151: How to Break Limiting Beliefs with Cognitive Behavior Therapy

forth. But our thoughts and the way that we create thought and the interpretations that we make of the things that we are going through stems from our belief structures.

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jump right in. today. My guest today is a cognitive behavioral therapist and success coach who helps people break the patterns and beliefs that are holding them back from being happy, loving themselves, being successful and reaching their fullest potential. She is the founder and CFO and COO of Evolve Venture Technologies and the host of the Evolve Ventures Podcast, a global podcast reached in over 50 countries. Her name is Bianca Thomas. Bianca, welcome to the MindShift Podcast.

depressed. I was a very aggressive child, not easy to deal with. And I truly, truly believed that I was not loved and wasn't good enough. And that was kind of compounded being in a very old school, Middle Eastern family that had their own rules, values, beliefs and expectations that I just didn't really fit the mold into. I wasn't aligned into them. So growing up, you know, having a

wasn't here. So I'm a teenager, and what do most teenagers do, who don't feel good enough, don't feel loved and feel like nobody cares about them? Let me go get into a relationship. Let me see if someone outside will love me, because I don't love me, and nobody else does so maybe this person will. So stumble into a relationship. After six days, he tells me he loves me. And I don't think anything of it. Because I'm 16. I've never been in a

relationship. I'm not supposed to be dating, because again, Middle Eastern family, you don't do that, especially being a girl. And I ended up being abused in that relationship. Emotionally, mentally, sexually, and being threatened very often that it would become physical if I didn't comply. So I'm in that relationship for about four years. And it was sheer madness. I was in that relationship and I

couldn't see a way out. And I convinced myself that it was the right thing for me, because of those feelings of worthlessness, of unloveability, of not being good enough. Thankfully, four years later, I'm able to get out of it. But I'm more lost than ever. I'm more confused about myself and my life than ever. And then I start realizing, I think I'm gay. And I think I have known for a long time, and

I just never addressed it. So now I'm in this weird phase of I'm in school, getting my bachelor's degree in psychology, but I have no idea what I'm doing with my life. I don't know where I want to go, I don't know what I want to do. And I've basically been in this abusive relationship for so long that I genuinely don't know who I am. So a few years go by where I'm trying to find myself. I'm in and out of all of these relationships with men and

women. And I'm just spiraling and feeding this belief even more and more that I'm just not enough and I'm never going to be. The one consistent thing that I did have going for me, though, that I was really good at and loved was physical fitness. So I was a competitive power lifter for a few years. And you know, growing up, I was always into sports. I did karate, and I was incredible at it but I ended up not doing it. And I didn't continue it. I did basketball, soccer, I was a very

athletic kid. So the gym was the one consistent thing that I had going, it was like the one thing that, like, I knew I was really good at. And so I just continued it along with all the other chaos going on in my life. And I'm in the gym one day, and this guy comes up to me. And I'm like, great, here we go. Like some dude trying to like, approach me and have a conversation. Alright. So he eat.

a mentor to me to this day. Him and his business partner are two of my dearest friends and mentors. But so I start building this relationship with him and he introduces me to personal development. And at the time, I'm in school for psychology. And I don't know much about personal development. I just think it's BS, like personal development is all these people saying the same thing over and over and it doesn't actually do anything. He's like, just give

it a chance. Just listen to this one video and if you don't like it, I won't ask you to listen again.

development. Again, while I'm in school, getting my bachelor's degree that I have no idea what I'm going to do with. So, Kevin also grew up fighting, right? He did Muay Thai. So I used to do karate. So he and I used to, like, fight each other at the gym.

partner. The running joke that we have is she punched me in the face and it was like, love at first sight after that, because that's literally what happened. She destroyed me, because she's like an extraordinary fighter. And we became incredibly close. And through our conversations, and through our friendship, she tells me, you know, something I've always wanted to do is start a podcast. And I'm like, No way. Two of my best friends have a podcast and they help people to build podcasts. And

that's their thing. That's what they do. Let me introduce you to them. I introduced her to them. And she starts a podcast, asks me to join. Now I'm like, I don't know what I would do on a podcast. I'm not good enough, no one would want to listen to me, I still have that belief structure, even though I'm doing all of these things.

internal demons. And I'm in this spiral in my life, trying to get my master's degree, trying to build this online business, trying to do all of these things. So a year later, I finally realized, like, what am I doing with my life, and that was the start of me, basically, completely turning my life around, completely, like, relearning and reinventing myself and turning myself into this woman that I am today, you know, doing all of the amazing things that I get to do, getting

to really help other people. And I believe that the reason I've been so successful in it is because I've been through it.

