Four Hidden Blocks That Keep Us Playing Small

No matter what anyone tells you, or what you tell yourself, this is your life and you can choose to live it as you see fit.

Many of us can hold a vision of what we want to create for ourselves. Whether it’s through our work, bringing purpose and fulfillment, through the style of living we choose to create for ourselves or living in alignment to our inner truth, we all have the imagination to dream and create something beautiful for ourselves.

Yet, often we struggle to truly bring this vision into reality.

There are so many people out there talking about manifestation and how to create energy around what we desire to create, but what I want to bring attention to is how the little things can hold us back.

We can’t really manifest things into our tangible reality without looking at ourselves and our lives with a little more of a grounded, 3D perspective which is exactly what I want to share today.

Manifestation is all about energy and frequency, which is exactly what I wrote about in my last post. I am not an expert by any means at all, in fact, you could say any manifestation I do is purely by accident!

Yet, what I have realised over time, through the work that I do with clients and the work that I do within myself, is that there are always the same key things that hold us back from creating growth and expansion in our lives, in our work, and in ourselves.

These key things hold us back from bringing in what we want to see in our lives and they keep us playing small. And, I know most of them, because I’m living them. This is the joy in the work that I do - it is a constant reflection, mirroring concepts back to me that I am yet to truly see and understand.

So let’s dive into understanding the four hidden blocks that keep us playing small.

No. 1 connecting with our body and grounding our vision

The first thing that often gets in our way, and which is perhaps the most important, is our lack of grounding.

For a lot of us, it can feel much easier to process and create from the mind, instead of coming down into our bodies. And, if you have 8’s or 5’s in your Soul Contract then you’ll realise that neither of these numbers wants to really be in the body at all!

I think this is a really common theme amongst many of us - we would rather stay figuring things out at a mental level, which is really our ego thinking that it knows all the answers, instead of dropping down into the wisdom of our entire being.

Yet, the body is our tool for creation. We literally cannot create from just the mind alone, for the body is the physical vessel through which all creation is born from.

We all have different relationships with our bodies, and for most of us it can be a really negative one, and there’s lot of reasons for that. It could be that we suffered a trauma that shocked the soul and we no longer want to ground into the body.

It could be that we never learnt to fully accept our shape and size due to the overpowering conditioning in the popular media around what is attractive and what isn’t.

And, of course, it may be that we believe our body has failed us in some way, whether it’s through illness, accidents or something else, and we no longer trust it or want to connect to it.

I encourage you to take a moment now and feel into what your relationship with your body is. We want to be able to connect as a whole being, and that means merging mind, body and soul together and realising that when we do this, we become unified and more connected to Source than ever.

When we feel connected, we can create that strong grounded energy in the body that allows us to channel our vision out into the world - for without the body, that vision just stays in the mind.

No. 2 letting go of rigidity and control

The second thing that gets in our way is our own limiting beliefs.

The ego loves to be right, and it loves to do things its way, and its way alone. We can all be stubborn at times, and if you have the 6 energy in your Soul Contract you may be extremely stubborn!

We’re all here to remember that we are a part of the ebb and flow of life. Like a running river, source energy isn’t static, life is constantly changing, moving and flowing, so to try and stay rigid in our ways of doing things is a sure-fire way to blocks and obstacles.

We have to move out of resistance and into a flow state, without the mind locking up on us and bullying us to complete something the way it wants it.

Often, we have to experiment and try new things, at the risk of failing, in order to learn what works and what doesn’t. The only perfect idea is the idea in the mind that hasn’t been tested. Yet, if the fear of failing, judgement or anything else, becomes too strong, then we never make any progress.

A beautiful way of unlocking the rigidity of the mind is through any means that allows more energy to flow into our being, such as conscious dancing, swimming or freestyle yoga. These types of activities allow us to relax on a physical level, which creates relaxation on a mental level.

When we are stuck in trying to do things a certain way, and meeting that resistance, we also need to lean back and let some inspiration come in - whether it’s through exploring some culture, taking a walk somewhere new or reading an exciting novel - anything that flushes in new energy.

