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  And today, as an adult, even though you might consciously realize the beliefs were silly and illogical, on some deep level you are still experiencing them as the truth about you.

  If you looked carefully at the events that led to the belief, namely, your parents’ behavior, you would realize that their behavior could have a number of different meanings, each one as valid as the one you

  Chose, which was “I’m not good enough.” For example:

  My parents thought that being critical would motivate me to excel.

  My parents had lousy parenting skills.

  My parents may have thought I wasn’t good enough, but they were wrong.

  Maybe I wasn’t good at doing certain things, but that doesn’t mean I, as a person, am not good enough.

  Maybe my parents were dissatisfied with my behavior, but they didn’t think I wasn’t good enough.

  If you were to recall your childhood interactions with your parents, it would seem to you that you could “see” that I’m not good enough. In other words, when you visualized your parents being critical, it would seem as if you also were visualizing “I’m not good enough”.

  It’s as if your parent’s behavior inherently meant “I’m not good enough”. It would be so real to you that you could see your belief in the world that it seems you could say to someone: “If you were there watching my interactions with my parents, you also would see I’m not good enough.”

  If I asked you to describe what “I’m not good enough” looks like, you would realize you couldn’t, because you never really did see it. All you actually saw was your parents’ behavior. And if that behavior could have a number of valid meanings – which it could – then it has no single inherent meaning. At which point you are forced to conclude that the only place that the meaning you gave it has ever existed has been as a belief in your mind.

  When you reach this point, the belief has been transformed from “the truth” to “a truth” and is no longer a belief. If you were to state the words of the belief, they would sound silly and meaningless.

  This short thought exercise explains why it usually is difficult to get rid of beliefs: we think we “saw” the belief. It is difficult to talk someone out of something they think they “saw.”

  As soon, however, as we realize that we never saw the belief (i.e., the meaning we created) in the world, that the meaning existed only in our mind, the belief disappears.

  While the goal of psychotherapy is to help you cope better with your problems – and it frequently does that very well – the purpose of the Lefkoe Method is to help you eliminate the problems totally, by eradicating the beliefs that are at their source.

  For example, if you get rid of the beliefs that cause a lack of confidence, a concern with the opinions of others, or procrastination, those problems will disappear totally.

  4. Shadow Work

  Shadow Work® is a personal growth process which brings your hidden powers out of the shadow and into the light.

  We all have these hidden powers within us. But we don't always allow ourselves to use them. We have all been hurt, and we have learned to hide parts of ourselves so we don't get hurt again.

  Shadow Work® is a way to explore the inner landscape and discover the gold that is hiding in the shadows.

  It is a way to become more and more who we really are. Shadow Work® is a way to face the hurt, the fear, the anger, and learn how to live more fully. Most of all, it is a way to love ourselves for the journeys we have chosen.

  How To Choose Your Method of Destroying Limiting Beliefs

  At first sight, it might seem overwhelming to know where to start working on your limiting beliefs.

  Rest assured that you have these beliefs – and be equally assured that it’s necessary to work on them so that they lose their power, their power to disable you from achieving your goals.

  The first thing you might want to consider simply letting them go. Often the simplest approach is the best!

  Of course that presumes you know what your limiting beliefs actually are! But when you do know what your limiting beliefs are, perhaps in a certain area of your life, I believe that simply by sheer act of will you can often let them slide off of you.

  Yes, just by forming an intention to do things differently, and exerting your willpower to make that happen, you can sometimes release limiting beliefs from the past.

  At the same time, you can forgive the people who gave them to you, and adopt a new way of looking at the world, which is much more helpful and promising to you.

  I like saying: “intention is everything.”

  And to a large extent it is – you see, many of us make decisions but fail to carry them through. This is often because we are distracted by what’s going on in the world around us, whereas if we were able to consistently maintain our focus on our intention, then we would soon let go of limiting beliefs.

  But of course life is full of distractions. That’s a fact.

  And that’s the whole problem with limiting beliefs: the minute you take your eye off them they start reasserting themselves!

  But there are always some beliefs which you can let go simply with a conscious act of intention; in other words, a conscious awareness that these beliefs don’t serve you any more, and a decision that you will do things differently in the future.

  Even so, this approach won’t work for all your limiting beliefs, and you’ll still be left with the question of how to deal with them.

  That’s especially true of the ones you’re not even aware of, because they tend to be the ones buried deepest in your unconscious; unsurprisingly, these also tend to be the hardest to deal with!

