Hi, I’m Sean McGuire and this is the New Vision OKC Christian marriage counseling counseling.live podcast, a place where we help you discover what better looks like for you and equip you with the tools to create it today. And episode number 40 we are going over defeating fear and limiting beliefs in three steps and three steps. Maybe you can even say in three moves. That sounds really cool, doesn’t it feel defeating fear limiting beliefs in three moves. You know, all of us have limitations. It’s true. Now, you know, I’ve heard it said to kids, Hey guys, you can do anything you want as long as you set your mind to it. And as an adult, I look on that and I hear that people say that to these, these little kids, very impressionable little kids. And I think, you know, no matter how much I wanted to, I’m not built to play in the NBA no matter if I tried, if I practice enough, if I shot enough, I just not gifted like a Russell Westbrook or Lebron James to be an NBA player.
And I thought about it again. Well, what about I, I tried to tennis, right? I mean I really thought I had a shot of tennis. Uh, was not rich. We were actually borderline poor for most of my life were actually, we were poor for the majority of my early life. And then we had a, then we were lower middle class. So we lived in about, I dunno, 1200 square foot house, rented it and I played tennis, which is not a poor man’s sport. You break strings and he nice rackets, you need nice shoes. And so there was an issue, but I did my best and I thought I’m going to go pro and tennis and I’ve tried and I made an effort and I practiced as much as I possibly could. You know, I would hate, I would hit a ball against our side of our house and it would hit the grass and go up.
Now I didn’t live in Wimbledon. It wasn’t like this nice grass. It just was ground. And I would do my best to try to chase it down and hit it. That’s how I practiced. That’s how I learned. I learned with a wooden racket that somebody gave my mom, I think. And that’s how I learned Dennis. And I thought, this is my ticket. I’m going to get a scholarship, I’m going to be really good. It’s going to pay my way through college and then it’s going to go big time. Cause I just lacked the coaching. Now with all that effort, with all that sacrifice of my mom didn’t give me money that she probably could not really afford to give me. And I still thought she was holding out to me by the way, but I never made it now. Yeah, I could have been better if I would have had coaching, if I would’ve had the resources, the nice rackets, the, you know, one of the peers I had, his parents owned, they owned the country club.
Are you kidding me? And by the way, I could not stand this kid because he was so persnickety and snobby and yeah, he’s probably a good due today. But man, being worth where I was at, not having a lot of money and seeing this kid being given everything not a good deal. And I never made it. I tried and I remember it was a wake up call when I thought it was pretty good. And I played this guy who actually was good. I think the only reason he played me is because I look like a tennis player. I was in shape, a little bit muscular, not too big, not too skinny. And I just looked like it. And he knew I was from Florida. He was a number one player from Denmark and this guy just ate my lunch. And I realized then in there the difference that it takes to become, now he’s not even a professional player.
Like he got number two in the nation that year in and uh, the championships, but he’s not even professional like those guys or even a whole another level above or this guy was at. So I’m thinking we all have limitations. I don’t know why I went so long except for to say we all have these limitations that are real in our lives. And unfortunately some of us have been told that we don’t. And so when we come against these limitations, we face rejection. We feel like we’re a failure. We feel like there’s something wrong with us, but there’s not, there’s not necessarily something wrong with us. But here’s the other part. There are limitations that we have that aren’t real. You know, my sports and physical limitations were real, but there’s other limitations that I have that are not real. They’re based on believing lies that either because of the way you were raised because the peer group that you were around saw you is less than the person God made you to be.
Or maybe you were in a relationship with somebody that doesn’t value or validate you or maybe you had a teacher that said something that was really harsh. I’m laughing because I’ve had this, I’ve had this a more than one occasions and it really impacted the way that you thought about your intelligence. Maybe they made fun of your math problems cause you weren’t good at math or maybe they passed something around the school. It’s what happened in me. I addressed a letter wrong and they, and I was in eighth grade to the highest level of this. I went to Christian school one year and I’ll never forget it and they passed it around the whole school because I addressed it wrong and they said, don’t be like this eighth grader, pay attention in class. You talked about the most humiliating experience in eighth grade or junior high.
It could go through. It was, it was gut wrenching and now we all have those experiences in your own way that put limitations on. I didn’t think I was smart after that. Like that really was a big sledgehammer to my self confidence and ability to believe that I’m intelligent. You know, we all had this, you know my, I had a dog named Rowan when we first got married. We lived in Oklahoma City and you know, I’ve been in a OKC Christian marriage counseling counselor and my counselor anxiety, all these things for over 25 years. But we lived in this Oklahoma City area, North Oklahoma City with this dog, Rowan. And when we first got him, he bark incessantly for two weeks straight, two weeks straight. And this is when I was just starting. I left one position, um, counseling and I was starting a new whole creating a mild things when new vision was birthed at the next level.