right now. But I want to point out something and that is, aside from the painful thoughts, that you weren't loved, that you weren't good enough, that you weren't accepted, that things weren't going well on that side, you were still progressing through education, you were still progressing through your fitness journey, strength training journey. And it's interesting that I think a lot of people who move through life, even in a positive direction, are still battling these

internal demons. And I'm curious to know, what led you to the world of psychology and couple that with this behavioral cognitive component. What was it? Was it the past pain that you've gone through, but it sounds like you chose that during some of that painful cycle. Talk a little bit about that, what drove you to psychology, and this behavioral cognitive component?

feeling? What are they going through? And how can I get them to think that in being my friend or in me being around, like, I can help them? And it started off in kind of this toxic way of like, I'm not liked, let me get you to like me, to wow, I actually genuinely love people. And I'm actually just really interested in understanding people. And understanding what are people's experiences? What are they going through? Why are they feeling the way that they

do? And it kind of sparked from like, Why do I feel this way? Why do I feel so horrible about myself, and no matter what my family or friends or whatever, people tell me they love me and they care and I just don't inherently believe it. It's like anyone could come up to me, like at that point, and tell me they loved me. And no matter what it just wouldn't sink in.

when I was 19, or 20. And I remember something he talked about, I want to say it was in Awaken the Giant Within, I don't know if that was what you came across or experienced but he talks a lot about belief. I don't want to quote it right now. Tony Robbins, if you're listening, thank you for your work. But there was something he talked about, about how, we, our beliefs are like legs to a table. Yes.

And at some point, you started dismantling the table and pulling the legs out from under it, if I can gratefully, just with humility, use one of Tony's examples.

start asking it for myself. And then through everything that I was doing, through studying CBT, through studying all of the things that I studied, I was then able to really do it with mastery to where I can now help other people do the same.

it. A quote that I love for years, sometimes you gotta believe in the belief that others have in you until your belief kicks in.

is that? And woowoo. And I'm studying psychology, which I want to come back to, because it's challenging probably the clinical aspect of your thinking, right? Yeah.

things. And he was like, Don't you dare go down that path, because you're going to be miserable and it's not accurate. Here's this program that I went through, I think this is exactly what you're looking for. So when I learned about the program, I was like, Oh, my God, this is exactly what Tony Robbins teaches. That's why I chose that program. Because I'm like this thing that I was originally introduced to that changed my life. There's a program that teaches this. I'm like, this is

fate. I don't know how I ended up here but like, this is incredible. And so what CBT and the type of therapy that I do, like working as a clinician and as a coach, and the approach that I take is, cognitive behavioral therapy is very similar to what Tony Robbins says, our entire life is created through our beliefs. And those beliefs are created through the experiences that we go through.

So our experiences shape our beliefs, our beliefs shape the way we think, the way we feel, and what we therefore do, and it's conceptualized in a triangle, and it's called the cognitive triad. So basically, our thoughts or interpretations, or the meanings that we assigned to things, cause us to have a certain emotion, which ends up being conditioned. So it is the thought, which results in

conditioned behavior. And our entire life is basically this cyclical pattern of these conditioned thoughts, emotions, and behaviors to familiar circumstances. And that's why so many of us feel stuck. That's why so many of us feel misunderstood, or why we don't feel like we're advancing in anything or like our life is stuck and things are never going

to change. It's because we are having these very conditioned, and very rigidly held, beliefs, thoughts, emotions, and behaviors or responses to everything that's happening. That's why a lot of people end up dating the same kind of person over and over again, that's why they like can't break a cap if like, if they're doing sales, for example, and they can't get past a certain level.

It's for that reason, it's because we are acting in these very unconscious conditioned patterns that have started from childhood.

Bianca Thomas story. That's a worldly story for each and every one of us, no matter what background, no matter what we look like, no matter what color, where we grew up, what neighborhood etc. We all do these patterns. Let me ask you this question. Someone listening to this right now, what is one thing that they can do to begin to break the pattern in a negative belief, a self limiting belief, a pattern of destructive reoccurrence of experience, on life, of behavior, relationship?

