Limiting Beliefs are Like Weeds

The other day I noticed a large growth of weeds in one of my gardens. I hadn’t noticed them in previous years but now they spoil the look of the garden and they are in the way of the new plants. As I was weeding, it occurred to me that the weeds are similar to limiting beliefs. They may have been around for many years and perhaps they didn’t interfere with us, but when we are ready for a different goal the belief is in the way of success and has to be removed.
Some of the weeds came out easily with the bulb sitting near the surface of the ground. Others were down so deep the tool I was using didn’t budge the bulb out. Just as some limiting beliefs are easy to let go of when we are ready and others are far more difficult to release. If we catch them early on, they uproot easily whereas the ones that we’ve held for many years have deep roots and take more effort to release.
I wasn’t satisfied just getting the blade because I knew if I didn’t get the whole root the weed would just grow again. I would pull and get some out and then have to go back and dig under a little and pull again to get the rest. I’ve had this experience with beliefs too. I think I’ve gotten rid of it and then later find it coming up to bother me again.
In some places the weed looked so close to the plant nearby I wasn’t sure it was a weed. Isn’t that just like some beliefs – they appear to be good information, the real thing, only upon close examination are they revealed to be damaging or fake.
After I had been working for a while, I started to question whether I should bother digging out the weeds no one else can see? Hidden behind a healthy plant, was it worth the trouble to dig them out? Yes, it was because in time they would have taken over and killed the healthy plant. I would know they were there and it’s my garden. Don’t I want it to look as beautiful as it can for me, or are the neighbours more important?
Limiting beliefs left hidden will eventually overtake healthy ones and kill them off. Experience tells me that trying to keep something hidden take a tremendous amount of energy away and causes me far more trouble than the time it would take to clean it up. Whether anyone else knows I have them is irrelevant. I know and it’s me they’ll hurt in the end.
Looking at the whole garden, these weeds are only a small part of the overall beautiful picture, but when I looked at the garden they were where I put my attention, rather than on the pretty flowers. And isn’t that the way of limiting beliefs? They’re a small part of who we are and yet they command the greatest amount of our attention.
What limiting beliefs are taking up your attention and keeping you from fulfilling your goals and dreams?