From Stress to Success: 10 Steps to a Relaxed and Happy Life: a unique mind and body plan

• Other people have all the luck.

• I’m no good at numbers.

• I can’t sing in tune.

• For the next 10 years I’ll have to deal with the mortgage.

• I’m a poor parent.

• Things always get on top of me.

Write your own list now.

Simply having these limiting thoughts can be stressful. The consequences of thinking them, day after day, can be even more stressful.

Mr T. came to see me because of the stress he experienced both at home and at work. In time we came round to the concept of limiting beliefs and, on his next visit, he produced the following list:

• I’ve reached the top of my profession.

• I’ll never earn more money than I do now.

• I can’t leave this job, I’m too old to get another.

• My new boss doesn’t like me.

• My colleagues don’t respect me the way they did.

• The children have gone their separate ways, you can’t expect them to stay close.

• The other grandparents have more to offer the grandchildren than we do.

• My wife and I don’t communicate any more. She keeps spending money we haven’t got.

• I’m getting angina like my father, I’m likely to have a heart attack.

• We’re too old to move to the country.

• We can’t afford to travel.

• I’m too old to do many of the things I had planned but haven’t yet done.

• When I retire, we’ll have to learn to manage on the pension. This means that life will be very restricted when I retire.

Is it any wonder Mr T. felt stressed? With all these Limiting Beliefs he was facing one perceived stress after another. I suggested that he change them.

‘I can’t change them,’ he said, ‘they’re true. I have reached the top of the profession, we don’t have enough money, I am too old to do many of the things I would have liked to do.’

‘Only if you think so,’ I said and then kept quiet while he let that sink in.

‘You mean if I think differently then things might change?’

‘What do you think?’

‘I don’t know. It seems too easy.’

I suggested we take the beliefs one at a time. With regard to his profession, was there more he could do? He agreed he could in fact go higher, his equal-ranked colleague had just been promoted.

‘But they don’t need two senior executives,’ he said.

‘How do you know? They might expand, they might want you somewhere else.’

He still looked thoughtful, so I continued, ‘If you are convinced there is no future there for you, you will feel stressed; if you choose to believe there are good things ahead, (a) you will look for them, (b) you may even create them, and (c) you will feel good in the process.’

I decided to leave work and focus on his home life.

‘You and your wife don’t communicate any more?’

‘No. She’s not interested in what I do and she’s all involved with her bowls and her women friends. We have nothing to say to each other in the evenings.’

‘When did you last share the things you do at work with her?’

‘She wouldn’t be interested.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Well…’

‘How about giving it a try?’

He agreed that he could, and that he would also try to take an interest in what she did.

We went through the other restrictions he was placing on himself.

When he came back a fortnight later he reported that having talked things over with his wife he had found she had been growing depressed because he didn’t share things with her any more and that she felt this was because he had lost interest in her. She was delighted when he started sharing again. At work he had suggested a new project and his ideas were being considered.

The real point here is that if you decide to limit your horizons with these thoughts then they are limits, and therefore stresses. If you choose not to believe in them, if you choose to believe you can change things any way you want, you will feel more positive and optimistic. After all, you can’t be absolutely sure you can’t change things, so why choose to believe it? Choose to believe that you can and ‘…. thinking can make it so’. Your subconscious has a way of making your thoughts come true, not your goals and dreams necessarily, especially if they are vague hopes rather than definite aims, but your deeper thoughts and beliefs.

One of my Limiting Beliefs was that I couldn’t sing in tune. When I started running the workshops, which involved group singing, I found I had to sing out to lead the way or no-one else would so I prefaced the song with a self-defensive ‘Come on everyone, sing, it doesn’t matter if you’re in tune or not. If I hit the right note it is purely by accident so if I’m prepared to sing out you’d better be too, and for your own sakes you’d better drown my voice out.’

Not only did everyone feel a lot more comfortable but after a while I found I actually was hitting the right note more often than not. Relaxing does wonderful things for your vocal cords.

Some of your Limiting Beliefs may not involve you directly. They may include

• ‘men don’t cry’,

• ‘women are paid less than men’,

• ‘single parents are social misfits’,