Breaking the Board

So I promised you a recap about how I broke a wooden board with my bare hands. Well one hand to be specific!

I'm not sure I can adequately walk you through the details of it so I'll give you a brief overview. Basically we spent about an hour preparing for the actual act. We mentally prepared (James walked us through the act and we watched movie clips (Braveheart, The Edge).

James told us about other people who had succeeded - people like a 65+ year old woman with arthritic hands so crippled she couldn't open them. Or the quadriplegic who couldn't even lift his own arm.

They all broke their boards.

And they did it because they followed James' instructions exactly. He said that if we did exactly as he told us to do, anyone could do this. And he was right.

Now that we were mentally prepared,we began the emotional / spiritual preparation by writing down a limiting belief we currently hold on one side of the board.

And on the other side, we wrote a new and supportive belief we were going to replace the limiting belief with. My belief was around the financial and relational pillars of my life and I replaced it with a much more supportive and empowering one. ;)

And once we were ready with our boards, James called on a woman to come up on stage and break her board.

She worked at it so hard - too hard in fact, she rattled herself out her initial focus. She tried several times but couldn't do it. James helped her realign her mental and physical focus. She was a trooper! The entire 750+ crowd cheered her on. We were all standing, cheering and clapping - urging her to keep at it.

Finally she did!! She broke her board and the crowd went wild. I cheered for her as though I were in her shoes. It was the most exhilarating feeling!

And then we were on to do it ourselves. Every pump-up theme song you can imagine was blaring through the speakers throughout the conference room. People were jumping up and down with energy.

I watched others break their boards and mentally held fast to that picture. I didn't see anyone who struggled because those pictures weren't allowed to stay in my mind.

For several minutes, I held my board and touched it. I saw the limiting belief and lasered my focus to the other side. I was going to push through this belief and let it escape from my mind forever.

The time was approaching.

As people moved through the line and broke their boards, we all cheered, clapped and roared each time another belief was released! You could physically feel the energy change with each board break.

After waiting, cheering and excitedly channeling my anxiety, it was my turn. I did just as James said: I stormed over to my board holder, gave him my board and took my stance.

Next I narrowed my eyes to only see my limiting belief, then I looked through. In an instant, I had pushed my hand through the board and it splintered in half.

For a moment, I stood in awe. I had done it! I could barely believe it. In fact, I didn't believe it for at least 15 seconds. And then my friends behind me roared!!! I jumped up and pumped my fist in a celebration I had only before imagined possible.

I hugged my board holder and ran to the other side of the room where I found my friend Kimberley and we jumped up and down hugging each other, laughing, cheering and crying.

After a few minutes, we went back to our lines and cheered for everyone else
It truly was one of the most empowering moments of my life. It is something I will draw upon time after time.

And that was another lesson for us - the board break was a reference for us to hold in our subconscious for those future moments when we wonder if we can do something.

Yes I have doubts, anxiety and sometimes I waffle but now I have another experience to draw from. Truthfully if you had asked me earlier on Friday if I could ever break a wood board with my bare hand I would've said you were crazy. Now I know better!

I can do it and so can anyone else...all we have to do is follow in the footsteps of our predecessors and do what they did.