Burning Limiting Beliefs with Bhogi

"We learn our belief systems as very little children, and then we move through life creating experiences to match our beliefs. Look back in your own life and notice how often you have gone through the same experience." -Louise L. Hay

In TamilNadu the first day of the 4 day Pongal Festival [the festival of harvest] is celebrated as Bhogi, a day where we burn all the old useless things in the house. 

This Bhogi, for a change let’s also burn our old useless belief systems that are holding us back from achieving our goals...those pesky little devils called ‘Limiting Beliefs.’

Limiting Beliefs: What are they?

Ever been to temple and watched the temple elephant restrained by a chain, standing patiently beside the mahout, offering its blessings in return for a bargained reward?

Ever watched an elephant lumbar heavy log or uproot an entire tree with ease?

Ever wondered, what has made the temple elephant believe that those chains are strong enough to tie him down? 

Those weak shackles are nothing but the elephant’s very own limiting belief system built from childhood.  

Limiting beliefs are opinions we have so thoughtlessly crafted about ourselves and programmed into our sub conscious mind. We have so skilfully engraved these ideas into our mind that, just as the elephant believes that it is impossible to break the weak links of those chains, we believe we are bound by those limiting belief concepts.

The most unfortunate part is that many of us don’t even realize that the only thing keeping us from our dreams and goals is that one ‘THOUGHT.’

We in fact go a step further, and find proof, with life's experience, to inscribe this belief system in our subconscious mind.

Let’s find out what those thoughts are today and burn them in the Bhogi bonfire.

Here are a few tips to get you started:

Pick a key area of concern in your life: Money, Relationship or Health.

Pick any one goal in your life that you are trying to achieve in that area.

Perhaps, a need to be more financially independent or finding that perfect soul mate or wanting more health and wellness to shine in your life or anything else.

Write it down.

Next write down a list of things that you believe is keeping you from making this dream a reality. You can use the list below as a good guide.

• Excuses: Think of the times you’ve said: I can’t do that because I don’t have the time/money/skills/support. eg: I want to be healthy but I don’t have the time to work on it at this point of time in my life.

• Justifications: Think of the moments you’ve believed: Nobody has achieved that, so I can’t either. eg: There is no such thing as a perfect soul mate, I have to compromise.

• Worries: eg: If i don’t make the money, I’m going to land in some serious debt.

• Beliefs ingrained by culture or society: eg: Money is evil or My father, grandfather and uncles suffered from diabetes or heart condition so will I.  

• Thought Patterns: I’m powerless to change things. eg: If everything is going well, it’s usually a sign that something terrible is going to happen soon. The most common: it’s winter, I always fall sick in winter. Or I got wet in the rain, I’m going to fall sick.

• Past failures: If I tried that I’d probably fail. eg: Those that I like don’t seem to like me. I will never find true love.

• Fear: eg: Fear of loss of a job, fear of rejection, fear of debts, insecurities about a loved one, fear of illness or diseases [our list is endless].

Once you have your list, burn it...as you celebrate the last day of the month of Margazhi - Bhogi. Let the flames of Bhogi vapourise all your limiting beliefs. May you begin the first day of the month of Thai – Pongal with the only belief: "Anything is possible, from the moment I believe it is!"

Suspension of Disbelief

‘Suspension of Disbelief’ a very interesting term, coined in the early 18^th century. It means if a narrator could arouse sufficient human interest in a concept, then the reader is subconsciously willing to drop his judgement of logic or plausibility of the narrative. 

It is quite interesting how our belief system works.

When an astrologer reads your charts and says, “The next three and a half years of your life is going to be really tough financially. Your most prized possessions will leave you as your planetary positions are extremely compromised.” We get alarmed.

When a philosopher says, “You are only limited by your thoughts, you can, with just your thoughts, attract towards you, abundance of wealth, health and happiness.” We simply smile and retort with cynicism, “All that is good in theory...won’t work in the real world. Get practical!”

I am not stating that the astrologer is wrong and neither, am I siding with the philosopher. The only concerning fact here is: even though we know that, it is only our thoughts, that are in our control we find solace in believing that, which we have absolutely no control over : ‘The compromised planetary positions.’

This has probably stemmed out of several past experiences, the most prominent among them being: consistent lack of success despite all the hard work and dedication. A feeling of: “I have done everything possible and things are still not working in my favour...must be the planets.”

