Catch and Release: The Power of Shedding Limiting Beliefs
I paddle my kayak up to a mangrove island and park in the shade, casting out.
Heaven.
I’ve come with others to kayak and fish, and I’m super excited. My hope is to catch redfish and snapper for us to enjoy for dinner. I’ll be hailed as a hero.
I am using shrimp and darn if I don’t catch a big catfish right off the bat. The ecstasy of reeling against a strong pull is instantly changed to heartbreak.
I look around for my husband, my son-in-law—anyone!
With the hooked fish dangling in the water, I paddle to the end of the mangroves to see around them. No kayaks in sight. Panic. Who is going to take the blasted catfish off my line?!
You see, unlike any other fish, I can’t take a hook out of a catfish’s mouth. I don’t mean “I can’t” because I’ve tried before and failed…I mean I’m not allowed to.
This rule goes back to when I was a child growing up in rural Florida. I was one of the last free-range children. My brothers were much older and both out of the house by the time I was seven. There were no neighborhood kids to play with because… there was no neighborhood.
So while my dad was at work and my mom was inside (out of the Florida heat), I’d roam. I’d roam the woods and especially the back twenty acres where there was a lake. I had what barely passed for a fishing pole, but I learned to kick-splash minnows up to the shore and grab one to bait my hook.
I spent countless hours down there by myself, fishing and catching enough brim and bass to keep it interesting. But all the fun would come to a screeching halt if I happened to catch a catfish. I was not allowed to unhook a catfish, throw it back, and keep on fishing.
The whiskers on a catfish—they are actually not the problem. It’s their three sharp spines on the top and side fins. When you hold a catfish in one hand and then use your other hand to remove the hook, it’s easy to get spiked by a spine, puncturing your skin and hurting. So my daddy was being protective when he told me not to even try, but to wait until he got home from work and he’d do it for me. Well, if I caught a catfish at 3 o’clock, I’d have to sit with it dangling in the water until six! Then I’d run up to the house and fetch my dad. So I did not like it when a catfish snagged my minnow, no sir.
The funny thing is, I only realized the other day the absurdity.
My dad’s rule protecting me? What about the fact I was allowed to roam around by myself for hours without my mother being able to see where I was? I mean…what could be dangerous about that? The woods in Florida only have harmless black snakes…mostly…only a few times did I come across a coral snake or a rattlesnake.
And down by the lake? Why, I never actually saw an alligator, except that one time, and it was real little. And I’d been taught that water moccasins have cotton mouths, so when I saw one of those, I knew it was not just a friendly black snake.
So here I am, a twig-like little barefoot girl, jumping over snakes and climbing 50-foot-high Australian pine trees, growing my creative neuro-synapses like crazy from being fed so much free time…
But the law is the law. Do not touch a catfish.
So I’m in my kayak, looking behind mangrove islands, trying to find my dad—I mean my husband—to unhook the catfish so I can keep fishing. I’d planned to be out here all morning! That was the whole point of this trip! And my fun was ruined in five minutes!
And then a flashback happens. Literally…in a flash, I’m back in time as twig-girl, watching my dad with his pliers, releasing a catfish.
I turn around in my kayak seat to reach into my tackle box. I grab some needle-nose pliers. I lean over the side and with my left hand, I grab the line down about a foot above the fish’s mouth and lift him out of the water. With my right hand, I grab his lip with the pliers to pull him close, then slip the pliers around the hook. With a twist and shake, he’s free and falls backwards into the water and heads for the mangrove.
I put away my pliers, and my obsolete limiting belief, and keep on fishing.
* * *
Did conquering that catfish change my life? Well, yes, because it’s such undeniable proof that I was living my life based on that lie about my capability, which means there are almost certainly more of the same irrational and limiting beliefs stuck to my brain like barnacles.
Let’s look at what you know you cannot do, and see if that’s a lie.
Wait! You may feel an urge right now to leave. Your mind is telling you to scroll to something else, or to check your phone, or get something to drink.
This is the machinery of the mind. It hates the notion that being right has any vulnerable spot. Those set-in-stone things like beliefs, opinions, and risk-averse decisions have sufficed and need not be messed with, the mind emphatically says.
Just for two minutes, do your best to turn off the machinery or distance yourself from it so you have the space to consider something unusual.
Write down three things that somewhere along the line you decided you cannot do, things that at some moment in time you considered doing, but then decided no. It may not at first look like it was your decision; it may seem that you tried and failed, or found out you have no aptitude, or that it felt way too risky. Often, it’s something that someone else told you that you could not or should not attempt. Just think of three things, big or small, perhaps from an early age.
Once you have three things written down, ask yourself two questions about each: 1) When did you decide this was something you were not going to try again? 2) What justifications have you found for that decision?
That’s all. It’s a simple exercise. Now you can determine if what you “know” about yourself is a choice or a lie.
More in-depth inquiry:
Who told you no?
Why did they do that?
What are more of your limiting beliefs? Look at every place you sense there is a ceiling above you or an anchor below you, holding you in a defined space.
Just focus on being aware of these. There is nothing to do about these today, just enjoy the enlightening practice of questioning the machinery of your own mind. This builds your muscle of thinking for yourself. Freedom from limiting thoughts can be yours!
All you need to do is catch yourself acting on a limiting belief, and release it.
Catch and release.