What is one thing? I know there's a lot of things, but in the time we have left, let's see if we can give them one thing to do that anybody can do that will begin to open the door way to a better way of thinking and feeling and believing.

good enough. Or if you find yourself in similar patterns of behavior, where it's like, Why do I keep dating the same person over and over and over again? The very first thing you need to do is try to recognize what the patterns are. And when you do that, you need to start understanding what are the things, the meanings and the interpretations of thoughts that I'm consistently having that are

leading me to this. Because remember, like I said, a situation causes some sort of thought or interpretation, which is conditioned. That conditioned interpretation leads to a conditioned emotion, which leads

to a conditioned behavior. So if you can understand the meaning that you are making about things, the meaning that you are giving to situations, the thoughts that are consistently, unconsciously coming up and popping up into your head, you can then start to understand why your life is following very similar patterns. And that's exactly what I do with all of my clients.

care what the realm is. But I believe that however you describe it, that the outcome, that a lot of what we are doing with this mental patterning, this conditioning, has a lot to do with the thoughts that we continue to think, and habitual lies, if you will, that is actually in the non physical side of our existence that ends up manifesting these patterns in

these repeating cycles. Can you speak to the power and impact of just our thought life and how that plays into this repetitive pattern that I think we get caught on right? It's almost like an accelerator in the car, the longer you push on the accelerator, the faster the car will go, or the more steady the car will travel. But if you decide to let off the accelerator, the car by its nature has to slow down, provided it's not going

downhill. But our thought life can get to a place where downhill is that negative, right? And you could think you're not thinking it but your life is already spiraling and you can't stop because it's going downhill. But talk to us about the power of thought and how do you see that in your conversations with your clients? And what kind of coaching do you give them around their thoughts? Maybe they say, I realize I'm

already on this pattern. But Bianca, good Lord, help me with my thoughts to get off this pattern. What do you say to them?

forth. But our thoughts and the way that we create thought and the interpretations that we make of the things that we are going through, stems from our belief structures. There are three fundamental types of beliefs that every single person has, and they can all be categorized under one of these three things. There's a thought about our worthiness, whether in a positive or a negative way. So I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm not fast enough, I'm not x enough, or the

opposite. I am incredibly deserving, I am incredibly worthy, I am incredibly capable. The second one is our loveability. I had both of those, and they were both on the negative, right? No one's ever going to love me, nobody likes me, I'm going to be alone for the rest of my life. Those types of thoughts mixed in with the I'm not good enough caused me to keep ending up in these negative cyclical patterns and these toxic relationships. So there

are those two. The third one is about either hopelessness or helplessness. So like, I'm not capable of doing things, I can't do things on my own, the future is hopeless, so on and so forth. And so when we have these rigidly held beliefs about number one, ourself, number two, the world and number three, the future, around worth, lovability, or hope and helplessness, that is what causes our experience of life in general. Our entire experience of life comes down to these

primary beliefs. And then the secondary beliefs, which is the rules, assumptions, and the unconscious, kind of like manifestations of all of those. So if I believe I'm not good enough, if I have a rule, that the only way to be good enough is by making this amount of money and the assumption is, I can't do that, everything in your life is going to be filtered through that lens and you don't even realize it. And so you're always going to judge

yourself up against that. And that's what so many people get caught in. It's this belief that we don't realize that we have but that is the primary root of all of the problems that you have. That's how PTSD occurs. That's how major depression occurs. Anxiety, panic disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, borderline personality disorder, it all stems from the interpretation of the situations that we're experiencing, what they do to us, right? And like how we feel about it. And then what we do.

CBT. Just want to make sure that there's a distinction here. Nothing against the other thing, you know, but she's saying CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy. How do people work with you?

whatever. But what I really try to do is understand the person, who they are, give me your story, like, what are the things that you went through, what got you here? Because if I can understand what got you here, then I can work with you to uncover what is keeping you

here. What are the beliefs that you have developed over your life, that have caused you to be stuck in these very cyclical patterns that are causing you to not be able to move forward, to not be able to break whatever the like roadblock is that you're currently at?

limiting beliefs. It's technology, it's women in business, men in business, how to have, you know, adaptive functional teams, how to work with your teams, get clients, it's personal development, clinical psychology, entrepreneurship, big mix of things. But it's basically helping you to break free of the patterns holding you back and to evolve and to grow.

her Master's. So I love the approach, and on The MindShift Podcast, we always say that, we're here to talk about the journey from inspiration to realization and when life knocks us down from breakdown to breakthrough and you've just really colored that in for us today as it relates to your journey, and where your life was having some breakdowns. And then you talked just through the journey of discovery for yourself into the path of sort of enlightenment and that new Bianca that we're talking to

today. And now you're giving that back in the way that you serve the world. And so it's such an enlightening and beautiful story. So where can people connect with you offline or online?

incredible place. So the Facebook group, Evolve Venture Society or just Instagram and then follow the podcast.