More often than not there is subconscious mental programming from childhood that underlies our adult behaviors - driving how we act and behave in the world.
Have you ever watched someone say “No” to a request or at work or in a family setting and then peacefully walk away as though they had just been asked if they want extra ketchup – and you say – “I wish I could do that!”
How did they get to that place of peaceful power, you wonder, to become a “boundary setter” while you continue to struggle with saying yes to everything and feeling completely overwhelmed?
When we are constantly overwhelmed on a day-to-day basis because we cannot solidly and gracefully say “no” to a request, there can be a lot more going on behind the emotional curtain than one might think.
Our brains are like supercomputers – the most sophisticated computer on the planet actually – and our brains assimilate and run “programs” of beliefs and behaviors we learn from the people and experiences around us when we are very little.
A lot of that early childhood programming is positive, holds our talents, skills, and abilities, and some of it not positive, holding limiting beliefs, fears, and feelings of low self-worth.
Between the ages of 0-7 our brains are essentially in a state of hypnosis, running lower brain wave frequencies of alpha, theta, and delta. We have so much to learn to survive on this planet. Absorbing information through semi-hypnotic states seems like a good evolutionary plan! If only we knew what was happening!
The critical brain, logical mind, if you will – starts in with higher beta waves typically around the age of 7. Until that time – we are wide open to the events and people around us, interpreting and making decisions about our power, all with the mind of a child.
So, if saying “No thank you”, “Never again”, or “I am unavailable” makes you sick to your stomach or heart pound wildly – most likely there are early life experiences where that response pattern originated.
When we are young, it is easy to agree with our reality as being “just the way life is, it’s always going to be that way” when we feel powerless, or give up pieces of ourselves to negotiate safety, or unsuccessfully try to get our needs taken care of.
The issue is those childhood decisions about life run like a back beat in our adult lives and influence our day-to-day reality. Due to the behavioral development model of the human mind, early childhood beliefs will still ring true as life truths for us years later.
These early childhood beliefs buried in our subconscious are no longer a reflection of our capabilities, but we don’t know that. And they are not our fault – we were doing our best at the time, dependent upon the adults around us.
Feeling comfortable setting boundaries between ourselves and others takes time, practice, and a strong sense of self-belief. We won’t take care of ourselves first if we decide all the activity outside of ourselves is more important than we are. Because you get what you focus on, and when it’s everyone else’s opinion of you, setting boundaries feels like setting yourself out to sea alone in a boat.
Recognizing the root cause for emotions or behaviors which keep us from setting boundaries, or feeling like we cannot cope with all of life’s demands is often impossible without accessing the subconscious mind where early memory can be retrieved and reviewed.
Using future forward hypnotherapy protocols, those old unproductive stuck points can be identified and released, returning power, positive beliefs, and more agency into your life – where it belongs.
Hypnotherapy is a gentle process, and is gaining popularity as an efficient and effective manner to identify and release patterns and habits of thought from the past which keep us stuck. The Cleveland Clinic lists Hypnotherapy as a useful protocol for many aspects of healing. Hypnotherapy has a long history as a powerful healing modality going far back to Egypt and Greece.
As hypnotherapy becomes more popular and overcomes the stigma of stereotyping from the movie and the stage hypnosis arenas, its pathway as transformational protocol will continue to grow.
When we are overwhelmed, a common need is mastery of how we spend our time, and creating time for ourselves to recoup and heal. When in constant stress, our prefrontal cortex gets zapped and we can find ourselves operating from old mental/emotional patterns and habits.
Getting control of your time is ground zero for managing overwhelm, yet there are other things to do to help you push back on overwhelm in your life.
Here are some suggestions to build better boundaries on overwhelm:
Tip #1 - Watch your language
Your brain operates on your thoughts and visualizations to deliver what you focus on. Critical self-talk is enormously damaging because it is automatic, repetitive, and keeps you stuck.
Your subconscious mind is always listening, so tell it good things; stop the looping and beating yourself up – it may be having a bigger effect than you realize.
The subconscious mind does not have a sense of humor and takes everything literally. It will interpret an old automatic childhood belief that is still running of “I can’t speak up, it’s not safe” as a real-time command for your adult self – and keep you quiet.
