Self-sabotage is behaving in ways that undermine what you know is good or appropriate and, when you violate your core values and current goals, priorities and responsibilities. Self-sabotage can be interrupted once you are aware of what triggers it and how it affects your wellbeing. The key to stop self-sabotage is developing the necessary Self-awareness to act powerfully and in alignment with your core values.
One prerequisite to stop self-sabotage is to know which part of you is doing it! Your saboteur is a rebellious and fearful inner child. As an adult you have the capacity to be rational and loving towards you and others. You also have a pre-rational/emotional self, your saboteur. Your adult Self is your true authority, powerful and wise enough to choose what is appropriate and healthy. Your adult Self can be understood as common sense. The emotional self is your ego identity, which is fragmented into conflicting parts having different functions and different needs. Your Self and your ego including all its parts make up the wholeness of you.
Self-sabotage happens when an ego part takes over the role of authority and acts like a tyrant. Ego makes unwise decisions based on its core emotional needs and core beliefs containing false information. Ego makes decisions based on feelings intending to avoid painful emotions.
To end sabotaging yourself requires knowing your core emotional needs and emotional wounds, knowing your core beliefs, knowing your core values and realizing what are your priorities.
First things first: core emotional needs are not negotiable, they must be satisfied or uneasiness persists!
There are two main sets of core ego needs: safety needs: security, comfort, nurturing, closeness, intimacy, care, satisfaction, all of which amount to being loved! And value needs: respect, confirmation, admiration and praise all of which amounts to being seen for who you are.
Safety and value are the needs of children and people who have not fully developed and mature into adulthood. An adult and mature person can satisfy their needs internally and can see himself or herself by being aware of their behavior. A child requires others to satisfy their needs and confirm their value. Adults can see and value themselves, a child can’t. An adult who is insecure and lacks self-confidence is identified with childhood self-images.
When a child has a core need that isn’t being fulfilled adequately they experience pain. Pain triggers fear, which triggers aggression, which is an act of survival. Human beings become aggressive in order to protect themselves from their experience of pain. The emotional pain of unfulfilled core needs become core emotional wounds over time. The deeper the pain of an emotional wound the stronger the aggression to protect from the pain. To participate in self-sabotage you have to access some internal aggression in order to override the control of other parts of you.
The relationship between core emotional needs and core beliefs is as follows: core beliefs are defense mechanisms designed to distract attention away from a core need that has been associated with pain. A belief is a necessary interpretation to make sense of a reoccurring experience. For instance, I’m 5 years old and I need my father to admire me. He consistently ignores me or instead of praising me he is critical of me. The pain of not being ignored or judged becomes my core belief/feeling “I’m not good enough”. This core negative belief/feeling then becomes the trigger for behaving in ways that, I as a 5 year old, believe will get me the positive attention I desperately need.
The first problem (ignored until you confront your core beliefs as an adult) is the falseness of most core beliefs. This is the source of self-deception: believing something that is false. Judging a person against some standard is not a measure of their self-worth. Your inherent worth is being you, not what you do and how you do it or what you have and how much of it you have.
The second problem is most core beliefs generate painful emotional states such as insecurity, fear and worry, self-doubt, self-hatred, shame, guilt and humiliation. The outcome of core beliefs is withdrawing attention from satisfying the needs for safety and value. Instead attention goes to performing to get confirmation of your value or performing to get the feeling of safety.
When a core belief makes you contract into painful emotional reactivity it does not hold truth. The truth about you relaxes and expands you and this is what experiencing safety feels like. Feeling safe feels good!
The third and most difficult problem is core beliefs generate a false identity of positive and negative self-images. There is nothing harmful about having a self-image except when you mistake it for the authentic real you.
