The Four Hidden Barriers
Uncover the four unconscious fears and false beliefs from childhood that keep your Upper Limit Problem locked in place
The Four Hidden Barriers are unconscious fears and false beliefs formed in early life that hold the Upper Limit Problem in place. Each barrier creates a specific mantra that limits how much success, love, and creativity a person allows themselves to experience.
Barrier 1 is Feeling Fundamentally Flawed: the belief that something is essentially wrong with you, which makes any expansion of good feeling create cognitive dissonance. Barrier 2 is Disloyalty and Abandonment: the fear that expanding to your full potential will cause you to leave behind or betray people from your past. Barrier 3 is Believing More Success Brings a Bigger Burden: the conviction that you are already a burden on others and that more success will make you an even bigger one. Barrier 4 is The Crime of Outshining: the fear that your brilliance will make someone from your past look or feel bad.
All four barriers share a common quality: although they feel true and real, they are based on beliefs about yourself that are neither true nor real. The invisible crimes for which you were convicted in childhood had nothing to do with you. Shining awareness on these barriers dissolves them.
- The barriers are based on beliefs that feel true but are not actually true
- The crimes you were convicted of in childhood were crimes that existed only in your parents' or siblings' imagination
- Most people have one or two dominant barriers, rarely all four
- The barriers dissolve when you shine the light of awareness on them
- Each barrier creates a specific unconscious mantra that limits your expansion
- Removing the guilt of crimes you did not commit liberates you from the main triggers of the Upper Limit Problem
- 1. Barrier 1: Feeling Fundamentally FlawedExamine whether you carry a deep, old feeling that something is wrong, bad, or flawed about you. The mantra is: 'I cannot expand to my full creative genius because something is fundamentally wrong with me.' When you surpass your thermostat setting, a voice says you should not be this happy because you are fundamentally flawed. This creates cognitive dissonance between your current experience and your self-image. Trace this feeling to the specific early-life situation where someone convicted you of a crime you did not commit.Pro tipThis barrier brings a related fear: that even your genius is flawed, and if you expressed it fully, it would not be good enough. This tells you to play it safe and stay small.WarningThe invisible crime had nothing to do with you. A parent or caregiver projected their own pain onto you. You were innocent then and you are innocent now.
- 2. Barrier 2: Disloyalty and AbandonmentExamine whether you fear that expanding to your full success would cause you to end up alone, be disloyal to your roots, or leave behind people from your past. The mantra is: 'I cannot expand to my full success because it would cause me to end up all alone, be disloyal to my roots, and leave behind people from my past.' Ask yourself: Did I break my family's spoken or unspoken rules to get where I am? Even though I am successful, did I fail to meet the expectations my parents had of me?Pro tipThis barrier often shows up as guilt about having more education, money, or opportunity than your family of origin.WarningLoyalty to your roots does not require you to limit your potential. True loyalty honors your origins by becoming the fullest expression of who you are.
- 3. Barrier 3: Believing More Success Brings a Bigger BurdenExamine whether you carry the belief that you are already a burden and that more success would make you an even bigger one. The mantra is: 'I cannot expand to my highest potential because I would be an even bigger burden than I am now.' This often originates from being an unexpected or unwanted addition to a family, or from circumstances where your arrival created hardship for caregivers.Pro tipThe pattern manifests as having a big positive breakthrough followed immediately by feeling you are a burden on the world. The world may even seem to confirm this feeling.WarningThe conviction of being a burden was placed on you before you could walk or talk. You could not have been guilty of a crime committed before you existed.
- 4. Barrier 4: The Crime of OutshiningExamine whether you hold yourself back from full success because you fear it would make someone from your past look or feel bad. The mantra is: 'I must not expand to my full success because if I did I would outshine someone and make them look or feel bad.' This is especially common among gifted and talented children who received a subliminal message not to shine too brightly. Common solutions include turning down your genius volume or continuing to shine but turning down your enjoyment of it.Pro tipIf you appear to be suffering despite your success, you get empathy instead of jealousy from others. This is an unconscious strategy to manage this barrier.WarningAsk yourself if you are afraid your success will steal attention from someone who was led to believe they need it more. The answer often reveals the root of this barrier.
Hendricks identified these four barriers through hundreds of clinical sessions and coaching conversations. He discovered that every person he worked with had at least one of these barriers, sometimes two or three, but never all four. He personally struggled with barriers two and three, having grown up without a father and being seen as both a burden and a celebration by different family members.