i need to survive myself because my self sabotage is the only trap worth avoiding, and everything else i will chalk up to living life on life’s terms. – the poetry bandit
Move within. But don’t move the way fear makes you move. – Rumi
Self sabotage keeps coming up in my conversations lately. Three times in one week. And I always, always reflect deeply when something comes up that often in such succession. It’s as if Spirit or the Universe is tapping me on the shoulder and saying, “Hey, there’s something over here, take a closer look.”
Of course, when I look, I usually find more than I bargained for, such as the ways I do the very things, which I’m being asked to look at. Luckily, my curiosity surpassed my own fear in this instance.
You know when you find every reason in the world not to start something or finish something, fear is at work behind the scenes. While we may be aware that we’re afraid, we can’t quite figure out why. We want this thing we are trying to start or finish, right? So, then why don’t we just go for it? So, why do we sabotage ourselves? Because there’s something more sinister and unconscious behind the fear.
Not all fears are alike. The fear that engenders self sabotage is the fear of being humiliated, of being shamed or criticized or blamed. And the fear of humiliation is the progenitor, the source, the root cause of self sabotage. It’s the Darth Vader of self sabotage. It’s the Dark Side–heavy and dark and threatening, but not invincible.
The pattern this particular kind of fear creates is an adaptive one; it’s one where we turn the unpleasantness of a situation where we anticipate being humiliated into one in which we can cope, so we escape, we self soothe, before the incident ever happens, and voilà, we never start or finish what we really want.
The key here is that by anticipating what might happen (catastrophic thinking), instead of forging ahead bravely (knowing it’s just a projection of our minds) and being open to the possibility of failure (because that’s how we learn), we become attached to soothing ourselves before anything actually happens. We all have ways of self soothing (cookies work really well) or escaping (even laundry becomes a convenient escape) or distracting ourselves (by being too busy or getting lost in the details or perfecting our blog :)).
Here’s how this unconscious pattern emerges: a child takes a cookie without permission and as punishment is humiliated in front of her siblings by her parents in some way (I am not laying blame here, just offering an example). She runs away and hides. Then, much later, as an adult, whenever she is faced with, or even anticipates, humiliation, she withdraws and eats way too many sugary treats. However, she doesn’t make the connection between her feeling of humiliation and her need to escape or overeat. She unconsciously associates pleasure or self soothing with her fear, so anytime she gets triggered, she naturally follows her impulse to self soothe. That’s how self-sabotage holds us hostage.
When you understand the source of your fear and how you cope with it unconsciously, you can reframe it. When you become aware of the unconscious behavior, you can begin to anticipate it, see it coming, and choose something else before it takes hold that moves you toward your goal of getting what you truly want. Be compassionate and patient with yourself as it will take time to break this pattern; after all, you’ve been living with it for a long time. But each time you see it for what it is, and choose differently, you walk toward the light instead of the darkness. Be brave. The Force will be with you….
A big thank you to Mike Bundrant from the iNLP Center for his insightful blog posts on psychological attachment: http://inlpcenter.org/psychological-attachments/ and fear of failure: http://blogs.psychcentral.com/nlp/2015/11/psychological-trap-behind-fear-of-failure/.
And a special note of gratitude to the friends and clients, whose curiosity about self sabotage, inspired me to write this, and to Grace Kraaijvanger of the Hivery for inspiring us to face our fears and be brave.
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