feel like it is, um, shifting that energy is non attachment work. And I kind of think of it, I visualize it as that that belief is lodged somewhere energetically in me.

And I can do a meditation or a visualization on my, on my own by myself and release that. 

The Upper Limit Problem & Self-Sabotage

As I was kind of pondering on power of belief, um, one of the things that came to me came from a book that I just recently read. It's called the big leap. And I read it in a book club that I'm in, in, uh, another coach's community.

Her name is Amber Smith. And um, I share her name because she kind of altered the success mantra that I'm going to share with you. And I really love her alteration of it, but I'm first going to talk about the, you know, U L P the upper limit problem. So this guy who [00:11:00] wrote the book, his name is Gay Hendricks, and he was a Harvard professor.

And he was studying this idea of the upper limit problem at Harvard. And basically the idea is that positive energy is trying to flow in and we block it. We block it subconsciously. We don't even usually intentionally know that we're blocking it, but we block the positive energy. That's trying to come in the success that's trying to come in and it kind of blocks our next level of success. So there's success trying to come in, in a relationship or in business or in wealth or whatever. And we're blocking this positive energy with this upper limit problem. And it can pop up in lots of different ways. He actually talks about beliefs, even being connected to how we physically feel inside to accidents or to illness or to sicknesses, um, that he.

Really goes on about beliefs in a way that most people probably feel like is either untrue or unusual. But, um, with all of the belief work that I've done, I can definitely see a connection between our emotional emotionality and physicality. And I think that beliefs really matter. In fact, when I start to get sick or before I get sick and everybody else is getting sick [00:12:00] around me, I practice beliefs.

Like I am healthy and I am strong and my immune system knows just how to fight this off. And oftentimes when people are sick around me, I don't get sick. And even when I do, I just recently came down with influenza. It was able to move through me really quickly and I was able to really just sit and listen to my body and practice those beliefs.

And I know that that made a huge difference in how it went through for me. So, um, you can go listen to his book if you want to hear more about that. But the, the gist of it is this upper limit problem or this upper limit symptom, it pops in when some amount of positive energy or success is trying to come and it blocks it.

Four Hidden Barriers to Success

So there's these kinds of hidden barriers that pop up, um, that have to do with this upper limit problem. And he talks about illnesses and accidents and how that can be an upper limit problem also, but I want to share, um, what the hidden barriers are, because I feel like they're really on brand. So I want you to think about maybe a time in life when the success was trying to come in and it kind of stopped or something happened, or you feel like you self sabotaged or something sabotaged you and see if you notice any of these hidden [00:13:00] barriers.

Shame as a Hidden Barrier

Number one is feeling fundamentally flawed. So I would describe that as shame. That's kind of the work that I do. Right. A feeling that I'm fundamentally flawed in some way. And so he talked about how one of his clients, Carl described the barrier of feeling fundamentally flawed. And he talks about how it really blocked him from his next level of success.

Like he was, all of the success was coming in with his business. And then because of this belief, he kind of stopped it. He kind of blocked the success. And we can block the success in lots of different ways, subconsciously, unconsciously. Um, but the idea behind this is I cannot expand to my full creative genius because something is fundamentally wrong with me, I would call this shame.

I would say that shame doesn't even have to have a reason. It doesn't have to make a logical sense. It just is within us. And if we're not recognizing our shame, then it's going to pop up and block us from the success that is trying to come in. 

Fear of Abandonment and Outshining Others

Number two is disloyalty and abandonment. When we are stuck behind the barrier of disloyalty and abandonment, our unconscious mantra goes like this, I cannot expand to my full success because it would cause me [00:14:00] to end up all alone, be disloyal to my roots and leave behind people from my past.

I feel like that one really struck a nerve too, where I was like, Ooh, yeah. Like I remember thinking like, well, who will I connect with? Like if I increase my, to my next level of. Not only like wealth or business potential, but also like spirituality and the type of things that I think about and the kind of person that I am, I'm going to be disloyal to my roots.

Like, how am I going to connect with people from the past? I'm going to leave everybody behind. And that feels really isolating, especially for humans that really desire connection. So these are the hidden barriers that as we can kind of like uncover them and release them and rewire that belief that we have, um, can really open us up to the positive energy and success that's trying to flow in.

And barrier number three is believing that more success brings a bigger burden. I can't expand to my highest potential because I'd be an even bigger burden than I am now. And he talked about when he wrote his first book and he went and gave it to his family and they all just kind of flipped through it and then put it off to the side and then didn't say anything.

And he was like, it really brought up this belief of like my success is a [00:15:00] burden to people around me. And when he first shared the story, I was like, what? I don't think that my success is a burden. I think it lifts. people up. But I kind of had this image in mind where I went through all of these people close to me, siblings, parents, friends, family, my own kids, my husband.

And I was like, is there any amount of me, even a small amount of me that thinks that my success is a burden on other people. And my subconscious immediately responded. It was like, this is how your success is a burden on your kids and your family. This is how your success is a burden on your husband. And this is how it's a burden on your close friends.

