Limiting beliefs are dysfunctional ideas/beliefs that we make up about ourselves, others and the world around us. Like the name suggests, they inhibit and hold us back from positive growth. We all have them, to varying extents, but the good news is that there are ways to banish them for good. Ready? Here we go:
7 Steps To Banishing A Limiting Belief – Toronto Mindful Solutions Clinic
Since psychotherapy (also known as counselling) is a rather misunderstood concept (not to mention often steeped in stigma), the suggestion that you see a therapist can be scary.
You may perceive getting therapy to mean that there’s something wrong with you. But this isn’t the case at all! While it may not be for everyone, counselling can be beneficial to most people at challenging points in their lives.
Although it’s important to recognize that therapy is not a panacea, it makes a difference every day in thousands of lives across the world. If you find that you have uncomfortable feelings of “stuckness” in your life, you may very well benefit from this working with a psychotherapist.
Consider these ways that therapy can help you:
Simply put, working with a therapist can be one of the most profound gifts you can ever give yourself. Most likely, you’ll experience less stress, feel more satisfied and contented with your life after participating in counselling. If you find yourself struggling emotionally, remind yourself that therapy can help. Tell yourself that therapy is a crucial component of your self-care plan. And then commit to doing the work!
For many, the promise of the new year is a time for reflection and rebirth. It’s a reset. A fresh start. An opportunity for reinvention and creating abundance.
I probably go against conventional wisdom when it comes to setting New Year’s Resolutions. Simply put, I don’t like ’em. Why? Because it’s not uncommon for most well-intentioned resolutions to be discarded by January 17, which, incidentally enough, is known as Ditch New Year’s Resolution Day. How many of us have signed up for gym memberships soon after New Year’s only to never go, despite our credit cards still being charged? Gyms worldwide know this about us! Not to mention how ditched resolutions only make us feel terrible about ourselves!
So. Resolutions, bad. In my books, they’re the antithesis of self-compassion, and anyone who’s spent any quality time with me knows that I’m all about compassion-based living.
BUT.
I still believe in living life mindfully.
With full intentions and awareness.
What I’ve been practising annually to keep myself on track and accountable is to live by themes. For instance, for me, 2017 was all about embracing joy, while 2018 was my year of healing. 2019 was all about inviting more love, while 2020 will be all about courage. This means that, before every action I take or every choice I make over the next 12 months, I will ask myself first whether I’m putting myself out there authentically in order to stretch myself, even if it may make me slightly uncomfortable. It takes courage to do that!
So I invite you to think about what theme you’d like to live by in 2020.
To keep on track with your chosen theme, affirmations can be powerful tools to help shift your mindset. So why not use an affirmation or two to help you start the year off on the right foot?
So for instance, if you’re looking to invite more joy (theme) into your life, you could try these affirmations, if they resonate for you:
To have great joy, I open my mind and my heart to what the New Year will bring. I avoid fearing the change that the ending of one year offers. I welcome change because it allows for growth. Change keeps things interesting and eventful. I find excitement and joy in every new experience.
Or more simply:
Today, I embrace and welcome the joy the New Year will surely bring to me.
Of course, these are only suggestions. Come up with your own affirmations by spending a few moments with the following self-reflection questions:
So… what theme and affirmation will you live by in 2020?
Here’s another guided audio recording, which is good to use if you’re having trouble falling (or staying!) asleep.
Hypnosis and meditation are both wonderful tools to help us access a slower brain frequency state. Are you ready to go into a very relaxing state to allow yourself the deep sleep that you deserve? If so, this guided audio is for you. Sweet dreams!
Here is a brand new guided audio meditation that can help those of you who are dealing with physical or emotional pain. Hope you enjoy it!
Just a quick note to let you all know that I am on holidays at the moment, returning to the office on Tuesday, July 2, 2019. Wishing you all a sunny June!
Vacation Time!
I often get asked by clients what this idea of “self-care” really looks like, practically speaking. It seems like we’re bombarded with this expression everywhere we look, especially on our social media feeds. Here are my thoughts on self-care, as well as some quick tips you can use today to begin practising good self-care.
FYI – This video was recorded last summer, but it somehow got lost in my iCloud and I forgot to upload it as a result… I only found it today as I was trying to clean out my hard drive as part of my laptop’s regular maintenance. Guess all my self-caring over the past 7 months made me forget to share this with you all! 😁
Hope you enjoy it! Feel free to share your comments with me below.
I often teach my clients about the concept of the Monkey Mind – the inner narrative that we ALL have inside that is often critical and hopelessly jumps from one thought to another, just as a monkey tirelessly swings from branch to branch in the jungle.
Today, my Monkey Mind is especially loud. Yup, even though I teach this stuff for a living, I still have a Monkey Mind. Some days, she’s well behaved, on the quiet side and unassuming. I so appreciate those days when we seem to get along! On other days, however, she leaves my head spinning from exhaustion, as she flits about from one thought to the next, at a rapid-fire pace.
Today, she is LOUD.
That’s where my daily mindfulness practice comes in. Mindfulness is about giving yourself the purposeful gift of present moment awareness without judgment.
Mindfulness is about setting your focused INtention to pay ATtention to what you choose to focus on.
It’s about training your Monkey Mind, by teaching her that you are not her. And that she isn’t the boss of you. Mindfulness is about learning to be the one observing Monkey Mind. Mindfulness meditation is a great tool to practice this important concept of the Observer Self.
Thankfully, we ‘ve come a long way in our Western society in accepting that a mindfulness practice doesn’t mean that you are required to sit cross-legged on the floor, dressed in saffron robes, burning incense and candles, and chanting Sanskrit mantras. Sure, meditating on the cognitive (mind), body, psychological and spiritual connection can be accomplished by quietly sitting with your eyes closed and directing one’s focused attention on an anchor of some sort (e.g. your breathing). And that’s certainly my practice of choice on most days.
However, today, I recognized that my mind was simply too scattered and unfocused to be able to sit quietly with my eyes closed for an extended period of time. On stressful days like today, I make it a point to practice a more active form of meditation to help ground myself to the present moment and quiet the Inner Monkey – by either walking, dancing, singing, painting, or drawing.
So I spent about 30 minutes at lunchtime today drawing this mandala on my iPad. This wasn’t about creating art for art’s sake. This was about directing my attention to an activity with full moment-by-moment awareness. It was about making mindful brush strokes and coordinating my breathing with each line drawn. It was about choosing to focus on what *I* wanted to focus on, no matter how many times my Monkey Mind pipped up with one of her patented random thoughts that don’t always make sense.
The result? My Monkey Mind quieted down about 5 minutes into the activity. And now, even hours later, it’s as though she’s still napping somewhere in the jungle inside my head. And I used the reprieve she’s given me to get some much-needed work done… including writing this blog post which had seemed like an insurmountable task earlier today.
How about THAT for a mindful solution to an everyday problem?
Mindful Solutions Clinic 
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