I have been writing a lot about self sabotage lately, but I haven’t answered the important question, Why are you sabotaging your life?
I’ve described what self sabotage looks like and talked about how emotions from your past are the root cause of self sabotage.
This still leaves an important question unanswered: why.
Keep reading for answers.
Isn’t self sabotage painful?
If you are sabotaging your life, you know that this behavior causes you a lot of pain and distress. Self sabotage keeps you from living the life you dream about.
You would think if something was causing you so much pain you would stop as quick as possible. But, you don’t.
Many of us keep repeating behaviors that don’t serve us and keep us from creating our best life. There are two main reasons you keep sabotaging your life.
Reason 1: You are avoiding something worse
Self sabotage may be covering up an even more painful emotion. You are probably not conscious of these deeper painful emotions. You buried them long ago.
This explains why you might start feeling nervous at the thought of ending self sabotage. If you aren’t feeling your normal level of distress, you might find yourself feeling something worse.
If you let yourself feel these unbearable emotions, you believe you won’t be able to function. You might believe you will die.
What are these unbearable emotions?
- Sadness so deep it will swallow you
- Fear so strong you will be paralyzed
- Loneliness that has no end
- A sense that life is completely meaningless
- Fear that you will come face to face with past traumas
There are others. You may have buried your own personal demons.
At some point in the past, you decided – consciously or unconsciously – that self sabotage was a better option than feeling all that pain.
Reason 2: You are in a self sabotage trance
When I use the word trance, you might think of a hypnotist putting someone in a trance, but I am talking about something different.
Stephen Wolinsky, author Trances People Live: Healing Approaches in Quantum Psychology (1991), tells us, “Most of us automatically (or “unconsciously”) recreate states of consciousness from the past as trance phenomena in the present.” When you are in these trances from childhood traumas, you are unable to use any of your adult resources. You are trapped in emotions from the past.
There are many trances that limit you:
- Self sabotage trance
- I can’t make money trance
- I can’t lose weight trance
- I’m not good enough trance
- And so on…
You created these trances at a young age to protect yourself. At the time this may have worked. Unfortunately, you forgot to stop when you grew up and your life changed.
Now, these trances seem normal and you can’t imagine life without them.
So, what can you do?
No matter why you are sabotaging your life the solution is the same. You need to release the past so you can live in the present moment.
Paul Sheele of Learning Strategies, tells us that personal development is not about putting people into trances, but it is a process of coming out of the trances that limit us.
By living in the present moment, you can create the life you want.
The poetry of emotion process can help
This is a three step process that helps you release painful emotions without reliving past traumas. You will be working with emotional memories that are stored deep in your unconscious mind. Most of us find emotional memories easier to tolerate.
You already have everything you need to release the past. The poetry of emotion process takes you on a journey to discover resources you may have forgotten about. These are the positive emotions you need in order to heal.
To read more, click on “Are you new to the site?”
Why do you think you are sabotaging your life?
(Image: Eric @ Flickr)