“I’m not good enough” is a negative core belief that maintains a negative self-image such as “I’m a loser” or “I’m not lovable”. These hurt and drive us to cover them up with positive self-images such as “I’m helpful” or “I’m clever”. Your positive self-images are what you need others to believe about you. Do you attempt to act only in ways that prove you are good while internally you believe you are not? Or Do you act like a bad boy in order to prove you don’t deserve love? This conflict leads to self-sabotage. When enough pain accumulates by the core negative belief the negative self-image takes over. Once you are identified with a negative self-image you are compelled to act in ways that prove you are bad. This is how you engage in self-sabotage.
Summary: the pain of a core negative belief drives people to act out positive and negative self-images. Acting out suppresses awareness of the pain of an unfulfilled core emotional need. Self-sabotage is a primitive and ineffective way to feel deserving of something good or feeling safe by avoiding something uncomfortable. Self-sabotage is self-manipulation and it is stressful and unfulfilling.
Overcoming self-sabotage requires maturing and healing your childhood emotional wounds. Wounds are the triggers for painful habits. The willingness to take responsibility for how you behave is a step towards full maturity. Choosing to stop participating in behavior that injures you and undermines your potential is a movement towards wellbeing and inner peace.
Self-sabotage is driven by impulses for immediate gratification. The need for pleasure is triggered by unconscious pain generated by unconscious beliefs. Self-sabotage hurts and this hurt is lesser than the pain it distracts you from. Discovering your core beliefs reveals the unhealthy need for excessive gratification.
Emotional wounds are painful memories of interacting with authority figures that lacked the capacity to adequately take care of you. Self-sabotage are different behaviors attempting to avoid some deeper pain that parts of you are afraid to confront.
For a lasting resolution to your past you need to let go of your self-images. Learn to identify with actual qualities of being such as courage, lovingness, compassion, caring, happiness, joy, strength, power, peace, intelligence etc. This shift in identity from your ego to the wholeness of your being brings an effortless capacity to become what is needed internally, in real time. In other words, rather than avoid a difficult situation by engaging in self-destructive behavior, choose to summon the quality required to embrace the situation with intelligent common sense. For example, instead of avoiding a confrontation by acting cowardly (identified with fear), choose to have the confrontation by being courageous.
Embracing difficulties will systematically dissolve your self-imposed limitations. These are all the beliefs you believe about what you are not capable to do, have or be, everything you believe you do not deserve and everything you believe is impossible for you to accomplish.
Limiting beliefs are inadequate attempts to protect you from experiencing failure and the pain associated with it. Self-imposed limitations are triggered by the habit of self-judgments learned from parents. Your self-judgments are designed to generate pain in the form of fear, shame, guilt and humiliation. In this weaken condition you are easily manipulated and controlled by a part of you who believes this is the only way to be safe.
Your core values are the standards by which you can choose moment to moment, what is an appropriate response to a situation. Your core values determine the goals you pursue in your quest for fulfillment. Once your goals and values are clear, it is easy to know what takes priority when there seem to be conflicting choices.
1-Make an honest inventory of all of the ways you sabotage yourself. List your unhealthy habits for instance: procrastination, lack of boundaries with others, self-doubt, self-judgments, any addiction including over and under-eating, alcohol, cigarettes, pornography, excessive need for entertainment, gossip, fighting etc.
2-Identify what core beliefs drive you to act this way by asking yourself: What do I believe is true in order to behave this way?
3-Discover what emotional needs you are attempting to satisfy with these behaviors by asking open-ended questions such as: Why do I doubt myself? My personal answer is because I’m afraid to make a mistake and be punished.
4-Inquire into the rational and logical assumptions and check for its validity. For example, is it true that making mistakes deserve punishment? Who decides if I deserve punishment now?
Choose the kind of person you intent to become. Designing a list of core values that describe the qualities of being you know are important to you and discover why. From where you are right now, what are the appropriate goals to address your current challenges in health, relationships, work, and life style? What are the priorities that will bring more inner peace, well-being and fulfillment to your life now? Choose to trust in your Self and become a more mature version of you. How can you care and love you in a more responsible sustainable way?
Written by Osiris Montenegro
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