  My recommendation is that you try hypnosis. Buy some tapes or recordings that you can play on headphones or an MP3 player, related to the goals that you’re trying to achieve – for example, financial, relationship, confidence… Or whatever.

  And then play the recordings regularly, night and morning, just before you go to sleep, and just before you get up in the morning.

  If you do that for 30 days you’ll find your mindset completely transformed.

  This works for a simple reason: just like the undiscriminating and undiscerning way in which your subconscious mind absorbed these limiting beliefs in your childhood, it will now accept anything that you program into it when your conscious mind is relaxed – which is exactly the state of mind which hypnosis produces.

  It’s a highly effective, powerful, and in some ways absolutely essential tool for anybody seeking to manifest a different way of life.

  CHAPTER 7

  EXPECTANCY

  Do you expect good things to happen to you?

  Or do you wander around in a dreamworld of negativity, where your expectations about what's going to happen to you, about what the world is going to produce for you, are basically negative?

  When you put yourself into a situation where you hope to get a certain outcome, do you guard against disappointment by expecting something negative to happen?

  The thing is, what you expect from life depends on your past experiences, mostly on what you learned to expect from the world around you during childhood.

  For negative experiences can teach any child not to hope or expect good things.

  Disappointment is a killer as far as optimism is concerned.

  So a negative attitude is all about how often we were disappointed as children, and what we come to believe about the world as a result.

  Because, of course, your attitude to life as an adult depends on what you learned when you were a child.

  If you learned that life was going to be a disappointment and you couldn’t expect good things to happen – then that's what you will most likely believe and expect in adulthood.

  Now, think for a moment about the difference between belief and expectation (or expectancy) – this is important.

  A simple way of making this clear is to say: I BELIEVE that a man or a woman can go to the moon. But I personally don't EXPECT to
do so.

  And while that's partly because I don't want to go to the moon, it's also partly because I don't have that level of expectation.

  Another example:

  As one client said to me: “I believe that anyone can get into a wonderful romantic relationship. But for much of my life, I didn't expect this would happen to me, because basically I didn't believe I had enough positive qualities to attract a great relationship partner.”

  The difference between belief and expectancy is subtle, but it’s an important one, so let's look at some dictionary definitions.

  Belief is a noun, and it has two meanings:

  An acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists. For example: "His belief in the value of hard work."

  Trust, faith, or confidence in someone or something. For example: “A belief in democratic politics."

  Synonyms: faith, trust, reliance, confidence, credence.

  Whereas expectancy, which is also a noun, means something slightly different:

  The state of thinking or hoping that something, especially something pleasant, will happen or be the case. For example: "They waited with an air of expectancy."

  Synonyms: anticipation, expectation, eagerness, excitement.

  The Triumph Of Belief Over Expectancy

  When I was on holiday last year in Greece, I found lots of massage therapists on the beaches, offering back and foot massages to the people taking their vacations, as they were lying on the sun loungers.

  And sure enough, every so often, a man or woman on a lounger sunbed would summon them over, and pay for a foot massage or a back massage.

  But, as I watched, it became clear most of the massage therapists did not expect to succeed. They had a despondent air about them, no doubt coming from all the times they were rejected, more or less politely.

  As a result, they expected to be rejected.

  But at same time, they believed that every so often someone would buy their services. And the fact is, every so often someone did.

  As I watched them, I wondered what would happen if they increased their level of expectancy or expectation (these two words mean the same thing)?

  By projecting an attitude of negativity, giving off an expectation that most people would reject them, they were creating more rejection.

  People who might have been on the verge of deciding to have a massage would probably be discouraged by the fact that most of the massage therapists turned away so easily and quickly - at the first hint of rejection, in fact!

  Mateo tells a similar story on his website:

  A story about a boy.

  Just the other day I was sitting on the beach and meditating while watching the sunset.

  Out of nowhere a little boy around the age of 6 came up to me and asked me if I wanted to buy one of the Lei’s(flower necklaces) he had around his neck.

  I smiled, turned around and reached into my satchel and took out the equivalent of around $5.

  As soon as I turned around to give him the money, I saw that he was already several feet away and that he was walking away with his head down.

  He had interpreted my action of turning around to get the money as a way of rejecting him and he had immediately decided to give up and walk away!

  I had to verbally call him back and give him the money. The boy looked at me in disbelief and I wished I could speak the same language as him so I could explain to him the potential belief shift he could make at that given moment.

  He turned around and walked away with a smile on his face, but it remains a mystery whether or not he learned the real lesson.