We also need to break things down into more manageable steps.

This helps us avoid the overwhelm of trying to do it all at once. So, instead of focusing on the summit of the mountain that we’re trying to reach, how can we bring our attention back to the next step and just focus on how to climb that, before looking further ahead.

No. 3 managing impatience and desire

This leads us very nicely onto the third hidden black that gets in our way and keeps us playing small, which is our impatience!

I love writing about this because I am notoriously fast-paced and am constantly working on slowing down, grounding and taking my time.

This is in part due to the strong 12-3 energy in my Soul Contract that creates a sense of urgency and a huge fear around lack of time which, if you also have this energy, can lead to real exhaustion and burnout.

Balance is a key part of allowing things to happen in Divine timing, yet for many of us we are in a rush for our visions and dreams to become a reality (me included).

I can vividly picture myself living by the ocean, with a little dog, writing at my desk, sipping a fruit smoothie, and building my empire. It’s so real I can almost hear the birds chirping in the trees outside my window, see the sparkling glimmers of the ocean and feel the hum of relaxation in my bones of being somewhere so warm, sunny and vibrant.

Yet I’m not there right now. I’m stuck in a very cold England, without that little dog, trying to stay warm.

The reason most of us rush is because our vision is so strong and all we want is to exist in its reality. This is an incredibly powerful thing because, if we can imagine it, I truly believe that it already exists somewhere in time and space.

Yet, we also rush due to a desire to escape our present reality and whatever challenges it may bring for us.

This constant pull of desire and longing brings to mind the concept of aparigraha, which is all about softening and letting go of the desperation behind our desire, in order to let in peace and acceptance for what is.

There is a balance between making things happen in our lives, and letting things unfold in Divine orchestration, and this is possibly the hardest knifepoint to balance. And when we get it wrong, as I often do, we end up rushing and pushing for things which aren’t quite ready to be birthed.

So what can we do? Here’s my advice. Keep holding onto your vision and work at it every day, even in the smallest way.

Commit to yourself and your dreams, but don’t forget to live. Embrace life as it is now, in full confidence and knowing that the beautiful vision you hold for yourself has no choice but to happen, for you have decided it will come to pass.

No. 4 addressing the limiting beliefs that hold us back

The fourth hidden block, that often trips us up (and this is quite a biggie) is how much we’re being unconsciously driven by our limiting beliefs.

We all have the thoughts in our heads that tell us we’re not good enough, we can’t do it, and what’s the point because someone else has already done it. This is just the ego, squatting in our mind, subtly sabotaging us and trying to keep us safe through avoiding risk, failure and judgement.

Our thoughts arise from the deep well of our subconscious beliefs, which means that in order to break down the negative beliefs that are stopping us from creating something beautiful in our lives, then we must dive deep into the waters of our subconscious, and uproot what’s holding us back.

Everyone has a different persistent and recurring fear or thought that really holds them back.

For me, it’s all about self-worth, and that I am limited in what I can create for myself because I’m not talented, clever or capable enough to make it happen. My mind tries to prove this to me by telling me that if I was capable then surely it would have already happened.

This is a lovely little trick the ego uses - it plays on the weaknesses we have, repeatedly driving a thought down the road of our minds until it’s embedded and we can’t think of anything else.

This is why we need to get really conscious of what these thoughts are, how they’re showing up, when they’re activated, and then breaking them down into why they are even there in the first place.

When we do this we realise that the ego cannot dream and imagine the good that can come, this is all driven from the soul, and so we must create more space for the soul to take up residence within us.

This is a process of self-discovery and healing, releasing trapped trauma, outdated conditioning and imprinted programming we accidentally absorbed from our parents, family and society around us.

Once we start to gently let these limiting beliefs go, through inner healing, we find that our path feels much less cluttered, with far fewer obstacles. It’s almost as if our vision becomes less of a mirage shining in the difference, and more of a tangible reality, and isn’t that something to be excited about.

If you’d like support and guidance on your spiritual journey, you may like to explore my monthly group healing membership Your Authentic Soul, or sign up to my newsletter to stay in touch for more similar posts.

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Carry on exploring