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July 28 - September 18, 2024
Self-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.
For most people, the abstract fear is really a representation of a legitimate fear. Because it would be too scary to actually dwell on the real fear, we project those feelings onto issues or circumstances that are less likely to occur. If the situation has an extremely low likelihood of becoming reality, it therefore becomes a “safe” thing to worry about, because subconsciously, we already know it isn’t going to happen. Therefore, we have an avenue to express our feelings without actually endangering ourselves.
Maybe you aren’t really a pessimist but don’t know how to connect with the people in your life other than by complaining to them.
as soon as our circumstances extend beyond the amount of happiness we’re accustomed to, we find ways both conscious and unconscious to bring ourselves back to a feeling we’re comfortable with. We are programmed to seek what we’ve known. Even though we think we’re after happiness, we’re actually trying to find whatever we’re most used to.
What you believe about your life is what you will make true about your life. That’s why it’s so crucial to be aware of these outdated narratives and have the courage to change them. Maybe you have gone through the majority of your life believing that a standard $50K per year salary at a decent company is the most you’ll ever be capable of. Maybe you’ve spent so many years telling yourself: “I am an anxious person,” you started to actually identify with it, adopting anxiety and fear into your belief system about who you fundamentally are.
Maybe that’s why you prefer the comfort of what you’ve known to the vulnerability of what you don’t, why you prefer apathy to excitement, think that suffering makes you more worthy, or believe that for every good thing in life, there must also be an accompanying “bad.” 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 first step in healing anything is taking full accountability. It is no longer being in denial about the honest truth of your life and yourself. It does not matter what your life looks like on the outside; it is how you feel about it on the inside. It is not okay to be constantly stressed, panicked, and unhappy. Something is wrong, and the longer you try to “love yourself” out of realizing this, the longer you are going to suffer. 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.
If you know that change needs to be made in your life, it is okay if you are far away from your goal or if you cannot yet conceive how you will arrive. It is okay if you are starting at the beginning. It is okay if you are at rock bottom and cannot yet see your way through. It is okay if you are at the foot of your mountain and have failed every time you’ve tried to overcome it. Rock bottom is very often where we begin on our healing journey.
We reach a breaking point when we finally accept that the problem isn’t how the world is; it is how we are.
If you really want to change your life, let yourself be consumed with rage: not toward others, not with the world, but within yourself.
Your new life is going to cost you your old one. It’s going to cost you your comfort zone and your sense of direction. It’s going to cost you relationships and friends. It’s going to cost you being liked and understood. It doesn’t matter. The people who are meant for you are going to meet you on the other side. You’re going to build a new comfort zone around the things that actually move you forward. Instead of being liked, you’re going to be loved. Instead of being understood, you’re going to be seen. All you’re going to lose is what was built for a person you no longer are. Remaining
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not to be dramatic but this quote actually changed my life
Sometimes, it happens by accident. Sometimes, we just get used to living a certain way and fail to have a vision for how life could be different. Sometimes, we make choices because we don’t know how to make better ones or that anything else is even possible. Sometimes, we settle for what we’re handed because we don’t know we can ask for more. Sometimes, we run our lives on autopilot for long enough that we begin to think we no longer have a choice. However, most of the time, it’s not accidental at all. The habits and behaviors you can’t stop engaging in—no matter how destructive or limiting
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Self-sabotage is when you have two conflicting desires. One is conscious, one is unconscious. You know how you want to move your life forward, and yet you are still, for some reason, stuck.
We often feel resistance in the face of what’s going right in our lives, not what’s going wrong. When we have a problem to solve, resistance is usually nowhere to be found. But when we have something to enjoy, create, or build, we are tapping into a part of ourselves that is trying to thrive instead of just survive, and the unfamiliarity can be daunting.
In uprooting, you are not allowing yourself to blossom; you are only comfortable with the process of sprouting. It might be constantly needing a “fresh start,” which is often the result of not having healthy ways to deal with stress or struggling with conflict resolution. Uprooting can be a way of diverting attention from the actual problems in your life, as your attention must go toward reestablishing oneself at a new job or in a new town. Ultimately, uprooting means you are always just beginning your new chapter but never really finishing it.
Perfectionism isn’t actually wanting everything to be right. It’s not a good thing. In fact, it is a hindering thing, because it sets up unrealistic expectations about what we are capable of or what the outcomes of our lives could be. Perfectionism holds us back from showing up and trying, or really doing the important work of our lives. This happens because when we are afraid of failing, or feeling vulnerable, or not being as good as we want others to think we are, we end up avoiding the work that is required to actually become that good.
Don’t worry about doing it well; just do it. Don’t worry about writing a bestseller, just write. Don’t worry about making a Grammy-winning hit, just make music. Don’t worry about failing, just keep showing up and trying. At first, all that matters is that you do what you really want to do. From there, you can learn from your mistakes and over time get to the place where you really want to be.
When you are only able to process half of your emotions, you stunt yourself. You start going out of your way to avoid any possible situation that could bring up something frustrating or uncomfortable, because you have no tools to be able to handle that feeling. This means that you start avoiding the very risks and actions that would ultimately change your life for the better. In addition, an inability to process your emotions means you get stuck with them.