  The Universe Responds To Expectation Combined With Desire

  Truth is, the universe doesn’t reward desire alone, it rewards desire combined with an absolute expectation of an outcome.

  The boy had the desire to sell me something and make money, but as soon as he met what he perceived as adversity, he gave up and started walking away. The only difference is that the universe won’t call you back to give you your reward if you don’t have faith and just give up whenever you face challenges.

  It was shocking to me that this boy was only 5-6 years old and had already been programmed to react to adversity by giving up.

  If someone could be socially programmed to that effect in just 5 years, it is rather understandable how so many adults walk around with lots of wishes and desires, but no real expectation and faith in that they can actually fulfill their dreams.

  The Importance Of Expectation And Desire

  Let's work on the assumption that every thought you have, every attitude and belief you hold in your subconscious, and every action you take, require energy to support them.

  They also discharge energy into the universe when you think, express or act on them.

  It's a very simple idea but fundamental to manifestation.

  If your belief is that you potentially could – let's say – earn $1 million this year, but your thoughts constantly turn to doubts and challenges and problems so that you have no real expectation of ever achieving that goal, then you are simply putting energy into that negative expectation, and it will kill the chance of you manifesting the million dollars stone dead.

  In other words, negative expectations stop positive manifestation. It's also possible that negative expectations create negative outcomes.

  Certainly we know that manifesting anything requires a lot of energy in the form of intention, desire, or positive emotion. And that energy has to be sustained over a period of time to ensure that manifestation happens.

  One of the problems that people face when they're trying to manifest anything is that their minds are distracted easily by what's happening to them in everyday life.

  Only by conscious effort can you maintain your focus on the goal that you wish to achieve manifest in life.

  Now, having said that, negative thoughts and doubts are probably less of a problem than most people think, because they tend to be transient and short lived.

  But when somebody is constantly thinking about the negative things that could happen, when they have negative expectations about every aspect of their lives, and when these negative expectations occupy their minds for much of the time, then yes, you could certainly expect negative manifestation.

  So if you went to manifest successfully, when you set your goal you must have faith, a firm expectation that you will reach your goal at some point in your life, and you must keep that expectation positive.

  When people talk about "getting out of your own way" what they mean is first abandoning the negative beliefs which stop you striving for what you can achieve AND also abandoning the negative expectations which stop you getting it.

  Getting Out Of Your Own Way

  One of the important things here is to change your expectations so they are more positive, so they can encompass the possibility you will indeed get what you wish to manifest.

  Just consider for a moment how your expectations guide you through life.

  When you get up in the morning, do you expect to have a positive day, full of success and achievement, with positive events, positive conversations with other people, positive relationships with your spouse and family and children?

  Do you expect your work to go well, to go positively, and to feed your confidence and belief in human nature?

  And do you expect whatever happens to reinforce your belief in yourself?

  Or do you, perhaps like most people, have some negative expectations? For example, did you find yourself saying even as I asked you the questions above, something like this: “But with my job how could I possibly expect things to go well?”

  To be honest, I think most of us probably have negative expectations of life.

  The question is, what can we do about it? Glad you asked!

  The first and simplest thing you can do is to change your behavior so that it matches your expectations.

  For example, if you really expected to have a new car, for example, you might want to make room
for it in your garage.

  Such a simple action is a demonstration of faith. Of expectancy. Of hope. Of entering into the possibility that your desires will be fulfilled.

  Suppose you want a new relationship? Or you want to go out on a date with an exciting new partner?

  You could start by planning what you would wear on your first date and where you would go. You could go window shopping or explore the possibilities for evenings out in your area.

  If you want a new house, you could start looking at property for sale, looking online, or exploring areas where you might want to live.

  It’s important, of course, that you don’t do anything that’s going to make the situation worse – for example it may be self defeating to set a goal of $1 million income in the next year and then to start spending money as though you already had it!

  All you need to do is take small actions which shift your expectations from negative to positive, or even more fundamentally, simply give you a new perspective on life and open up new possibilities.

  But at the end of the day, whether or not you expect something to happen depends on what you believe to be true about yourself and your position in the world.

  So, as always, it’s important to start by changing what you believe about yourself and your relationship to the world.

  In this context, I refer you back to the chapter on belief where I made several suggestions about how you could change the beliefs which hold you back from achieving your full potential.

  You may well find that once you’ve changed the beliefs you hold about yourself, your expectations of what life has to offer you – and of what you can manifest – become more aligned with your true potential and possibility.

  And that possibility and potential isn’t going to be the same as anyone else’s.