Clearing Limiting Beliefs About Money
Are you struggling with money? Do you find yourself thinking, “There is never enough money”? Or catch yourself saying, “We can’t afford it.” What you think, say, and believe about money is what you will experience with money.
Are you ready to change your thoughts and attract abundance and prosperity?
Here are five steps to help you clear limiting beliefs about money.
1-BE AWARE
The first step in making any change is to be AWARE.
- What is your relationship with money?
- How do you feel?
- How do you react when you deal with your finances?
- Are you anxious, sad, fearful, or depressed?
- Do you feel at ease, relaxed, or at peace? S
Start paying attention and perhaps take a few notes. When you realize and pay attention to how you feel, you can then look into the WHY.
2-CHANGE YOUR THOUGHTS
What thoughts go through your head when you are dealing with money?
Perhaps you think
- “I’ll never have enough money”, “
- “I can’t afford that”,
- “I shouldn’t be buying this”.
All kinds of thoughts can go through your head.
- Are they positive or negative?
- Are they LACK MENTALITY thoughts?
The important thing is to start listening to the chatter in your head and being aware of what you think about money.
Start compiling a list of these thoughts. This list will come in handy when you begin processing them.
3-CHANGE YOUR TALK
The next thing to be aware of is how you SPEAK about money.
It is one thing to think a negative thought, but when you put thought into spoken words, you are exponentially reinforcing that thought in your brain. (A good way to strengthen either a good or bad idea.
If you want to change things fast, just start speaking things out loud, and the universe will hear it.
Pay attention to what you actually say about money. Have you ever said or heard,
- “Money doesn’t grow on trees” or
- “We can’t afford it?”
When you start paying attention to what you and others are saying, you will be amazed at how negative we are as a society in general.
Years ago, my husband and I were listening to some of Louise Hay’s tapes on the law of attraction and we were surprised to see how negative we were about money.
It was here that we began switching our thoughts and beliefs about money.
We would catch each other making negative statements about money and gently remind each other.
It is so nice to have a buddy on the same page. Once you start to change, you may become a little hypersensitive to other people’s negative comments about money.
Be patient. Perhaps you can kindly instruct them on how thoughts affect our reality. They may have no clue.
When you catch the urge to make a negative comment about money, bite your tongue.
Remember, you don’t want to put that energy out there. Because it’s just going to come back to you.
4-CHANGE YOUR MONEY BELIEFS
You may ask, what is the difference between a thought and a belief?
A belief is a thought you make real or accept as truth. I love Esther Hick’s definition
“ A belief is a thought you just keep thinking”.
Simple and profound, isn’t it?
Beliefs are a little more rooted and are stored in the subconscious brain.
Beliefs are programs you have downloaded in your brain based on your own unique experiences. It is said that we have our programs about life and money downloaded into our brains by the age of 6-8.
So, what we experience in our families and environments as children is key to how we perceive things.
My beliefs about money will be different from your beliefs because we were brought up in different situations.
What are your beliefs about money? What programs are you running?
If you want to know, look at what you are experiencing in your world.
- Are you broke?
- Is there never enough?
- Maybe you just cannot seem to get ahead.
What is your story?
What were your parent’s beliefs about money?
A great way to find out what your beliefs about money are is to look at your parents.
Here is a little exercise that will help you uncover what may be in your head.
- Get a piece of paper and on the top of the paper write: MONEY
- On the left, write MOM, and on the right, write DAD.
- Under each column, write down what you think your parent’s or guardians’ beliefs were about money.
- Write down what you heard them say or comment about money.
- Take time to sit and contemplate. What is it you heard about money growing up?
Were there other influential people in your life that affected your beliefs about money?
Even if you don’t like what you believe, be honest with yourself and clarify your thoughts about money.
Here are a few of my examples to jog your memory a little.
I remember my mom saying a lot, “We can’t afford that.” She would buy something for herself and return it because she felt guilty spending the money on herself.
I had to switch these patterns and beliefs myself because I could see how they were manifesting and blocking my own financial progress.
Some other common beliefs about money are:
- “Having a lot of money makes you a bad person”.