Your life is ultimately measured by your outcomes, not your intentions. It is not about what you wanted to do or would have done but didn’t have the time. It’s not about why you thought you couldn’t; it’s just whether or not you eventually did.
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.
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.
When you find yourself struggling with something, you have to ask yourself: Do I actually want to do this? Do you want the job, or do you just like how the title sounds? Are you in love with the person, or do you like the idea of the relationship? Are you still holding an outdated idea of what your greatest success will be, and if so, what would it look like to let that go?
We do not have to live the rest of our lives trying to achieve some measure of success we thought was ideal when we were too young to understand who we even were. Our only responsibility is to make decisions for the person we have become.
When we let go of what isn’t right for us, we create space to discover what is.
Instead of reaching a conclusion about a person based on the limited information you have about them, consider that you’re not seeing the whole picture and don’t know the whole story. When you are more compassionate about other people’s lives, you become more compassionate about your own. When you see someone who has something you want, congratulate them, even if it feels hard at first. It will extend back and open you up to receiving it as well.
In the end, it looks far worse to hold onto what’s wrong because you care about what others think than it is to let go because that’s what’s right for you. 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.
When we downplay our successes in life, we are either trying to make ourselves seem less impressive so others do not feel threatened and therefore like us more, or we are trying to avoid the sense that we have “made it,” because we are afraid of peaking.
If we acknowledge that we’ve arrived, what goals remain? It is a feeling akin to death, so we instead find another measure to work toward.
You might also need to confront the sense of “protection” that being busy gives you. Does it make you feel more important than others? Does it give you an excuse to say “no” to plans or to avoid some people? You need to find healthier and more productive ways to cope with these feelings, such as finding genuine self-confidence in what you do by creating something you’re proud of, or getting better at calmly but clearly stating your boundaries and needs in relationships.
understand that the people you spend the most time with will shape your future irrevocably, and so you must choose them wisely.
Your main priority in life is to be liked, even if that comes at the expense of being happy. You think more about whether or not your actions will earn you the approval of “people” (who are “people,” by the way?) rather than whether or not they will actually make you feel fulfilled and content with who you are. You’re more afraid of your feelings than anything else. If you get to the point in life at which the scariest, most detrimental thing you face is the fear of whether or not you will be able to handle your own emotions, you are the one standing in your own way—nothing else is.
You are not the person you were five years ago. You evolve as your self-image does, so make sure that it’s an accurate one. Give yourself credit for everything you’ve overcome that you never thought you would, and everything you’ve built that you never thought you could. You’ve come so much farther than you think, and you’re so much closer than you realize.
If you are committed to freedom and therefore need a sense of autonomy, the less that you build a life on your own terms, the more you are going to sabotage opportunities and feel drained and exhausted when you “should” feel happy.
Give yourself space to experience the depth of your emotions so that they do not control your behaviors.
The truth is that you can have a vision of what you want, know that it is undoubtedly right for you, and simply not feel like taking the action required to pursue that path. This is because our feelings are essentially wired as comfort systems. They produce a “good” feeling when we are doing what we have always done—staying in familiarity. This, to our bodies, registers as “safety.”
Though your emotions are always valid and need to be validated, they are hardly ever an accurate measure of what you are capable of in life. They are not always an accurate reflection of reality. All your feelings know is what you’ve done in the past, and they are attached to what they’ve drawn comfort from.
It is essential that you learn to take action before you feel like doing it. Taking action builds momentum and creates motivation.
It is healthy to be angry, and anger can also show us important aspects of who we are and what we care about. For example, anger shows us where our boundaries are. Anger also helps us identify what we find to be unjust.
We do not ever need to feel embarrassed or wrong for needing to cry, feel down, or miss what we no longer have. In fact, crying at appropriate times is one of the biggest signs of mental strength, as people who are struggling often find it difficult to release their feelings and be vulnerable.
If you want to know what you truly want out of life, look at the people who you are jealous of.
When we resent people, it is often because they did not live up to the expectation of them that we had in our minds.
The truth is that most people regret what they did not do more than they ever regret what they did.
The second we are able to shrug, laugh, or even just throw our hands up and say, “Whatever, it will be fine,” we instantly take back all of our power.
The root of self-sabotage is a lack of emotional intelligence, because without the ability to understand ourselves, we inevitably become lost.
We often resist most deeply the things that we want most.
This is the moment you realize that you will never find peace standing in the ruins of what you used to be.
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.
You can leave the country, get remarried, build a whole new career, date 12 other people, find an entirely new friend group, feel happier and more fulfilled than ever, and still grieve for what your younger self went through. Even though you’re different on the outside, that part of you still very much exists within.
Nobody is looking at you the way you think they are. Nobody is thinking about you the way you wish they would. They are looking at themselves. They are thinking about themselves. They are reading themselves. This isn’t sad; it’s freeing.
The truth is that you have nobody to prove wrong but yourself. The people from your past probably didn’t disapprove of you nearly as much as you feared they did.
