While helping my clients to overcome bad habits and destructive behavior, I often introduce Reframing exercises. I would ask my clients which part was creating a bad habit? And that way we could get to the root of the issue. Through this work, it occurred to me that self-sabotage and fear of the unknown have such a big impact on how we limit ourselves. 

We would rather miss out on a fun and exciting opportunity than put ourselves in the spotlight and risk being hurt.  

Many of us are also “addicted to our story” and the negative beliefs that we use as excuses to stay on the sidewalk of life. We all do it, including me. This weekend my daughter aged 9 was trying to learn to dive into our swimming pool.  I never learned to dive as a child. As an adult working as a physiotherapist I was treating a 17-year-old patient who became paralyzed after diving into a pool. He thought it was deeper than it was. While working with him I developed a fear of the idea of diving.

I spent years being terrified of the idea of diving into the water and now my daughter is asking me to teach her to dive. So using Reframing technique I asked myself: “why this fear was there?”. One could obviously say that it was to “protect myself from harm”. But going deeper I realized that it had been an easy excuse not to try something scary.  I realized that I was never able to dive even before meeting my patient. This event just added to my fear as opposed to causing it.

Once I was able to define the problem, it made facing my fear much easier.  I changed my perception of the idea of diving… Not to mention having a 9-year-old egging me on to just do it.  So after all these years, I finally did manage to dive into the pool. And let me tell you, I survived. And it felt great to overcome my long-time fear. 

Do you have a fear from your childhood? Does it limit you to strive for your dreams? Which part of you is creating that fear and why?