Written by: Christine Lutley, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Fibromyalgia is hard. Do we make Fibromyalgia more difficult for ourselves? If we do, why and what can we do about it? Yes, we do, but it is not deliberate. It is completely unconscious. Because it is unconscious, all humans make our own lives more difficult at least some of the time. Our having a chronic illness does not exempt us from that fact of life.
Fibromyalgia is hard. Do we make fibromyalgia even more difficult for ourselves? If we do, why and what can we do about it? Yes, we do; but it isn’t deliberate. We resist change and we have tendencies to self-sabotage simply because different parts of us have different roles which want different things for us. Because of that inner conflict, all humans make our own lives more difficult. Our having a chronic illness does not exempt us from that fact of life. Those of us with Fibromyalgia are chronically ill and are in pain, exhausted, and feeling ill much of the time. Having all the symptoms of a chronic illness is very stressful. The stress of coping with the challenges that go along with the illness is also chronic. To avoid surprising new problems, or to resolve an issue when one appears seemingly from nowhere, it helps to know what is hidden beneath it. It helps to learn how we all unknowingly make life difficult for ourselves because knowing that helps us to resolve difficulties when they arise.
We don’t know what we don’t know
Most often, at the root of an issue is an unconscious belief that is now limiting us.
We are not broken. We don’t need fixing. We just need to better understand how we operate. Parts of us don’t always seem to communicate well with each other. We expect them to. This is the area where coaches are experts at helping us get to know and manage ourselves better for better results. As a coach, I stumbled over this mystery myself and became fascinated by it and by how we can so easily and dramatically improve our lives. We do it for others and for ourselves, and most coaches have a coach because it is hard to see what is unconscious to us.
We need to look inside and ask ourselves questions about our beliefs on things that come up for us, for example, our health, relationships, or money, or about what is going on with us in any area of our lives to discover what our unconscious beliefs are. We examine these beliefs to see if they are true, helpful, and from who we learned them. If they aren’t true or helpful, we reframe them, so they are both true and helpful and something we truly believe, not just something we were once taught.
By changing our beliefs, we can get rid of most of the obstacles that prevent us from having the results we want in any area of our lives. It feels quite miraculous. We can all do this. It requires curiosity, self-compassion, and patience. Ok, some people have trouble with those on their own, but anyone can do it with the help of a coach.
What don’t we know?
As young children, we all learn from everyone and everything around us, all the time, whether they were intending to teach us at the time, or not. We learned thousands of essential things like how to eat, walk, talk, get dressed, fit into the family, count, draw, read, and write. We also learned the habits, beliefs, and quirks, of those around us and we learned their opinions of us. We formed our own childish beliefs about ourselves, others, and the world from all the information we gathered like little sponges.
All this information lives as memories in our fast, vast, and very powerful unconscious minds, where they were accepted as truth, without any discernment. That works perfectly well for children, so we fit into our family and community. It is efficient and effective. Once we’ve learned to look both ways before crossing the street, we don’t need to think about it, we just do it. That is lifesaving for kids.
That information was not all true and while it might have been useful to our parents and caretakers then, that does not mean it is useful to us as adults now. Our needs and our situations change throughout life and our beliefs need to suit what is going on in our lives now or they will limit us. It is time to examine our beliefs with conscious discernment.
As adults, we continue operating on these childhood beliefs even as we grow out of needing them. Some get in the way of our growth and development and of our experiencing new things. Since they are unconscious, we don’t notice them. They are just there, present as part of who we are and we think and make decisions based on them without the need for conscious thought.
Why don’t we know this?
Only the conscious thinking mind through the brain is capable of awareness and discernment. The unconscious mind has images, symbols, senses, and sensations. It senses through the body, not the brain. The conscious mind is not yet developed in young children.
Our unexamined unconscious childhood lessons, experiences, memories, and beliefs are not examined until, as teens or adults, we examine them. We want to try new things. We might be motivated to examine our beliefs because our peers are acting on beliefs very different from our own. We experience new feelings and new relationships, and our unconscious beliefs might not be in harmony with these new things. At home, the family beliefs and rules differ from what want to believe and do. That is when there is friction within the family and within us.
At some point, we may be advised to look within to identify our unconscious beliefs, or we read about it as a solution to problems. Aware of the issue, we can start to identify our beliefs about different things just by asking ourselves questions. As teens, those questions might be about love, relationships, gender, or sex. As women with fibromyalgia, the questions might be about pain, health, doctors, suffering, finances, work, and our future with fibromyalgia. Interestingly, if we ask questions, we will get answers. They just come. The easiest way to do this is to write our questions and just allow the answers to come. We don’t need to think about the answers because they are not in the conscious mental part of the mind. Journaling is the process of talking to ourselves in this way and it is uncannily accurate. The answers might not all come from our soul, or highest self, and they might not all be complete. There may be several quite different answers from different parts of us. They are all valid points of view to pay attention to and work through.
Until we examine our unconscious beliefs, we don’t really know what they are. The problem is that we make decisions from our beliefs automatically. When we are trying to do something and can’t seem to get it right, our limiting beliefs are affecting our unconscious choices, so even though we want to lose weight, we eat our favorite comfort or junk food. When what we are doing doesn’t match the results we want, limiting beliefs are often the culprit. When we have identified what some of our unconscious beliefs are, we can ask more questions to see if the beliefs are objectively true, helpful, and who and where we got them from. Then, we can reframe them to make them true, useful, and our own. Failing to do that, we are living our lives based on unquestioned beliefs learned before we were 7 years old. We picked up truly life-saving information, but we also picked up prejudices and other false and harmful beliefs from others. As young kids, we created our own childish beliefs about ourselves, others, and the world. If we never got around to examining and replacing them as adults, we are still operating from those childish beliefs. Our beliefs are like our phone or computer’s operating system in that to be effective, we need to update them.
