Last week, following the high of launching this site and basking in the glow of lots of positive feedback, I hit a low. (Isn’t that always the way it goes – lows follow highs?) For a couple of days, while the lovely affirmative emails and comments dried up, numbers (visitors, comments) started to drop, and I had to keep dragging myself to work every day, I found myself buried in self doubt, discouragement, and hopelessness.

At some point, I had two simultaneous thoughts – I needed to excavate some of the self-limiting beliefs that I thought I’d buried but that keep cropping up and causing me to doubt myself and expect failure, and I had to visit my home town to do so.  There was something about going to the source of the stream to challenge the way it still flowed into my life that seemed right to me.

Yesterday I made that journey. I traveled the two hours over flat, flat prairies to the town that holds so much of my history. There are no ties there for me any more (my mom moved away when my dad died), so my trip was solitary and not interrupted with the obligation of family visits.

I visited all of the old haunts where the beliefs were planted. I drove onto the schoolyard (the school has been bull-dozed) where I first began to believe that I wasn’t good enough or interesting enough or thin enough or pretty enough or athletic enough to be of much value. I stopped where the church used to stand where I began to believe that I was nothing but a sinner who was destined to live in shame for the many ways I was disappointing God. I drove through the park where the baseball bully convinced me I was pathetic for missing such an “easy” ball. I passed the community centre where, for my first job, I helped run a day camp and came to believe that my lack of success meant that I was a failure (rather than realizing I just wasn’t cut out for a career in childcare). I sat on the road outside the home where I was taught that writing, art, and photography were fine hobbies, but I needed to set those things aside and find more practical, wholesome work (at least until I started having babies and then the career would be over). I traveled along the roads where endless bus rides taught me to believe that being shy was a bad thing and being overweight was even worse. I drove past the high school where I began to internalize that not being popular meant not being interesting or valuable. I drove through the park where I was told that I must be a goody-goody-two-shoes (in other words “boring”) because I refused to join the smoking and drinking going on.

(Don’t get me wrong – I learned some incredible life lessons in all of those places too – lessons that have helped me persevere through pain, support other people, pick myself up after failure, and carry on no matter what – and some day, maybe I’ll make a return trip to celebrate those things, but this time I focused on the shadows instead of the light.)

In the places that held some of my pain, I wrote down a list of those self-limiting beliefs (inspired, in part, by Mel’s list). I gave space to that little girl inside me and I let her feel some of the pain of the harsh words and difficult moments of the past.

On the swinging foot bridge that is still my favourite spot in town, I tore up that list and released the little bits of paper into the river. (In hindsight, writing on leaves might have been more environmentally friendly, but paper is at least biodegradable.) It’s a slow-moving river, and for a long time, I stood and watched the pieces of my past float away.

Now, I’m not naïve enough to think that I will never face those battles again, but there’s something about naming them and physically releasing them that loosens their hold on my life. At least the next time they show up, I can say “I don’t believe in you any more. Go jump in the river.”

Now that some excavation has been done, it’s time to water the seeds of new growth.

If you’re at a point where your self-limiting beliefs may be holding you back from fully realizing your giftedness, here are a few tips for excavation:

1. Visit the birthplace of some of your self-limiting beliefs. It may be your childhood home, the place where you held down your first job, or the place where you entered a new relationship.
2. Let yourself re-live some of the painful memories that taught you to believe you are a loser/failure/screw-up/whatever.
3. Write down whatever comes to mind. Do not censor yourself.
4. Give space to that little girl/boy that you were then.  Be gentle with the tears that come and forgive her/him for believing those things.
5. Seek peace with the people who initiated those beliefs. Try to imagine them as scared/scarred little children too, just trying to protect themselves from pain by projecting it onto you.
6. Tear up the list of limiting beliefs.
7. Release them, burn them, drown them, or bury them. Say good-bye and say out loud “I won’t be needing you any more. I can find my way from here without you.”
8. Start building a list of new beliefs – things you’ve discovered about yourself, your relationships, your God, and your giftedness since then – that can replace those you let go of.

“In order to move forward, we may have to take a step or two backward and remember or relive those experiences and see them for what they were. We may need to see our parents as the flawed and uncertain people they were and make some kind of peace with how it was.” – Gregg Levoy, “Callings”

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