Release Limiting Beliefs That Hold You Back: Somatic Practices to Rewire Your Self-Worth
Introduction
Do you carry a limiting belief that weights your life and voice? These beliefs arrive as words, then live in your body — your posture, muscles, breath — shaping how you move, speak, and claim space. Here’s a clear, actionable guide to notice, release, and replace those beliefs with embodied practices and simple writing prompts.
What Are Limiting Beliefs — And Where Do They Live?
One of my sisters made the observation eons ago that I was not as devoted to teaching as our brother. Her words pierced through every layer of my Being. The friend and colleague I confided in rigorously, vehemently and angrily disagreed. And yet, and yet, here we are years later and this belief feeds my vision of myself as a Teacher and influences all the other beliefs I have about myself re: worthiness, for example.
We carry these beliefs with us from the moment they enter our heart field. They are ensconced in our skin, our muscles, our bones. They affect our posture, our movement. Bessel Van der Koch wrote about this in his book, The Body Keeps the Score. These beliefs become part of us, part of our cells.
How Limiting Beliefs Manifest
They haunt us. They make us hunch our shoulders up towards our ears. They make us round our shoulders in a gesture of protection, of self preservation, of survival. We walk with less confidence than we could. We speak with less assurance than we might. We cede physical space and the sound of our own voice to others. We ask permission of those who have no real authority over us. We shrink. We silence ourselves. All without our awareness, without our conscious agreement.
A Mind–Body Practice to Notice and Loosen Beliefs
Be Curious: Ask yourself— What is one belief I have about myself? Ask: Whose voice does it sound like?
Write one sentence you often say about yourself. Ask (and then write): Where did I learn this? Who told me? Who modeled it for me? Who rewarded me for repeating it or living it or made me feel like it was mine?
Now write what you might choose to believe if you were starting fresh.
In conversations, notice: Where do I automatically agree? Where do I hold back? Where do you pause? Often, it’s in this pause where your real voice is. How do we access this voice more often?
Somatic Practice: Shoulder-Release with a Mantra (Quick Daily Practice)
Since these old beliefs show up in how we stand, walk, carry ourself, speak, here’s a practice with its message to feed this newer belief in and about yourself:
Stand or sit. Let yourself land in your body. Feel how gravity helps you be in yourself.
Now, lift your shoulders to your ears. Hold them here for a count of 3. On an exhale, lowly, slowly lower your shoulders down, down, down. Say to yourself or out loud: “I do not have to carry what was never mine.”
Raise your shoulders again for a count of 3 and then on an exhale, slowly lower them down, all the way down, saying, “I do not have to carry what was never mine.”
This third time, lift your shoulders, hold them for 3 counts and then, breathe out and drop them completely down, saying, “I do not have to carry what was never mine.”
Pause with these words repeating in your mind or out loud.
Why This Works — Nervous System & Embodied Rewiring
When your body FEELS the release, HEARS your voice speaking WORDS of liberation, your body feels it, knows that it means you’re safe, communicates this sense of safety to your brain which then broadcasts this message to your body-mind-spirit. Each and every time you do this, you let your nervous system know the truth.
When you write your choices, you are engaging your body, your mind, and your spirit. The pen in your hand and the act of writing act as a kind of magic. You’re reinforcing your new beliefs in multiple sensorial, intellectual and spiritual ways.
How Long Does It Take?
Each of these practices can take as few as a few breaths and as long as you have time. The more frequently you intentionally do them, the more deeply engrained in your Being they will become. And the more comfortable you will feel as you hold these new beliefs about yourself to be truer. The more comfortable you will feel listening to and trusting your own voice to be the one you listen to.
Awareness (1-3 minutes) Ask, write the limiting belief and its source.
Somatic release (1-5 minutes) Shoulder practice with liberating phrase.
Reinforce (2 minutes and a lifetime commitment) Write the new believe you choose and read it aloud.
It takes a lifetime of doing and doing again and again and again.
It all counts because YOU count.
And you are worth the work.
blessings,
paula.