These limiting beliefs once in our unconscious minds work fast, hard, and automatically to keep us safe and within the familiar. As little kids, that worked perfectly. As teens, our beliefs keep us stuck in the safe and familiar, instead of allowing us to grow into the new. As adults, this is restrictive and self-sabotaging when it holds us back from what we want. Sometimes, we say or do something minor, and it triggers a reaction in a loved one. We notice that they are suddenly being childish. It is because we triggered an old hurt and we notice that we are acting like a child. It is because they are acting from the wounded child every person has. It is much easier to see the childish reactions of those around us than it is to see our own, but we all know that it happens to us, too. The feelings evoked are strong and don’t seem off to the person feeling them because they match an unconscious childhood belief. This is not a fault, or flaw. We are not broken. Having unconscious beliefs is not a mental problem. It is the human condition. Our childhood-conditioned beliefs come from our environment as kids. This is all completely unconscious until we become aware of this universal way of training babies, toddlers, and young kids to become acceptable little humans that fit into their families and communities.
Most of us do not get taught this important information about how our minds work in school. So, not everyone knows. Most growing teens and young adults aren’t taught about it unless they happen to choose a future vocation in which it is required knowledge, at a post-secondary level.
When do we finish examining our beliefs?
We don’t stop eating healthy when we reach our desired weight. We keep up healthy habits while we still need them, and we need them while we still want to be healthy. The same is true of our beliefs. We have barely started talking about them much less reframing them all. There is lots of time. Be gentle with yourself and with others when you notice one coming up to be examined. Remember that someone’s apparent overreaction to something, including your over-reactions) is evidence of a limiting belief.
Conditioning continues in our adult life through things like the books we read, the shows and movies we watch, the music we listen to, and the constant barrage of news, opinions, social media, marketing, and advertising that surrounds us when we are awake. We don’t notice that these influences are creating beliefs in us because we are relaxed and passively engaged in them. But it is all programming. While we live and are exposed to others and to media we are being conditioned and acquiring beliefs passively. So, we are never finished examining and managing our beliefs. It is a process, something we do, as needed, and something we seek help with, as needed. I help others with their limiting beliefs, and I still get help from coaches with my limiting beliefs. There are still things I learned so young and beliefs I formed that I don’t see them as separate from the air I live in, but a good coach can see it in me.
Is our noticing that we all do this, at least from time to time, attributing blame or fault? No, not at all. It was for safety as a child. As adults, we have better tools and resources and different goals and objectives. Upgrades are useful and don’t mean previous versions were bad.
What if someone else notices an old belief in us and asks questions or makes a comment?
Is it an insult? Or is it an awareness we can make use of?
When someone suggests that our thoughts and beliefs cause our results in life, it means they already are aware of this important truth and want to share it. Many people are not aware and they react from childhood beliefs, instead of responding as adults and making good use of the information. When someone who is aware sees such a reaction, they recognize the cause. That is a good thing because we all need to learn and grow and can help each other along the journey of life.
If a doctor mentions our thoughts, beliefs, or emotions, we might incorrectly assume (s)he was telling them "it is all in your head" and take that as an insult and a suggestion of mental illness from a "stupid" doctor. That is a common mistake, made from a lack of awareness of how we work. Gaining this awareness is important. Not every thought in our head is true, but that does not suggest there is anything wrong with our minds or brains. That is a mistake. Mistakes are common among humans. We learn from them. Our mistakes don’t make us or anyone else stupid or mean. Our mistakes and misinterpretations are ours to correct.
Doctors do not suggest or hint at physical or mental illness; they examine, test, and diagnose. No diagnosis is just that, no diagnosis. Don’t assume a doctor has suggested an illness. Referrals to specialists are not diagnoses either. They are referrals to a specialist who might be able to help with the presenting problem, or might be able to diagnose a more precise problem.
Jumping to conclusions about what doctors or other authorities think is almost always from a childhood limiting belief. Jumping to conclusions about what others think and say about is often a limiting belief, too. Once we are aware, life becomes more manageable and we learn to manage ourselves.
Some people become excellent at self-responsibility and managing themselves and enjoy success in all areas of life. But, we all have lots of these old beliefs as human patterns. We can all easily slide back into a belief we think we have reframed and mastered. But we can all learn and grow.
Most of us have some areas of life where we tend to have more challenges. We can all, without exception, improve our situations. While we are alive, we can either stay the same and suffer (that is constrictive and limiting), or we can learn and grow (that is expansive and limitless). That isn’t a bad thing; it is great news. Celebrate everything we can learn to make our situations better.
Christine Lutley, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
The doctors diagnosed Christine with incurable fibromyalgia. Accepting that & their medications, she was work-disabled for 20 years. She became interested in spirituality & healing. 20 years later, on her 65th birthday, having witnessed her mother’s suffering & death with dementia, she decided she must create a new life while she still could. She focused on what she most wanted & used a spiritual 4-body healing approach. She not only healed herself but created a repeatable process to help others heal themselves, called Fibro Freedom Formula: You Healing You. Get supportive advice and learn from one who has walked in your shoes, so you can learn and be coached in peace, without any anyone telling you that you are making this up, or that fibromyalgia is incurable. The last thing you need is to be misunderstood because of this invisible illness.
