Self-Sabotage

22 May Self-Sabotage

What does it even mean, and where does it stem from?

It sounds quite intellectual, but it’s not.
It’s basically when we do things that block our success and prevent good things happening in our lives.
For some of us this happens a lot, for others not so much. We know when we are doing it, because our inner voice is screaming at us, NOT to make those poor choices. E.G., having that extra drink, eating the wrong food, going out with that particular group of people, which we know, always ends badly.
We are aware we’re doing it, and yet we still choose to ignore it – and that’s it right there:
You have just encountered Self Sabotage.

I believe it can only exist in a place where we are not valuing who we are, that it only happens because we are not recognising, let alone giving ourselves what we need. In other words, it arises from a lack of self-love.

Where this love exists, there is no place for self-sabotage.

So, how do we as survivors love ourselves to the point where we stop impacting our lives with the poor choices we make?

One of the ways that we can start is to remember that our self-love (yes, we still have it), is in there somewhere. We just buried it deeply to protect ourselves.

Knowing that is the case, how do we then begin the journey from:

1. Lack of self-love; shown in
2. Bad experiences caused by
3. Bad choices, which all stems from
4. How we view ourselves

What worked for me, was recognising, and breaking it down layer by layer as described above. My choices were in direct relation to how I saw myself and what I felt I deserved.
What I began to do was to value myself a little more which meant that the choices I made began to reflect that.
Was it easy? Did it happen organically?
No, but what helped me was being a mother. I could happily (during recovery and healing), place no value on myself, but I couldn’t and wouldn’t let anything negative impact my children.

It hit me one day, that as I had little people watching my every move, I had to value myself, so that they could in turn value themselves. Because the one thing we KNOW about children is that they will do what we do, not so much what we say.

I began to invest in my self-care and began noticing my self-talk. It surprised me how critical I was of myself.  Once I became aware of that, I began to focus on how I treated myself when I made mistakes. That was quite shocking, as my reactions were either minimising or strongly rejecting how I really felt. Slowly, I started to notice what my behaviour was showing me, and then I changed it, painfully at times, and only ever, one step at a time.

This is available to you as well, in other words: you can too.

Do not for one moment think that you are unable to proceed with living the life you wish you had or feel you should have. That is just your mind feeding you negative and repetitive messaging. Part of the journey begins, as mentioned, with how we speak to ourselves in other words, our self-talk. That is where you could begin the process of ending your relationship with the saboteur within you.

An easy start is to notice the words you are telling yourself, start to challenge if they are critical or unkind. What may help is to notice that over 96% of your thoughts are either negative or unhelpful, and that you (Like most of us), probably listen to them and believe them 100% of the time?

You can begin to take charge of your self-talk and subsequent thinking, actions and then your life?

How do I know this? Because I was once where you are.