This is how it's a burden on your family. And as I started to peel those away, those layers and recognize them, I was able to dispel them and shift them. And I could feel that energy start to shift and change, but I had to first recognize that it was even there because in the beginning I was like, no, I don't even recognize that barrier when he described it.

It was definitely one that I had, um, hidden barrier. Number four is the crime of outshining. So the unconscious mantra of the outshining barrier goes like this. I might not expand to my full [00:16:00] success because if I did, I would outshine blank and make him or her look or feel bad. And so it's usually talking about somebody specific, like somebody where like, maybe you're kind of on a level playing field and you're both going after your dreams.

And then if you, um, kind of outshine or succeed, then how will it make them feel? And I think that one of the things that I uncovered as I was uncovering my own hidden barriers and how they were impacting my life is that I started disseminating them and realizing that the opposite was actually true, that if I do quote unquote outshine somebody that actually gives them the opposite, it gives them the idea that like maybe more is possible, maybe this is also possible for them, that it can give them this kind of almost uncomfortable feeling inside or this almost uncomfortable desire inside To also do something more instead of it feeling like it's a burden or I'm going to make them feel really bad or, um, something is wrong with me.

And so I'll never be able to get here, right? There's those hidden barriers can really keep us from reaching the next level of success. [00:17:00] He talks about people who. Bankrupted their companies or, um, had affairs in their relationship or did something really significant to really sabotage their life immediately after some huge success came in, because the positive energy was trying to flow in and it was almost like they didn't feel safe or believe in themselves enough, feel valuable enough to actually have capacity for that. And, um, it reminds me of the quote that I shared recently. I think it was on a couple of podcasts episode ago from Kathy Heller. We receive at the speed of safety. And when I think of safety, I think of, is my nervous system safe?

Am I feeling safe within myself? Because I can't be open to receiving the next level of success in any area in my relationship and my work and wherever, if I'm not feeling safe within my own system. So he talks about this ultimate success mantra and he says to use it all of the time and it's I expand in abundance, success, and love every day as I inspire those around me to do the same.

And so my friend and colleague Amber said, [00:18:00] um, it is safe for me to expand in abundance, success, and love every day as I inspire those around me to do the same. And I believe this now. I really do. See that it is actually inspiring other people. It's lifting other people. And one of the things in Kathy's book abundant ever after that she talks about is that we are all one that the human race is all interconnected.

And so as I allow more success as I receive more Good feelings and goodness within my own soul that it's actually uplifting the whole human race. And I thought that was such a beautiful thought because I think it is true that as I allow myself to feel more success and more abundance and receive more, I'm actually going to feel different energetically.

And that energy is going to uplift everybody, everybody within my sphere, everyone within my virtual and physical community, um, and humanity as a whole. 

Success is an Inside Job

So, um, I loved, The Big Leap. I think it's a great book. I loved his idea of this upper limit problem, and I see it. I recognize it in my own life, [00:19:00] but I think what he's really talking about here is shame, is those beliefs that I have about myself, and as we do that non attachment work, as we shift the energy within our body, as we release those beliefs after we recognize that we have them, we open ourselves up to so much more success in every area of our life.

The inner work that we do is belief work. Belief work is unshaming work. It's intuition work. It opens us up to the infinite possibility space. It opens us up to our own intuition. It opens us up to more creative potential and energy. Um, it's manifestation work. We open ourselves up to receiving the things that are really for us that are out there that are just waiting for us to be safe, to receive it.

And it truly is the best work. So if you want to upgrade in any area of your life or in all areas of your life, it starts on the inside. Rick Rubin says success is an inside job, and I would add to that that success is a feeling. It's a feeling that as we foster that on the inside, [00:20:00] we manifest it on the outside.

We manifest more success physically in every area of our life as we're able to feel success on the inside. And for me, success is a feeling of spiritual wholeness, of spiritual aliveness. And as I feel that and tend to that, I notice more of it, be able to come in and I'm able to receive more. So it starts on the inside.

It starts at the level of your belief, change your beliefs, and you change everything.

Final Thoughts & Coaching Opportunities

If this is work that you would love to do with me, I have two spots available for one on one coaching where we work together on exactly this. For 12 months, it is a very deep dive. And I also have a group program called the creation room where I work on intuitive, um, coaching with women.

It's also a really beautiful space to do this work. So if you feel called to either of these spaces, we would love to have you. And thank you for being here, for listening to the podcast and for listening to my. Last little like dear diary moments of like, I really need to share this thing because it's important.

And I think the power of belief is one of those really, truly [00:21:00] important things, um, that I really felt unaware to and awake to. And as I've been able to make those shifts for myself that I've really, really made significant changes in not only how I feel, but definitely in creating success on the outside also.

If you enjoyed this episode as much as I did, I would love for you to help spread the word by getting this message of support and guidance out to as many people as possible. So text it to your best friend or tag me on Instagram and share it. Leave a review, rate it, subscribe it, or follow on your favorite platform.

Send me a DM on IG letting me know which parts have impacted you or what you'd like to see on future episodes. We'll see you next week.