Things seem to be going good in life, you feel good about yourself, people like you and there is a sense of abundance in your life. Then… wham! That other shoe drops and you knew it was too good to be true. Something goes wrong. Why? Why does it always seem to happen to you? Why can’t your life just go smoothly?
Let’s see how to take that saw out of your hand and just enjoy the view you worked so hard to get.
Why do we self sabotage anyways? My thoughts are that it is based in fear that somebody will take it from you because they will figure out you don’t deserve to feel good. You live in fear that somebody will ruin it so you ruin it before they do. It’s your ego’s way of controlling the pain. You are used to your old habits and ways fall off the branch. You may have even prepared for this moment, knowing you would fall off the branch and put an air bag beneath before you tried to soften the fall. You could develop skills like learning how to roll from the fall so it hurts but does not break something. What this means is you prepared and planed to fail before you even started. You are USED to failing so it feels comfortable. You need to unconsciously be in control, even of your fear, your anger and your sadness. When you self sabotage you are controlling these things you figure so you must be in control even if it is of something that is not healthy.
Another reason we do these things is that we have low self-esteem and do not feel we deserve this joy. Somebody is going to figure out that you are a loser our ego tells us, so if you call yourself a loser first and act like a failure, then they can’t call you one before you can call yourself one. Here is one that many of us have but do not like to admit. The need for excitement. Yep I said it. We need variety or we get bored. Even when things are going well for too long, we need variety so we make it. Unfortunately we make it in a dramatic and unhealthy way. We should have a better form of growth than drama in our lives.
Well great….now what?
Here are some simple tips to help you get out of this pattern. First notice and observe the negative self-talk. You should have a cheerleader in your head not a critic that tells you everything you did wrong. Catch yourself being hard on yourself but then reverse it. Say something nice about yourself instead. Need to control something? Control the negative self talk and turn your mind into your cheerleader.
Don’t be so black and white about things. Throw some colour in there. Do you only have black and white clothing? No. Because you like the colours and the ability to express yourself. There is always a level of success to anything you try. Even if you fell in love and had your heart broken. You found out you could fall in love again, that is an amazing display of courage, strength, faith and joy. Get out of the black and white and move into the grey. Move from the grey to the green, to the red to the blue and so on. You just need a path out of the black and white.
Do not throw everything out because ONE thing went wrong. See what was good about the situation. Concentrate on what this opportunity gave you, not what it took from you.
Finally, I invite you to ask a simple question before you take any action. “Is this problem inside my head or outside my head”? What this does is allows you to see that the suffering you are about to preempt by self-sabotaging, may not be real. If the suffering is in your mind from insecurity and fear, you have to change your mind not get your saw out. If you were afraid you would be hurt and you ask if it is inside your mind or outside your mind and the answer is “outside, there is a fire in the kitchen”, then yes take appropriate steps to save yourself. If the answer is “nobody said or did anything”, then you may want to retreat to your inner child and ask them why they are afraid. Let the big boy or girl answer them, do not let the inner child control your adult life. Respond to them with compassion but strength. You were not there when they got hurt before as a child, but you are now. Let them know that.
There is a Buddhist quote that says “You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserves your love and affection”. Be a better friend to yourself and know that most suffering is of the mind. Take you out of the picture and ask yourself what you would tell a friend if they came to you with the same problem. How would you advise somebody you loved? Probably better than the way you were going to advise yourself.
Replace the saw with love and prepare to succeed instead of fail and watch your life grow in love. It is the natural law of the Universe.
Namaste,
No comments:
Post a Comment