The Mountain Is You: Transforming Self-Sabotage Into Self-Mastery

by Brianna Wiest

The objective of being human is to grow. We see this reflected back to us in every part of life.

The fact that you are imperfect is not a sign that you have failed; it is a sign that you are human, and more importantly, it is a sign that you still have more potential within you.

sabotage is what happens when we refuse to consciously meet our innermost needs, often because we do not believe we are capable of handling them.

When we self-sabotage, it is often because we have a negative association between achieving the goal we aspire to and being the kind of person who has or does that thing.

What you believe about your life is what you will make true about your life.

To truly heal, you are going to have to change the way you think. You are going to have to become very conscious of negative and false beliefs and start shifting to a mindset that actually serves you.

The greatest act of self-love is to no longer accept a life you are unhappy with. It is to be able to state the problem plainly and in a straightforward manner.

Rock bottom becomes a turning point because it is only at that point that most people think: I never want to feel this way again.

Instead, releasing resistance requires us to refocus. We have to get clear on what we want as well as when and why we want it. We have to identify unconscious beliefs that are preventing us from showing up, and then we have to step back into the work when we feel inspired. Wanting is the entryway to showing up after resistance.

Instead of shocking yourself into big changes, allow yourself to slowly adjust and adapt. By taking it slow, you are allowing yourself to gradually reinstate a new comfort zone around what you want your life to be. Over time, you gradually shift your baseline to a new standard.

Stop accepting your own excuses. Stop being complacent with your own justifications. Start quantifying your days by how many healthy, positive things you accomplished, and you will see how quickly you begin to make progress.

when we are self-sabotaging through disorganization, it is because when we are very clean or organized, we get an uneasy feeling.

It is very hard to show up as the person you want to be when you are surrounded by an environment that makes you feel like a person you aren’t.

We are making decisions based on how we imagine people view our lives, not how they actually are. This is not only inaccurate, but it is also very unhealthy.

People will respect you far more if you can acknowledge that you are an imperfect person—like everyone else—learning, adapting, and trying your best.

There is a difference between failing because you are trying something new and daring, and failing because you are not showing up, doing the work, or being responsible for your actions.

Life tends to gradually get better as we keep working on it; it only gets worse if we accomplish something then shut down because we are intimidated by our own power.

It’s true that so much of our lives is shaped by the people we spend them with, and the company you keep is another common way that people self-sabotage.

You start to let go on the day you take one step

toward building a new life and then let yourself lie in bed and stare at the ceiling and cry for as many hours as you need.

You can only move on if you start building something new.

You let go when you build a new life so immersive and engaging and exciting, you slowly, over time, forget about the past.

Our hearts work the same way as our minds in this regard. As long as we are telling ourselves that we must let go, the more deeply we feel attached. So don’t tell yourself to let go. Instead, tell yourself that you can cry for as long as you need.

But take one step today, and another tomorrow, to rebuild a new life for yourself. Piece by piece, day by day. Because sooner or later, you’re going to go an hour and realize you didn’t think about them or it. Then a day, then a week…and then years and swaths of your life drift by and everything you thought would break you becomes a distant memory, something you look back at and smile.

We weren’t broken by a breakup; we were broken by wanting love that wasn’t right for us.

We weren’t devastated by a loss; we were devastated because we wanted, so badly, for that person or thing to remain in our lives.

What we don’t realize is that we have to sort of free ourselves from it so that we can go forth and create it in real time.

Imagine sitting next to your younger self as they got their heart broken and giving them very specific instructions about why this is absolutely for

the best and although they cannot know it yet, there is another relationship out there that is far, far better. Imagine sitting next to your younger self when they felt really down and giving them the exact instructions regarding what they need to do to feel better: who they need to call, where they need to go, what they need to begin doing, and what they need to stop doing.

Most importantly, imagine telling your younger self that absolutely everything—yes, everything—is going to be okay. That their fears are largely unfounded, that good things are com...

You can stop holding onto the old life in which you were required to be someone you inherently are not.

Instead of longing for what we didn’t get then, we have to release ourselves from the past and start putting our energy into building that experience right now.

You were a healthy person who went through something traumatic and responded accordingly.

The fact that you can still recall what happened is a signal that you’re healthier than you think, more willing to heal than you realize, and more forgiving than you ever imagined you could be. Everything that’s haunted you is rising in your consciousness so you can see it and bow out with grace. You are not the person you were, even if all those pieces are still very much a part of you.

You change your life when you start doing the truly scary thing, which is showing up exactly as you are.

We must be brave and confront our discomfort, sit with it even if it churns our stomachs and pinches our faces and makes us certain we will never find a way out. (We will.) We must listen to what’s wrong, feel it, move through it, allow it to be.

When you start showing up as exactly who you are, you start radically changing your life.

There is nothing that you can do to win someone or something that is not meant to be yours.

You can wait forever. What isn’t right for you will never remain in your life.

The truth is that what is right for you will come to you and stay with you and won’t stray from you for long.

The truth is that when something is right for you, it brings you clarity, and when something is wrong for you, it brings you confusion.

The truth is that what is not right for you will never remain with you.

Sometimes, it pulls away from us what is wrong for us when we are not willing to see it for ourselves.

Because the truth is that we do not want what is not right for us; we are simply attached to it. We are simply afraid. We are simply stuck in the assumption that nothing better will replace it, that its absence will open up a well of endless,

We do not want what is not right for us; we are just scared to let go of what we believe will make us secure.

What is not right for you will never remain in your life, and not because there are forces beyond us navigating the minutiae of our everyday lives.

Trauma is the experience of disconnecting from a fundamental feeling of safety. Unless you are able to reestablish that connection, a particularly destructive bias distorts your worldview:

Recovery comes down to something very simple, which is restoring the feeling of one’s safety.

we are traumatized by a relationship, we restore the feeling of safety by working on other healthy, safe relationships.

Healing requires you to go through the full expression of every emotion that you cut off and buried when you decided you were no longer comfortable with it. Healing requires you to face every ounce of darkness within you, because just beneath what appears to be an impermeable barrier is complete, radical, total freedom.