Tip #2 - Use intentions and “As If” statements about what you want
Set an intention for your desired outcome before a conversation, and often, it will go better than expected. Act ‘As If” that what you want has been realized, especially respect from those around you. Your brain’s job is to deliver what you want.
Tip #3 - Use meaningful symbols of power as visualization tools to remind you of how you want to feel
The visual cortex doesn’t go through the usual thinking processes and quickly agrees with what you want. This is why the power of visualization is so powerful.
An example would be to find some highly meaningful imagery, or a single shot of a huge blue whale jumping out of the water to symbolize power and joy (or whatever you want to feel) – look at it every day.
Tip #4 - Study the behaviors of successful people with boundary setting in mind
Often, we won’t know how to behave differently as we were patterned by adults as children who didn’t know either.
How do you say “No” respectfully and not worry about the response if it's normally a challenge? Using a new “model” to follow and learn from will speed up a confident change.
Also, you can move incrementally into a new way of responding by trying on new phrases next time someone asks you to do something, such as:
“Let me get back to you”, or “I’m actually in need of help myself right now I have so much to do”.
Often people who are comfortable in their skin and have healthy boundaries recognize their imperfections, are open about their vulnerabilities, and take “messy action” versus none at all. They understand we are all in this together, they manage their energy to be their best for everyone around them.
They know that respect begins within – and it’s better to be respected than liked.
Tip #5 - Journaling is transformative and can help you understand why you are overwhelmed
Studies show that just 4 days of 20-minute journaling sessions can transform how you feel about an issue.
Journaling is real-time thinking from a level above the 50-70,000K thoughts we automatically run every day. Our higher self, reflective self, and wise self all pitch in to help us understand ourselves in meaningful new ways. When the pen (or keyboard) connects with our hands; trapped thoughts and feelings now have an outlet.
Tip #6 - The quality of your environment affects your mind, body, and emotions
This refers to both your inner and outer environment. In his landmark book “The Biology of Belief” Bruce Lipton, PhD. discusses how his work on stem cells in the early 60’s helped prove that the outer environment, in this case, different Petrie dish cultures, were affecting the gene expression of the stem cells. It was the cell membrane that read the environment and passed through information.
Prior to that point, the common understanding was that we were not capable of impacting our genetic expression – you get what you get, don’t get upset. That is no longer considered absolute truth. An interesting area of comparative research with twins, what is referred to as “twins research”, also shows that twins, when separated at birth will have completely different health outcomes, often similar to their adoptive families (such as having diabetes with no prior birth family history) and live out different timelines similar to that of the adoptive family.
So, assess how your environment is contributing to your "overwhelm", both internally and externally, and make an effort to refresh or change the circumstances. Shift your energy to reposition how you interact with your environment, then address the environment itself. In some cases, you may just need to leave that environment behind for something healthier, as it is beyond your control.
Tip #7 - Know to your very core how worthy you really are of living your best life
When you master this lesson, you will be able to recognize the pattern of belief that your subconscious is carrying and how it has been standing in the way of you living your best life.
Sure, we can say, I am worthy of the absolute best, yet the three-year-old version of you that was outshouted at the dinner table every night and left to fend for themselves in a big family might not believe it. And it is THAT version of you that runs the adult belief bus. Your life will reflect that lower sense of self-worth with people in your life who don’t treat you well, or you cannot stop mistreatment as it comes along, because it was what you experienced as a child – and you don’t know the way you should be treated.
With a lower sense of self-esteem wired into us from childhood, we will train others how to treat us based on how we were treated, ...
because we believe that's “just the way it is”. Like a friend who always asks that you not wear shoes in her house, you take them off willingly because you know the rules. Not letting anyone walk over you can be a bit more challenging, if that is what they expect from your past behaviors – and it is up to you to change it.
It can be that simple – you have to show people where they are allowed to walk in your life.
If you would like to learn more
If you would like to learn more about releasing any subconscious blocks that contribute to your feelings of overwhelm or are in the way of solid self-belief, standing in your power, using your voice, or any other issue that might be holding you back from living your best life – get in touch with me for a complimentary discovery call or reach out to me at Info@LydiaHatton.com.
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