And I was home a lot because I was working on some things and I needed to do and I, my, my main base was home. This dog barked 24, seven. I mean literally, unless he was in my lap, it’s dog bark, nothing. I tried, worked all the books, I read spraying him water, nothing worked. So we got them a humane bark color and the humane bark color. What it did is it gave him a little bit of electrical stimulation. Only after there had been a beep there had been in vibration and then it was a progressive stimulation of encouraging him to stop barking so he could get away with a few barks. He could get away with grounds, you could give us a lot of stuff. But when he just went bananas and ballistic, that’s when he got the stimulation, that progressive degrees until he stopped.
Check this out. He wore that for two weeks straight and I think we took it off for something to go swim in or I don’t know what, but he never had to put it on again. Guys, this dog that we literally were going to get rid of until somebody suggested a bark color altered the way that he lived the rest of his life. He would only bark a little bit when somebody knocked, I mean really appropriately, but he stopped that incessant barking because the bark collar taught him that there will be pain if you go beyond these limits and so there’s limits or the cap of how much he would bark. Now barking is a dog’s language and I and I and I think about all of us as adults, what bark collar has been placed upon our life. I feel like many of us have had bark collars put on us by, by our Barr teachers.
For me, for one, a lot of my teachers got annoyed by my many questions and that’s why I learned if I raise my hand, they’re going to be sarcastic. One. I remember one guy called me and hey ho, because he said I was asking, I asked something about buffaloes and I was being serious, but a lot of the other kids around me were being, they were joking, but I, I wanted him to know about how many buffalo in and herd and native American and we just had a question and he called me a bad name in front of the whole class and I learned that teachers get annoyed with my many questions and if I had questions, if things that were really hard but I didn’t ask and so I did poorly in their class because I didn’t like the pain of what happened when I did ask questions.
Now we didn’t feel a test because I didn’t know how many buffalo we’re in heard in native America. I didn’t know I didn’t fail. That’s just a great example of one of the things that happened to me in school that taught me, okay, here’s a bark collar. I just got shocked really bad in front of my peers and I’m not going to do this again. I also wonder what bark collars you’ve had and some of the experiences in your life. Think back to something that was painful for you in school, maybe with a group of friends, maybe in a relationship where you really liked somebody and it just didn’t work out. Whether it’s a friendship or even a romantic relationship and you learned, I better not show my heart. I better not open up because I’m just going to get hurt again. This informed my decisions.
I, I quit taking so many risks because I didn’t like the pain that came from stepping outside of what I was comfortable with. I started to only try things that I knew I could succeed at certain sports. I really made an effort in English because I was good at English. Some of the sciences I ace geometry, even though all the rest of math was outside of basic, the higher math was hard for me. So I had an aversion to it cause it made me feel stupid at the time, made me feel foolish and I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t like to do those things. And I looking at you, I know you can relate. I know there are. Those of you out here that same Sean, I totally get it. And part of this guys as a marriage counselor, somebody who, who helps people break free from these limitations.
As a Christian OKC Christian marriage counseling, I just want you to know that we all have stories of our past of bark collars that we place around our necks. You know, most of our parents didn’t do this intentionally. I doubt there are any or very few teachers that were maliciously do this intentionally to harm you. I know the ones in my life, as far as I know, none of them did it maliciously. They had their own issues that they brought into the classroom. Anybody who deals with lots of kids, it’s going to have issues. Let’s just put it, let’s just all be honest about that. So they brought those issues. I think our parents, a lot of times they make effort to do things, but they have their own issues that are unresolved and sometimes they say things that in the moment that maybe they don’t mean deeply, but yet we take them to heart and they become a ceiling to what we’ll try in life when we’re told will never amount to anything because we can’t pick up our socks up the floor for it.
Somebody say that. I’ve heard so many different stories of how you know you’re about, you know a nickname for a little girl. A little piggy. Yeah, guys, if you have a little girl that’s the that that’s the wrong move. Don’t do that move. That’s the move that is caustic, toxic and she’ll have a really hard time getting through. It should probably come see somebody like me if she has the courage to break free of what happened to her as a kid. Beautiful Princess. Those are great names. Use any of those. I don’t have any copywriting, but just think about those bark collars guys. Thinking about that. You’re realizing now that you slowly started to adopt what people said about you. That wasn’t true. Maybe it was true in a moment. Maybe it was true in a classroom. Maybe it was true on a sports field, but that doesn’t mean it has to be true for life.
I think God been, I’m not the kid I was when I didn’t have a lot of support when my mom worked two to three jobs and she really didn’t have a clue what was going on in my life because she and her early twenties was just trying to make it. It was just trying to grow up while raising at the same time without an education outside of high school. So we all have these stories and it begins by identifying what your bark collar is. What are the elements that make up your unique bark color? Because we all all have them. There’s no one listening to this that that is free in every area of life. So the first move, the first step that we could take is identify what is your bark collar? What makes it up? Think about it. You’ve been conditioned to live within the limits that you have.
One of mine, as I had a terrible fear of public speaking like terrible. I remember the first time I was at this, I did toastmasters. I was encouraged to do it and I did it in the first time I had to get up to speak. I remember reading in the book and said, the first time you get up to speak, you will feel like running out of the building, running, screaming as fast as you can. Your hands will begin to sweat. Your heart will begin to palpitate and your hands will be, I mean, all these things started to happen to me. I’m like, am I having an anxiety attack? You know, as a OKC Christian marriage counseling counselor, I know what that feels like. It, it felt like I’m having an anxiety attack right before I get on to talk about what, I don’t even remember what I was talking about.
