Breaking Free From Old Patterns and Limiting Beliefs

I remember vividly the whirlwind mornings of my childhood. My mother was always late. Always. It wasn’t for lack of effort; there was just something about the rhythm of her life that didn’t quite sync with time. She’d be rushing to pack a bag or find her keys, all while the clock ticked relentlessly toward tardiness.

When I became a mother myself, I swore I’d do things differently. But then, there I was, struggling to get my son to school on time. Wanting to be punctual wasn’t enough. Loving my son with all my heart wasn’t enough. The pattern of lateness was so deeply ingrained in me, it felt like my body ran on autopilot, following the rhythm I had inherited.

It wasn’t just about setting an earlier alarm. The truth is, my entire body needed a reset around the belief that lateness was a normal, acceptable rhythm.

I had to rewire how I thought about time and, even more importantly, how I felt in my body during moments of departure.

When we grow up surrounded by certain beliefs or habits, they often serve us in some way, at least for a time. But when they start to interfere with our needs or create unnecessary conflict, it’s a clear signal that it’s time to change them.

What Are Limiting Beliefs?

Limiting beliefs are assumptions or perceptions we hold about ourselves and the world that hold us back from our potential. These beliefs usually form during childhood. They are often a part of how we make sense of the world, or protect ourselves from harm.

For example, if a parent always withholds love of affection, we may make sense of this by internalizing the belief, “I’m not good enough. I don't deserve it.”

If we grow up in a family where people are always worrying about finances, we may believe, “Money is hard to come by,” no matter what changes in the future.

If we grow up seeing the people we love and respect disregard time and show up late for events, we may decide that, "Being late is how we are meant to show up."

How Habits and Beliefs Work Together

Beliefs are like the software running in the background of your mind, and habits are the behaviors that execute the code. A belief like “I’ll never be a confident public speaker” can manifest as habitual avoidance of speaking opportunities. The more the habit repeats, the more entrenched the belief becomes.

When I was in 5th grade, I was given a part in a play that would be presented to the entire school. I was excited about the play, and I carried my script around constantly, reading each of the lines with confidence. It never occurred to me that the script needed to be memorized.

The day before the play was meant to be performed, we were going through our final run through and our teacher, usually a fairly calm and grounded woman, was agitated by the rowdiness of the students. She snatched my script from my hand and snapped at me, "No script. You should have had this memorized."

With my script taken away, I was stunned. Mortified. I found myself stuttering through my lines, and was filled with the dawning horror that I would have to say my lines in this play by memory.

When the time came to perform the play, I choked up when it was my turn. There was a long silence as I floundered on stage, feeling the heat creep into my face. Someone prompted me from the side of the stage and I was able to get through most of the words.

Soon it was all over, and as I walked off stage, it was clear that what had been a disaster for me wasn't even a 2 minute footnote for others.

Even though this moment was fleeting, it was emotionally impactful enough that I created a limiting belief in that moment: I can't be asked to memorize lines for the stage--it's too scary.

In my teens and 20s, I was a performer. I danced on stages constantly, almost weekly. I was in a Taiko drumming group, and later in a few different dance groups, but even though I became used to performing in front of hundreds (and sometime thousands) of people at a time, the idea of having to memorize lines was debilitating. I refused to be an actor. I would dance, sing, play a guitar, pound a drum, but I would not trade lines with anyone.

...Until college. I took a required acting class for my degree, and it happened to be with the world's foremost artist in corporeal mime at the time, a wonderful man named Tom. He had people come from across the entire world to study to with him. His private students were seasoned, often older than the regular college students at our school, multi cultural, and in my young eyes, they were fearless. I wished to be that way, but public speaking (including acting) was just not my thing.

In order to gain the courage to perform in front of others, I had to break the body story that speaking in front of an audience was going to result in total personal shame and self annihilation.

Luckily for me, Tom was an intuitive person, and he chose a script for me, a scene from a play that had so much personal resonance, I wanted to perform it. I knew that if somehow I could, there would be incredible personal healing for me.