If you are among those who sails in the boat of a similar thought process...I request you to see the irrationality in blaming your lack of achievement on your perception of your past experiences. Clearly neither the perception nor the planets have come to our rescue.  

We will work on those issues in the weeks to come...but for now, before we begin our journey to harness the limitless power of our sub-conscious mind, let's break one of the biggest core belief system we have built up: Disbelief.

The entire concept of ‘harnessing the power of the mind’ is built on a strong foundation of belief system.

Let go of the cynicism...let go of the statement: Let’s see if this works...not even: This might work...and not even: This is going to work for me...All I need is an unquestionable belief that: This is working for me...

An enlightened philosopher once said: you don’t need a anybody to tell you, that you are limited by something...you already seemed to have that perception...what you need is somebody to make you believe, that you are limitless...boundless...and capable of absolutely anything...irrespective of time...space...distance...and all you need to do is to ‘Suspend your disbelief.’

Ground Rules: Before Dreaming...Before Designing...Before Beginning...

In my previous blog I mentioned that there are only FOUR primary hurdles, which have hindered our dreams from manifesting into reality. Even before we begin jumping over these hurdles lets understand a few ground rules:

Rule 1: Whatever has happened in our lives until now: good or bad, happy or sad, wonderful or disastrous, has happened because we have, at some point of time, in our lives, wished for it. We alone are responsible for every situation, every emotion, every experience, and every relationship that tags along in our life. 

Don’t believe that statement as yet? That is because we have been playing the blame game for a long long time. We have even created a cosy corner for ourselves which helps us hide behind this shield of blame.

Hmmm...let’s consider a few common blame statements:

My parents/My wife/my husband/my in-laws (perhaps some out-laws too!)/my boss: the root cause of my misery. The traffic/corruption/peoples insensitivity: the root cause for my anger. Pollution/genetic engineering/adulteration/bad genes: root cause for my illness. Capitalism/Political System/Financial System/ Fate/ Bad Karma bane of my existence. Phew! Do you already feel better knowing that you have so many people to blame.

Now ask yourself the important question: Have things in my life changed? NO?

Let’s try it again, this time let us pick on the one person we believe can change things: GOD! Blame him for making such terrible people, natural calamities, pain, suffering and the list is endless.

Let’s ask the question again: Have things in my life changed, at least this time? NO?

Yet we still continue to blame. "Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is a definition of insanity." Continuing to play the blame game has not changed anything in life. Isn’t it insane to continue to do the same thing, and find comfort in the misery?

Let’s try something different for a change. (Pun Intended).

The blame game, under the hood of helplessness, has not only taken away the sense responsibility off our shoulders, it has also taken away our ability to control our lives.

If we would like our life to take a different direction, a good place to begin is by inspecting where we are headed in the first place. A good point of beginning is self analysis.

Begin by saying “I am the only one that is responsible for everything that happens to me.”

What a powerful statement. Imagine, nobody in the entire universe can ever cause you pain, suffering or misery. If I am responsible for my life, I am only going to fill my life with happiness.

Close your eyes and with complete belief and acceptance say it: “I am the only one that is responsible for everything that happens to me.”

Feel your life coming back under your control. 

Why do many dreams remain in the dreamland and never manifest into reality? If they were just dreams then why do we sometimes wish we could go back in time and change things?

You could be a happy homemaker or an ambitious career focused personality, a college fresher or a fresher stepping into your first day at work, you could be in your 20’s 30’s 40’s or dealing with mid life crises or you could even be enjoying your relaxed retirement moments. Take a moment to rewind back, to any of those moments in life, which, if given a chance you would relive it a whole different way. Moments when there were dreams of what you wanted to become…and here we are living in the present moments…moments, which mourn over the loss of those dreams. Why have those dreams never become a reality? Excuses may be many…lack of time, lack of funds, lack of talent, lack of support, lack of awareness…but real reasons only FOUR:

There are only FOUR primary reasons, which hinder dreams from manifesting into reality:

1.     Your Limiting Belief System

2.     Your Lack of Emotional Health

3.     Your Lack of a Vision  

4.     Your Lack of a systematic Goal Plan

It is still not too late…It is never too late to make your dreams a reality…begin with the first step…identify which of the above 4 reasons requires a tweaking. Perhaps all the 4…fix it! You are then set to achieve anything you have ever aspired for…even your wildest dreams!