I think it was just talking about me for three minutes. I mean, how hard could that be? And I think I had notes on talking to you about me, which looking back is it’s so true that this bark collar was more like a noose and the bark color, it strangled the life that God wanted me to live for so many years. Because today, today I, I value so much the ability to speak in front of people and motivate them just like you, to inspire you to connect to God’s best for your life, to break free of the limits, to heal the wounds and the hurts of the past. You know, as a OKC Christian marriage counseling, especially in marriage and individual counseling, Oklahoma City in Edmond, I’ve just seen a wave of people where I live in Edmond, where I work in Oklahoma City and Edmond transform their lives because of this.
And defeating fear limitations is amazingly powerful at unlocking your potential, unlocking what God has said that you are called to live and do, and become as a person and through your calling. So stop letting these limits define you. You know, maybe you feel like you can’t improve as a mom because when you were younger you were taught that people can’t change. My wife has taught that she was taught nobody changes. You just are the way you are. And we have had a lot of arguments and let’s see, my friend Rashawn, Sean Copeland, he says passionate fellowship about this very thing. Now my wife is a veracious learner. She can’t get enough just like me. We’re, we’re a learning family because we want to grow, we want to learn and we want to move forward. Now that we see that we don’t have to live out of the limits that were previously placed upon our lives.
So step two, the move number two is if you had no limits, what would you pursue? A great way to determine if you have a bark collar, which we all do, we’ve already established. But if you think you don’t, if you’re that person that thinks you don’t, well, if there were no limits, what would you pursue? And if it’s not exactly what you’re doing now, that means resources, limits, intelligence, limits, NBA limits, what would you pursue? Now that doesn’t mean you should pursue it. If you say NBA and you’re five foot two, probably not. If you say, I think I should, uh, be a jockey and you’re six foot eight, probably not. But think about what would you pursue? A great way to discover one of the places where Satan may have hit you deeply is in what you value and what you’re afraid to step into, but maybe secretly you want to do, but you don’t feel good enough to even try it.
So for me, that was public speaking. That was stepping out and bringing other people into the practice with me. I thought, man, once these people get close to me, they may not like me. They, I may get to a node, but then they may get to in order to me. But in reality, guys, the opposite has been the case. I miss people when they’re gone. We have all these people that work here, but when, when the, nobody’s here but me, it’s so lonely. Even though I’m in my own office, it seemed basins all day. I still feel the absence, but I would have never known that because of limiting belief was me and my. When people get close to you in a work environment, they’re not going to like you. They’re going to take advantage of you, they’re going to criticize you. Because historically in a lot of work environments, I outworked most of my peers.
I just did. I’m built to be an entrepreneur, which means I’m bill to earn a lot, to change a lot, to be in front, to be doing new things, to be constantly growing and moving forward, and that doesn’t work well under a manager who just wants to coast or an estate agency or in a counseling practice where the people in charge just want to stay in their status quo. So now I’m living in the blessing of some of these limits being taken off because I realized they weren’t from God. They were from my past and from really the devil uses any card to keep you down. You. We use any card to raise you up, but you got to let God play it. Take it away from the devil and let God play the hand cause he can win with any hand when he give it to them.
The third step, the third move is invest in resources and people. This might be for you, you demi. This might be OKC Christian marriage counseling. This might be take somebody to lunch that you respect. This might be buying a book. This might be taking a class. This can be a variety of things, but start today. Start today. Start with start today. You know, maybe your next move is calling your best friend or calling you, somebody that you knew from college that you guys used to dream together. Maybe it’s talking to your spouse over dinner on a date night. Honey, let’s just get together and brainstorm and dream. I did a podcast about that and let’s see, see what God, what God reveals in our dream and brainstorm time. But I know that no matter what, schedule a time to start doing this and what you’ll discover is over the course of time, as you scheduling these activities, as you challenged the norm, as you challenge the fears that you’ve lived under as a ceiling, it’s a bark collar that every time you step forward and you press through the bark collar realizing it’s not from God, but it’s from the enemy trying to keep you stuck, then you’ll start to move forward in ways that you’ve only dreamed possible probably when you were younger.
And I hope that you take this to heart and if this information was helpful, please use it. Share with a friend that you think they could benefit from it. Also, if you haven’t, please subscribe to the podcast and you’ll be sure to get it every time we do a new one. And we also want to say we’re really thankful for those of you who’ve, uh, I mean you Google Review New Vision, calcium that live because that’s really the heart is we want to help change people’s lives. We have a team of Christian counselors that very biblical principles with cutting edge counseling techniques. And if you say, Sean, the podcast was great, but I really want your help. I want your team’s help. Fantastic. Reach out to us today. Contact us, go to the website and you visited counseling.live and you’ll discover what so many people for you have is that we have a team of people that help you discover what better looks like for you, and then equip you with the tools to create it. Until next time, creating an amazing day.