Stop Releasing Your Limiting Beliefs (From A Somatic Coach Who Used To Teach This)

The other night I was half-scrolling Instagram, kinda winding down, and a post came up with soft beige letters over a sunset: Release the blocks that are keeping you stuck. My stomach tightened. Just a little clench under my ribs, the way it does when something sounds nice and lands wrong.

Then I had a very uncomfortable second thought. I've written that sentence. Probably more than once. I spent years nodding along to the idea of releasing limiting beliefs, and I even put the word release in the name of my own method. The SEER Method™ stands for Somatic, Energetic, Emotional Release.

So I'm not throwing stones from the outside here. I'm looking right at my own work, and I'm asking all of us to upgrade. In this post, you'll learn what a limiting belief actually is, why trying to get rid of it keeps so many women stuck, and a simple body-based practice for the next time you catch yourself thinking I need to get rid of this.

Prefer to listen? Here's the full episode.

Why "release your blocks" sounds so right

If you've spent any time in personal development (and I'm guessing you have), you've heard all of it. Release your limiting beliefs. Clear your blocks. Let go of what no longer serves you. Get the old story out of your body.

And honestly, it makes sense that this language caught on. When you're feeling stuck, it really does feel like something is in the way. There's a heaviness, a wall, a thing you keep running into. So when someone says that's a block, and we're going to release it, your whole system goes, yes, finally, somebody gets it. It gives the stuck feeling a shape. It sounds hopeful. And it promises an end point, where the bad thing is gone and you're free.

I've used this language with clients. I've used it on myself. It's easy to say, and people nod right away because everybody knows what you mean.

But I kept hitting up against the same thing, session after session. The women who worked the hardest at releasing were often the ones who stayed stuck the longest. They'd do the workshop, the journaling, the breathwork, the retreat, and they'd feel lighter for a week or so. Then the same thing would come right back, usually with a fresh layer of shame on top:

Why is this still here? I already released this. What's wrong with me?

That last question is exactly the problem. The whole release model is built on the idea that something inside you is wrong and has to go before you're allowed to move forward.

What a limiting belief actually is

A limiting belief didn't show up randomly. You built it, usually when you were very young, and usually because it wasn't safe to think any other way.

Say you were a little girl whose parent sighed every time you needed something. Nothing dramatic. Just tired. Can you not right now? So somewhere around six or seven, you decided: I shouldn't need too much. I need to be good, and small.

That's a limiting belief, right? That's the one a coach would tell you to release so you can have the marriage or the business you want.

But think about what that belief did for her. It kept her close to the people she needed. It kept the house calmer. It meant she didn't have to feel that sinking feeling of being too much, over and over again. That belief was smart. It was the best answer a seven-year-old could come up with, and it worked.

Now she's 45, and she can't ask her husband to pick up groceries without apologizing three times first. So yes, the belief is costing her something now. But when we tell her to release it, cut it out, get rid of it, what we're really saying is: the girl who kept you safe was wrong, and she has to go.

Your body hears that. Your body knows that part of you as family, so of course it holds on tighter.

Nobody lets go of the thing that kept them alive just because someone at a retreat told them to.

This is why I've moved so much of my language to integration. We've gotten into the habit of labeling parts of ourselves (and our clients) as good or bad. The confident part is good, the scared part is bad. The generous part is good, the part that holds back is a block. That's simply not true. You're a whole person, with parts that learned different things at different times for very good reasons. There's nothing in you that has to be thrown out for you to get unstuck.

I had breakfast recently with a friend who's been doing deep work for years, including some of it with me. When I said it this way, that the little girl who built the pattern has to be loved, not evicted, I watched it land on her face like she was hearing it for the first time. All that work she'd already done, and what finally clicked was language that stopped asking her to fight herself.

This is also what every real identity shift asks of you. You don't evict the woman you had to be. You thank her, take what she taught you, and bring her with you.

The tears leave, the little girl stays

So, the obvious question. If there's nothing to release, why is release literally in the name of my method? (Yes, I see it.)

The emotion releases. The part of you that built the belief doesn't.

When you've held grief in your chest for twenty years, or anger you were never allowed to show, or fear that froze in your body because there was nowhere for it to go, that emotion is energy that never got to finish moving. It wants to finish. So in a session, there's crying. Sometimes shaking, sometimes a sound, a wave of heat or exhaustion. That's emotional release, and it's real, and it's good for you.

I talked about this in the toxic interaction episode through Peter Levine's work: animals in the wild literally shake off the activation once a threat passes, and we humans tend to swallow it instead. Emotional release is your nervous system finally getting to do what it was built to do.

But the part of you that held all of that, the little girl who swallowed her tears so she wouldn't upset anybody, doesn't leave. She's the one we're doing this for. She gets met, maybe for the first time. She gets loved. And she gets brought back in, so she's part of you instead of something you're managing, hiding, or trying to fix.

The simplest way I can say it: the tears leave, and the little girl stays.

That's what the SEER Method does. It releases what was buried, and it integrates who buried it. If you want to feel what that's like in your own body, with your own pattern, book a free Pattern Discovery Call. We'll find the pattern that's been running the show, and I'll give you one tangible next step to start integrating it.

Try this the next time you want to get rid of a part of you

The next time you catch yourself thinking I need to get rid of this, whether it's the anxiety before you post something, the guilt when you rest, or the voice that says you're too much, pause right there.

1. Find where it lives in your body. Your throat, your gut, that spot between your shoulder blades. Put your hand there if you can.

2. Ask it: How old are you? You'll usually get an answer faster than you expect. Seven. Twelve. Sometimes four.

3. Ask: What were you protecting me from? Then just listen. Don't argue with the answer, and don't try to fix it.

4. Thank her.

I know that last one sounds almost too simple. But when you thank a part of you that you've spent years trying to cut out, bury, numb, or dismiss, something in your body softens. That's usually when the feeling underneath finally gets to move. Tears come, or a deep breath, or you just feel quieter inside. Let that happen. That's the release, and it happens because you stopped fighting her.

About those big release retreats

I see this one everywhere. Thousands of dollars, a facilitator you met that morning, a room full of strangers, and an unspoken expectation that you'll have a huge cathartic moment by day two. And if you don't cry or scream or collapse on the floor, you kinda feel like you did it wrong.

That's the same model that I was just talking about. Real somatic healing is slow. It's relational. It happens when your nervous system feels safe enough to let something move, and that takes trust, time, and someone who isn't performing for the room.

Your healing doesn't need an audience to count.

Who says you're even stuck?

If you've been working so hard at releasing limiting beliefs and you still feel stuck, consider that maybe nothing is broken. Maybe the part of you that's holding on is doing exactly what she was built to do, and she's been waiting a really long time for someone to stop trying to get rid of her.

And honestly, who's to say you're even stuck? Just because your ego decided you should be somewhere else by now doesn't make that true.

To everyone who does this work with clients, and I include myself in this: we can do better with our language. Nobody needs to evict pieces of themselves. We get to nourish all of them, the parts we're proud of and the parts that built those beliefs back when it wasn't safe to think any other way. They got us here. They deserve better than being cut out.

Subscribe to the podcast:

Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/730IxK6Le9bwgAwKQBbrfM?si=a649923b6d4f4a4b

Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-emotional-truth-nervous-system-regulation-somatic/id1896858957

Want more of this in your inbox?

I send emails on the patterns I see in session, what's shifting, and where to start when you're ready to stop circling. [Join the list here.] www.lesleyturner.ca/subscribe