The truth about sabotage
Whether you’ve failed your latest diet or find yourself pouring an extra glass of wine in the evening, that feeling of self-sabotage is frustrating and I’m going to show you why you do it.
One of the biggest problems, is lots of people have good intentions to change, yet they fail because they’re continuing to live their life under modern-day stress such as a never-ending to-do list and massive expectations from society.
We live in a world bursting with unhealthy habits of stress, reactivity, impulsivity, self-pity, furious overthinking and defensiveness, and these very behaviours themselves lead us to believe that we’re flawed or perhaps not good enough - let’s be frank, these feelings aren’t nice to feel, so it becomes a habit to avoid them through often destructive and sabotaging behaviours, whether that’s to yourself, your relationships, your work, or your family.
What comes to mind when you read the word sabotage?
Usually, my clients refer to sabotage as things they ‘do’, which are often uncomfortable, to ‘screw’ things up. In some sense, this is true, but before the ‘doing’ is actioned, there comes a series of subconscious events, and this is what I am going to refer to through this article as I show you why it’s important to rehearse a different way to existence.
For survival, our brains are engineered for us to crave and consume (think Pavlov’s dogs here), or to put it simply reward-based learning, which involves a trigger (e.g. hunger), followed by a behaviour (eating), and a reward (feeling sated). Naturally, we want more of the things which feel good and less of the things which feel bad.
So why do we mess things up when they’re going good?
The truth is, to get back to safety.
So, stay with me here.
When you were born, you were a clear bundle of energy with a brain like a sponge so you can absorb the world around you. The first 7 years of your life, were similar to living in a hypnotic trance, which made it easier for you to be suggestable to beliefs that gave you an impression of who you are, what you can achieve, and what type of person you should be. These impressions aren’t always going to be supportive and positive, especially for where you are trying to get to now.
Now these first 7 years, we don’t get the choice.
Even if we had the best role models around us, we all require unhealthy beliefs which continue to form habits and patterns in the world around us.
So the first step here is to acknowledge that even with the most perfect childhood with wonderful happy memories, there will be beliefs entrenched deep in your subconscious believing they are keeping you safe, but perhaps invisibly limiting how you’re experiencing your life and stopping your much-needed self-control to change.
These beliefs form how we feel and how we behave, and most of the time, this process is happening automatically beneath our conscious awareness.
Ever wondered why you always get sick just before a big presentation?
Or why you keep pushing people away when they get close?
It’s a pattern you developed a long time ago, to keep you safe.
Your subconscious is sending off alerts and triggers that tell your mind you’re out of your depth, or not worthy or you’ll get found out, which then sets off behaviours (whether consciously or unconsciously) to sabotage what you are wanting to achieve.
This is why it’s often difficult to see the root of the problem, behaviour, or experience, and you might find yourself asking ‘why does this keep happening to me’, or saying ‘Why do I keep attracting this kind of relationship into my life’.
We need to release the limits or the block and reparent the subconscious to believe it’s safe for what you are wanting to experience in life.
I help you bring awareness to these beliefs so you can create the choice to let them go and ultimately, release the subtle habits of dissatisfaction, avoidance and worrying, which have the ‘habit’ *excuse the pun* of screwing up relationships, work and sometimes the meaning of life.
Want to read more about this?
I love and highly recommend the book ‘The Big Leap’ by Gay Hendricks. He refers to the ‘sabotage’ here, as the upper-limit problem and it’s a practical read to see how this plays out in your life.
Want to take action?
Write a list of all the things you tell yourself you SHOULD be doing
Then write another list of all the reasons you tell yourself why you’re NOT doing them
Put your inquisitive hat on - what evidence have you got to believe these reasons are true?