- “I don’t deserve a lot of money”.
- “It’s impossible to get ahead”.
- “I am just not lucky enough”.
You get the picture.
Finding your core beliefs will take some time and is an ongoing process, but worth it. What is important is that you now have some understanding of the WHY.
You are not crazy, you are not weak, and you are not a failure! You a creature of circumstance and YOU have the power to change!
5-REPROGRAM YOUR BRAIN
Now that you have found some of the root causes of your money issues, here is how to eliminate them.
There are many ways to clear negative beliefs and patterns energetically.
I will list the ones that I have used and have found effective.
1- EMOTIONAL FREEDOM TECHNIQUE
This is one of my favorites. Often referred to as EFT, this is a simple and quick way to get to the bottom. For those of you who are not familiar with EFT, here is a link to find out more about it.
In short, EFT is a way to release and change the programs in our subconscious brain by tapping on eight different meridian points on the body. Watch the video on how to do it, and then choose a belief you want to clear.
As you go through the steps, you may find other emotional nuggets that will help you get to the root of the issue.
Nick Ortner is one of my favorites for explaining EFT. I also like Cheryl Richardson and Jessica Ortner.
I use EFT almost every day with myself and with my clients.
2- EMOTION CODE
You may have trapped emotions that may be keeping you from experiencing abundance.
Dr. Bradley Nelson’s technique of releasing trapped emotions can be explained more clearly here. Emotion Code is a great way to get to things we are unaware of.
Sometimes, these gems of information are hidden in our subconscious brain, where we have blocked or forgotten to protect ourselves from further pain.
It is possible that some of the programs running in your brain are not even your own.
You may have inherited trapped emotions that can be affecting your current experiences. In the same way, you can inherit your eye color or the shape of your nose from your father, mother, and other ancestors; you can also inherit trapped emotions from them.
Clearing these energies from your system will allow you to move forward. This work is fantastic and effective!
3- RAPID EYE THERAPY
Years ago, in one of my sessions with Carol Tuttle, she counseled me and helped me clear some money-related issues. (Imagine that.)
Yep, I had some juicy matters related to money to clear.
It was so intense that I couldn’t even discuss the budget with my husband without raising my voice, and I often got out of control with emotion and rage.
It was all due to beliefs and fears related to money that I had picked up as a little girl.
I don’t remember this, but my brother informed me that when I was a baby, he remembers a time when he was holding me in the basement at the bottom of the stairs while my parents were upstairs fighting intensely about money.
I was inconsolable and crying. It must have happened frequently because I remember them always quarreling about money when I was older.
As a child, I would think and feel that it was my fault and that I was out of control. So, as an adult, dealing with money triggers the same response and those same emotions.
Through my Rapid Eye and EFT therapy sessions with Carol, I was able to clear that junk and I rarely get triggered about money anymore.
4- POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS
Now that you know your negative beliefs about money, it’s time to create new beliefs. Here is a little exercise that you can do to make some custom affirmations. Take the list of the negative beliefs and thoughts you have about money.
Pick a few to start working on; you don’t want to be overwhelmed.
Get a new sheet of paper and fold it in half lengthwise. On the left side of the paper, write down the negative beliefs. On the right side of the paper, write the opposite of what that belief is—your new way of thinking.
EXAMPLE:
Old Belief: I never have enough money/ New Belief: I always have enough money
Old Belief: Making money is hard and stressful/ New Belief: I make lots of money doing what I enjoy. It is easy and fun!
I could go on and on. I love this stuff. It works.
I have found another process for changing your beliefs about money very helpful. You can read about it here.
HERE IS A TECHNIQUE I USE THAT HELPED ME SHIFT MY MINDSET ABOUT MONEY; IT’S CALLED MONEY, FRIENDS.
CHECK IT OUT HERE.
If you find yourself not in a good place with money, please know YOU CAN CHANGE! YOU DESERVE TO LIVE IN ABUNDANCE AND JOY!
If you have questions or want to set up a phone consult with me to work on your own stuff, you can contact me at jannihowell@youmakeitsimple.com.
