Are your limiting beliefs taking their toll on your relationship? Could they be causing more conflict and disconnect than you may even think? Then here’s 17 (seriously!) dangerous limiting beliefs destroying your relationship – plus what to do to work through them, before it’s too late.
What Is a Limiting Belief?
Limiting beliefs are thoughts or assumptions that you believe about yourself, others or the world around you, that ultimately place limitations on the way that you live, and – therefore – the relationships that you have.
Limiting beliefs are usually subconscious, or so deeply embedded that you don’t often realise the full impact that they’re having and how frequently they influence your thoughts, feelings or behaviour.
See, they’re typically formed in earlier life, based on your experiences, upbringings, societal norms, past failures or even past traumas.
However, once they’re there – they’re then also built on and strengthened over time, with your mind looking for additional “evidence” that it’s true (even if, in many cases, it’s not!)
Limiting beliefs are damaging – for your mental health, your self esteem, your state of mind, your confidence & courage, and of course your relationships too.
17 (Surprisingly Dangerous) Limiting Beliefs Destroying Your Relationship
So what are the specific limiting beliefs destroying your relationship?
And Please Note –
When we say DESTROYING, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re on the brink of breaking up, but what it does always destroy is your capacity to feel the full level of love and happiness in your relationship that both you and your partner deserves.
See, limiting beliefs can put immense strain on your relationship. They can create unnecessary conflict, issues and upset, which is why it’s so important that you’re able to recognise them in order to properly work through them.
Common Limiting Beliefs Destroying Relationships
- Relationships are unsafe / make you vulnerable.
- Love usually always leads to pain. / I always end up getting hurt.
- You can’t trust anyone. / I will never be able to trust anyone. / Men can’t be trusted.
- Everyone cheats. / No-one is loyal anymore.
- I have to hold onto my past, to prevent it from happening again.
- No-one understands me.
- I’m not good enough. / I’m not worthy. / I don’t deserve this.
- Something always goes wrong. / Happiness never lasts. / This is never going to last.
- People always let me down. / I’m going to be let down again.
- I will never be loved as much as I love someone.
- Relationships make you lose your freedom.
- I can’t allow myself to fully open up. / Emotional vulnerability is weakness.
- I’m too ___ to be loved.
- Love will be / should be easy with the “right” person.
- It’s my fault. / It’s always my fault. / I always mess up.
- I need him. / I can’t lose him. / I don’t want to be on my own again.
- I can’t do this.
How To Identify Your Own Limiting Beliefs
To discover your limiting beliefs, I want you to ask yourself:
- How many of the above statements rang true?
- To what degree did you believe each statement? How much on a scale of 1-10?
- What other thoughts spring to mind when it comes to love and relationships?
- What had you always grown up believing about love and relationships (for whatever reason)?
Write down everything that comes to mind.
If you’re struggling, ask yourself, what MIGHT I believe, or is MOST LIKELY that I believe, based on my behaviour… Then when something comes to mind, ask yourself if you think that’s true.
Think of yourself as your own personal detective, getting to the bottom of your mind!
You may have to come back to this, or brainstorm multiple times, until you get clearer and clearer on what exactly your thoughts are, and which beliefs they therefore ultimately link to.
It’s a process of getting to know yourself better too, but it’s worth it.
How To Challenge Limiting Beliefs Destroying Your Relationship
Once you have your list and are confident that that’s the way you feel, you can then start the process of challenging the limiting beliefs destroying your relationship.
Start by circling the top statements that influence your life and relationship the most. Then, with every belief that you have, I want you to then break them down a little to establish:
- How accurate the belief is.
– Both in terms of how true it is, and the best way to define it. - Where you might have gotten the belief from.
- The impact of the belief and what it means for your life.
- Whether you want to keep it, change it, or replace it.
- What your new empowering belief(s) could be and how that will feed into the new story you’ll decide to have.
It sounds like a lot of work and, being completely honest, it is.
This won’t be an instant fix, it will take time and effort and repeated action, but if it was easy – you’d have already done it, right?
So be patient, stick with it, keep showing yourself self-compassion through the process, and just tackle them one at a time, at your own pace. (You’ve got this, trust me!)
That’s All For This One
I hope you’ve found this valuable, or at the very least – thought-provoking!
Remember, recognising and breaking bad habits in a relationship is what will ultimately strengthen it.
Be proud of the work that you do and the progress that you make (both big and small.)
Do it not just for your relationship, but for your own happiness and wellbeing too, because boy – do you deserve it!
Sending all my encouragement and support. 🫶
Love,
Ell_xx
