There are lots of ways to be limited by our beliefs.
We don’t just have our own limiting beliefs, we are deeply influenced by the attitudes and beliefs of our culture.
Every society has rules and standards of behaviour intended to maintain a coherent and stable society.
Some of these rules may not be very helpful for our own personal development (or the development of the society we live in).
In 1933 Danish-Norwegian author Aksel Sandemose wrote “A fugitive crosses his tracks”, a novel describing Jante, a small (fictional) Danish town.
In the novel he described the “Law of Jante”, ten rules that described the cultural attitude of the town towards individual success and achievement.
The ten rules of the Law of Jante:
- You’re not to think you are something special.
- You’re not to think you are as good as we are.
- You’re not to think you are smarter than we are.
- You’re not to convince yourself that you are better than we are.
- You’re not to think you know more than we do.
- You’re not to think you are more important than we are.
- You’re not to think you are good at anything.
- You’re not to laugh at us.
- You’re not to think someone cares about you.
- You’re not to think you can teach us anything.
The “Law of Jante” is still used colloquially in the Scandinavian countries to describe negative attitudes towards individuality and success.
These are fine examples of what Gary Craig, the creator of EFT, would call the “writings on our walls”.
With a little bit of work that list of cultural commands can be turned into some tapping scripts to help soften the limitations they prescribe.
The first step is to transform the cultural rules into limiting beliefs.
If someone tells you that “you are not to think you are something special”, there are two possible outcomes:
- The words have no effect, they remain just a collection of words that mean nothing to you. This will probably not become a problem for you.
- You start to internalise the words, they become true of you. The words are transformed from “You are not to think you are something special” coming from the outside, into “I am not to think I am something special” coming from the inside. This might become a big problem for you.
As children we are very susceptible to the ideas and beliefs presented to us by our families and the society at large. It’s (too) easy for us to adopt what we are told as if it were our own.
To create some tapping routines to deal with these internalised beliefs we need to re-write the original commands as limiting beliefs, as follows:
- I am not to think I am something special.
- I am not to think I am as good as they are.
- I am not to think I am smarter than they are.
- I am not to convince myself that I am better than they are.
- I am not to think I know more than they do.
- I am not to think I am more important than they are.
- I am not to think I am good at anything.
- I am not to laugh at them.
- I am not to think someone cares about me.
- I am not to think I can teach them anything.
To find out if you are influenced by the “Law of Jante”, read each belief statement giving it a score of 0-10 (where 0 is completely false, 10 is completely true).
Note: Wherever you come from in the world you might find that some of these beliefs are at work in your life (I did!).
Undoing the beliefs
Now that we have the beliefs expressed as I am … statements we can use tapping (or any other process) to dissolve these beliefs.
The structure of these belief statements makes them very easy to tap on using the Belief Flip process to destablise the original belief so that something more useful can take its place.
1. I am not to think I am something special
Find the opposites
The first part of the Belief Flip process is to split the belief into two parts, finding the opposite of each.
I am not to think | I am something special
Reversing each part
I am to think | I am nothing special
Which is a different way of expressing the same idea.
Create the Belief Flip statements
Split and rearrange these belief fragment to create the four reminder phrases of the Belief Flip
- I am not to think I am something special
- I am to think I am nothing special
- I am not to think I am nothing special
- I am to think I am something special
Tapping through each of these statements will help soften or completely dissolve the belief.
- EB: I am not to think I am something special
- SE: I am to think I am nothing special
- UE: I am not to think I am nothing special
- UN: I am to think I am something special
- CH: I am not to think I am something special
- CB: I am to think I am nothing special
- UA: I am not to think I am nothing special
- TH: I am to think I am something special
The purpose of the Belief Flip is not to install the opposite belief, it is to destabilise the original belief so that a more nuanced and useful understanding of the world can emerge from the intentional confusion that tapping through these statements can create.
Important: It may be that tapping through this sequence triggers memories and feelings connected with these beliefs and you will need to tap your way through those feelings and memories to completely neutralise the belief.
2. I am not to think I am as good as they are
Find the opposites
- I am not to think I am as good as they are
- I am to think they are better than I am
Create the Belief Flip
- I am not to think I am as good as they are
- I am to think they are better than I am
- I am not to think they are better than I am
- I am to think I am as good as they are
3. I am not to think I am smarter than they are
Find the opposites
- I am not to think I am smarter than they are
- I am to think that they are smarter than I am
Create the Belief Flip
- I am not to think I am smarter than they are
- I am to think that they are smarter than I am
- I am not to think that they are smarter than I am
- I am to think that I am smarter than they are
4. I am not to convince myself that I am better than they are.
Find the opposites
- I am not to convince myself that I am better than they are
- I am to convince myself that I am worse than they are
Create the Belief Flip
- I am not to think | that I am better than they are
- I am to think | that I am worse than they are
- I am not to think | that I am worse than they are
- I am to think | that I am better than they are
5. I am not to think I know more than they do
Find the opposites
- I am not to think I know more than they do
- I am to think they know more than I do
Create the Belief Flip
- I am not to think I know more than they do
- I am to think they know more than I do
- I am not to think they know more than I do
- I am to think I know more than they do
6. I am not to think that I am more important than they are
Find the opposites
- I am not to think that I am more important than they are
- I am to think that they are more important than I am
Create the Belief Flip
- I am not to think that I am more important than they are
- I am to think that they are more important than I am
- I am not to think that they are more important than I am
- I am to think that I am more important than they are
7. I am not to think I am good at anything
Find the opposites
- I am not to think I am good at anything
- I am to think I am good at nothing
Create the Belief Flip
- I am not to think I am good at anything
- I am to think I am good at nothing
- I am not to think I am good at nothing
- I am to think I am good at anything
8. I am not to laugh at them
Find the opposites
- I am not to laugh at them
- They are to laugh at me
Creating the Belief Flip
- I am not to laugh at them
- They are to laugh at me
- They are not to laugh at me
- I am to laugh at them
9. I am not to think someone cares about me.
Find the opposites
- I am not to think someone cares about me
- I am think no-one cares about me
Create the Belief Flip
- I am not to think someone cares about me
- I am to think no-one cares about me
- I am not to think no-one cares about me
- I am to think someone cares about me
10. I am not to think that I can teach them anything
Find the opposites
- I am not to think that I can teach them anything
- I am to think that I can teach them nothing
Create the Belief Flip
- I am not to think that I can teach them anything
- I am to think that I can teach them nothing
- I am not to think that I can teach them nothing
- I am to think that I can teach them anything
I am grateful to Annette Nielsen, an EFT Practitioner in Copenhagen, for introducing me to the Law of Jante it provided an excellent collection of limiting beliefs to work on.