That performance, a very small one in a room of 20 people, was perhaps one of the most important performances in my life, because it gave me back my voice where shame, fear, and judgement had shut me down. Not only did I feel the opportunity to redeem my 5th grade experience, by the script itself was a form of magic, allowing me to make amends with deep wounds in my own psyche around family.

Because of my beliefs created in 5th grade, I spent years avoiding public speaking and acting until it became a habit not to speak. We often forge habits around our beliefs, and you might even think now about some habits you've created to protect you from your fears.

In my case, refusing to speak on stage wasn't too big of an issue until it began to interfere with my career goals. Then I needed to learn about how to clear the limiting belief, and change the supporting habits.

How Habits Are Formed in the Brain

Habits are created through the brain’s reward system. When you perform an action that provides a reward, your brain releases dopamine, which creates a sense of pleasure. This reinforcement encourages you to repeat the action.

Over time, neural pathways associated with the habit become stronger and more efficient. The brain develops a myelin sheath—a protective coating around neurons—that speeds up the transmission of signals in these pathways. This is why habits feel automatic.

Dr. Wendy Wood, a researcher on habits, notes in her book Good Habits, Bad Habits that about 43% of our daily actions are habitual. To change a habit, she argues, you need to interrupt the loop and replace the old behavior with a new one.

Understanding the Soma and the Role of Your Physical Senses

Habits don’t just live in the brain, they’re deeply somatic, meaning they’re wired into your body’s nervous and muscular systems. The word "soma" comes from the Greek word for "body as a whole." When we say something is somatic, we’re acknowledging that it’s not just a mental or intellectual experience; it’s a full-body phenomenon.

For instance, if you’ve ever tried to change your posture or breathing patterns, you’ve likely noticed how your body seems to resist the change. That resistance is in the very fabric of your muscle memory, shaped over years of repetition.

This is why breaking habits and forming new ones is easier when we engage multiple senses. Each sensory input—sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell—adds another layer of reinforcement, making the new habit feel more natural. For example, if you want to establish a morning meditation practice, lighting a candle, playing soft music, and sitting on a comfortable cushion can signal to your body that it’s time to relax and focus. Over time, these sensory cues become part of the habit loop, grounding the behavior in your somatic memory.

In my own life coaching work, I’ve seen how powerful it is to involve the whole body in the process of transformation. Clients often come to me feeling stuck, frustrated that their willpower alone hasn’t been enough to break free from old patterns. But once we bring the body into the equation through movement, sensory engagement, or somatic anchoring, the shifts become almost effortless.

This holistic approach is one of the reasons I love integrating tools like Reiki, guided visualizations, and sensory rituals into my coaching. These methods work directly with the soma, creating lasting change by addressing the physical and energetic layers of a habit.

Steps for Breaking Habits and Limiting Beliefs

Change really begins when we translate our understanding into action. The exercises I’m about to share are designed to help you disrupt old patterns, rewire your brain, and embody new, empowering rhythms.

These are the very same tools I use in my own life and with my clients, and I’ve witnessed the transformations they can create. Approach these steps with patience and curiosity:

1. Identify the Pattern

Start by naming the belief or habit you want to change. For me, it was “Being late is just part of who I am.” Write the habit and belief down on paper by hand (not computer), and ask yourself:

"Where did this come from? What purpose has it served?"

2. Interrupt the Habit Loop

To change a habit, you need to disrupt the automatic loop. For instance, if you habitually reach for your phone in the morning, do something different; place it in another room the night before, so you have to get out of bed to reach it.

Don't rush this, because habit loops are powerful. One critical part of my lateness loop I discovered was that I would always look at the clock at the right time to go, but then I would ask, "What else can I fit in before I leave?"

It didn't occur to me in my habit loop that it was actually time to go right then and there. No matter how far away the location, I would always wait until 10 minutes before the actual time of arrival, to leave. Finding seemingly 'important' things to do to kill time, was an unconscious habit.

