The first reason it can be hard to eliminate a belief and how to overcome it

Today I am excited deliver your first lesson in our three-part series about how you can use the Lefkoe Belief Process (LBP) to change your life and the lives of people you work with.

Before we begin, I’d like to address something that I hear every so often.

A person will approach me and say something like

“I tried eliminating beliefs with your video programs and that worked great.  But when I tried it on myself I’m not always successful. Help.”

You too may have tried to help others with the LBP.

Or you may have tried the LBP on yourself.

And you probably got great results some of the time.

But … you probably noticed that although you are able to eliminate beliefs on your own sometimes … at other times you are not.

This is perfectly normal.

Just like I wouldn’t expect you to win the Grand Prix the first time you get behind the wheel, no one should expect you to be a master of belief-elimination without a lot more knowledge about how to do it well.

It took Morty and I several years to develop this process and our skills in using it (we’d been at it for 30 years by the time he passed away).

And our work has only been available online for a short time.  So I don’t expect mastery from you … yet.

But the fact that you are here …

The fact that you haven’t given up yet … even if you’ve stumbled a few times … shows me that you’re willing to do what it takes to learn more … and eventually master the belief-elimination process.

Over the next few days I’ll be showing you some reasons why it can be difficult to eliminate beliefs and how to overcome those difficulties.

As you gain these key insights into the process, you will also gain greater confidence that you can learn this powerful process … because you can.

Here’s your first lesson:

Difficulties In Getting In Touch With A Belief And How To Overcome Them

“I don’t have that belief either,” she said.

“How about ‘I’m not capable?'”

“That one doesn’t feel real either.  I’m sorry.  I guess I’m just not good at this.”

This was the 10th belief the Maria said she didn’t have.  Given her fear when speaking in public, I knew she had to have a certain set of beliefs I’d found over and over again with other fearful speakers.  

Yet she claimed not to have any of them.

This can happen to any facilitator.  And you can’t just tell the client to go through the process anyway if they don’t first acknowledge the belief.  

Because at the end of the process they’ll say “Well I didn’t really believe that anyway.”  And you won’t know if you accomplished anything.

So what do you do when this situation arises?

First, here’s what NOT to do.

Do not be pushy with the client.

One facilitator just knew a client had the belief “Mistakes and failure are bad” because all her clients with the same problem had this belief.  

But despite acknowledging other beliefs, the client kept saying “As a coach, I teach people that it’s OK to make mistakes for a living so I don’t have THAT belief.”  

She persisted for an hour and by the end the client was frustrated.  He declined to keep working with her because of this.

So if a client acknowledges other beliefs, work on those first, then come back to the others later.  Sometimes they find it easier to get in touch with those beliefs after they’ve already eliminated a few other beliefs.

Second, if a client is unable to acknowledge beliefs that you know are important to work on, help them understand that a person can have a belief that they know is not true and still believe it.  

For example, one facilitator worked with Jason who had a fear of dogs.  When he suggested that Jason might believe “Dogs are dangerous” Jason said “I definitely don’t have that belief.  I know dogs are not dangerous.  My feelings are irrational, that’s why I’m here.”

So the facilitator said, “Let’s try an experiment.  Say out loud ‘Dogs are dangerous.'”

Jason said it.

“How did that feel?”

“It made me feel anxious.”

“Now try saying ‘Cats are dangerous.'”

He said that.

“How does that feel?”

“It doesn’t feel like anything.”

“Well you don’t have a fear of cats do you?”

Then Jason said, “Oh.  Dogs are dangerous made me feel anxious because I really do believe that.”

And once Jason acknowledged the belief, the facilitator was able to help him get rid of it.

So as you can see, helping the client realize that it’s possible to intellectually disagree with a belief can make it easier for them to acknowledge a belief.

But what if despite helping him understand this, the client still won’t acknowledge any limiting beliefs at all?

This is very rare.  However, one of the principles of TLM is that the client can do nothing wrong.  Everything they do comes from their beliefs.

So when the client cannot acknowledge a belief despite all our efforts, we can help them find a belief that keeps them from acknowledging other beliefs.
What you want to look for are beliefs that make it unacceptable to the client to have a negative belief.

Remember Maria whom I mentioned at the beginning of this video?

After looking at what could prevent her from acknowledging limiting beliefs, I discovered that she believed “If people know something bad about me, I’ll be rejected.”  

As a result, she could not admit to some “bad” trait such as believing “I’m not good enough” with another person present.  

After she eliminated the belief, she was able to acknowledge “I’m not good enough” “I’m not important” “I’m not capable” and a host of other limiting beliefs.

But how can you know that someone has a limiting belief if at first they say they don’t have it?

You can’t ever know for sure that a person has a limiting belief if they are not aware of it.  After all, as facilitators, we are human, we can be wrong.  

However, often the logic is so strong it’s hard to ignore.  

For example, I worked with a woman named Beatrice who needed to do everything perfectly and if she couldn’t it caused her anxiety.  

She told me that if she didn’t do things perfectly she would feel “not good enough.”  I suggested that she might have the belief “I’m not good enough.”  

“No,” she said.  “I don’t believe things like that about myself.  It must be something else.”

The logic is so strong in this case, that it was hard for me to believe that she didn’t have this belief.

It turns out she had the belief “What makes me good enough is being perfect” which kept her from acknowledging any limiting beliefs.  To have a limiting belief would have been to acknowledge an imperfection.

So if you have good reason to think a belief is there, do what you can to uncover it.  However, tread lightly as you could always be wrong.

To sum up, if a client cannot acknowledge a belief you suspect they have, do whatever you can to help them without being pushy.

First, always explain to them that they can have a belief that they disagree with.

Second, if they acknowledge other beliefs, work on those first.  Save the ones they don’t acknowledge for later.

And finally, in rare cases a client can’t acknowledge any limiting beliefs.  If this happens, look for a belief that makes having negative beliefs unacceptable.  Once that belief is eliminated they may be able to get in touch with other limiting beliefs.

In the next video, I’ll tell you about the second major barrier to helping a client eliminate a belief and not only will I show you how to overcome it, I’ll show you how to prevent this barrier from showing up in the first place.

So keep an eye on your inbox until then.