I had to interrupt the thought pattern and the physical action of looking at the clock, substituting it with a different pattern, to change the habit. So... what habit can you interrupt?

Write down your answer. This will help your unconscious patterns come into the light of your awareness.

Clearing the habit loop also means interrupting emotional patterns that have become a part of the process around that habit. It may feel emotional to make this simple shift. Be brave! Let yourself feel, but still make the shift.

3. Engage Your Senses

The more senses you involve, the faster the new habit will take root. If you’re learning to meditate but you find it hard to remember, then light a candle, play soothing music, and sit on a soft cushion. Your brain will associate these sensory cues with the new behavior.

To engage my senses with lateness, I learned to set an alarm at the start of my preparation time, and another alarm when it was time to depart. I found that having friends meet me early was helpful. And I also found that depriving my senses of stimuli was a way of getting me to stay on track (no more phone conversations, tv, or computer while preparing to go somewhere).

4. Use NLP to Address Beliefs

NLP techniques like reframing and anchoring can help shift limiting beliefs.

Reframing involves looking at a belief from a new perspective. For example, instead of “I’m always late,” try, “I’m learning how to honor the time flow.”

Anchoring pairs a positive emotional state with a physical gesture, like pressing your thumb and forefinger together while thinking of a time you felt successful.

Studies have shown that NLP techniques can lead to significant improvements in behavior. A 2016 study in the International Journal of Contemporary Medicine found that NLP was 85% effective in helping participants overcome phobias and limiting beliefs.

People often reset their main belief (ie "I'm learning how to honor time,") But I've also found that resetting several defaults is more effective. For example, adding clear affirmations like:

• I am always on time.

• Being on time is a good thing.

• I am not actually 'on time' unless I am 15 minutes early.

• How can I be 15 minutes early every time?

These are some beginning steps for resetting, but I'd like to offer you one more energetic exercise:

Habit-Reset Ritual

Your work is to write out this entire process in your journal, choosing one habit you'd like to reset. Decide right now how you'd like it to shift, and journal it out. Then do it this week.

Start by setting an intention. Write down the new habit or belief you want to adopt. Example: “I leave the house on time, feeling calm and prepared.”

Close your eyes and picture yourself performing the new habit. Engage all your senses—what does it look, sound, and feel like? Visualize your success.

Now, choose a trigger that reminds you of the new habit. For example, set an alarm labeled “Time to Shine” 15 minutes before you need to leave the house.

Once you complete the new habit for the first time, reinforce the new habit with a small reward, like playing a favorite song or a having a moment of gratitude.

It's best if the reward evokes a positive response from you. Pay attention to how you feel throughout the process, because feelings of shame, sadness, or fear, will stop your habit-reset.

At the end of the week, review your progress. What worked? What didn’t?

Final Thoughts

Breaking free from old patterns and limiting beliefs isn’t easy, but it’s one of the most empowering journeys you can take. Awareness, understanding, and action create the foundation for your transformation.

You may not always change right away.

For a few years with my son, I would say after each late drop off, "I'm so sorry I brought you to school late, but I'm learning and getting better with my timing, and we'll be on time next time!"

Then, every time we were on time, I would say, "Look we made it on time! I'm celebrating this, and so glad that I'm making progress on this."

The first time I said that, his eyebrows went up to his hairline, and he said, "Yeah, we're on time!" He'd become so used to being late because of me, that it took him a moment to shift mindset and realize that was no longer the story. It was very powerful, and like that, the distress was gone. The family pattern was broken.

As I’ve seen in my own life and in the lives of my clients, the moment you commit to change is the moment the universe rises to meet you. You don't have to be perfect. Just show up for yourself and keep rewriting the stories that don't work for you.

If you’re ready to explore this work further, I’d love to support you in creating new, expansive rhythms for your life. Remember, you are writing your future even in this moment.

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