TOPIC
What traps do you lay for yourself? Are you aware they are there? Do you step right into them or avoid them?
What areas in your life do you self sabotage?
Why do we self sabotage? Is it an attempt to protect us from future disappointments? Is it an attempt to hide from the truth?
Does it enable a continuation of the perfect narrative, protecting ourselves from the ambiguity of reality and freezing us in the magical thinking of a child?
What happens if we stop sabotaging ourselves? Vulnerability, truth of our fragility, imperfection, taking responsibility, power, opening ourselves to the world?
REFLECTION
This year we are having consistent online discussions every fortnight and in-person once a month or so.
What areas in your life do you self-sabotage?
Does self-sabotage enable the continuation of the perfect dream, protecting ourselves from the ambiguity of reality and freezing us within the magical thinking of a child?
We look up to and worship those we admire unaware that these are our reachable potentials.
Humans can frequently deny these potentials for themselves in an attempt to stay small and comfortable. Those who are aware of this behaviour and are willing to evolve and develop are those who do not deny or simply allow breathing space for the prospect of possibility. Those who do deny their potential can do it in a way in which they are unaware of its sabotaging affect. Our self sabotaging mechanisms are very cleverly hidden and can become blindspots.
What thread can we pull upon to unravel the blind knots of self-sabotage?
As you meditate, what thoughts pop up?
Each person had a different theme. There was relationship, house and home, health and then there was what needed to done or work. Both of these themes of thought blend together at the edges but to make them distinct; relationship and work.
What do these themes of thought tell us about our patterns of self-sabotage as they intrude upon our meditations?
This became an investigation that led from a seemingly benign bubbling of thought to vulnerable dreams that we protect by steering clear of realising them.
The mini-life of a meditation is a microcosm of our lives. We set out to focus upon our breath and body and we are set upon by thoughts pulling us away from our intention. There is an unconscious self-sabotage in progress. Is this the same sabotaging process that escalates into full blown controlled failure in relationship and career? Or is it simply the nature ebb and flow of chaos and order? Both is happening and self sabotage is a cunning mechanism shrouded by reasons. So how do we differentiate from our natural animal that needs our listening and a self sabotaging mechanism convincing us to curb the course.
I have a pattern of using relationship as a distraction away from the work I must do to realise my potential. Not only do I sabotage my dreams but I end up first transferring the disappointment onto myself. As a I result I do not imagine myself in a favourable way. I start to look for reasons why I am not looking after myself and the pursuit of my dreams. Becoming overly analytical I judge myself, my partner and the relationship, knowing I need to assert time to work on myself I blame the relationship for taking that time away. The sabotage of ignoring myself and using the relationship to distract from the work builds up a dam of negativity which empties over the relationship. The relationship ends and I deal with the emotional fallout and then slowly come back to myself with an enforced exile into autonomous, independence and loneliness where I can no longer ignore what I need to do.
The sabotaging thought that gets in the way of the initial action upon my path to success is ‘I can’t do this’. This statement has been discovered through Landmarks material and work, in which we explore the first experiences of failure and what was the statement that played out in our heads?
This simulation of failure continually plays out in my life. My magical thinking of being perfect and doing everything right gets absolutely obliterated when I have made a mistake. This mistake weighs so heavily upon me that it induces an apathy and a giving up. I walk away at the first hint of failure.
Luckily I am becoming more and more aware of this story playing out in my life. How can I intervene upon this damaging process? Commitment to myself, my partner and my projects, being impeccable with my word, expressing my fears and assumptions of failure and witnessing the world stay intact. Another thing would be to give myself nourishment and nurture. When I am fully energised and healthy the self sabotage mechanism loses a lot of its power.
There is a lot more to dive into with self sabotage as it is a confusing maze of justifications, reasoning and narrative. At the primary stimulus lies sensation, an uncomfortable feeling in which we try to avoid or fix with our very clever mechanisms of protection and self sabotage is one of them.
Invite discomfort as a way to train ourselves to pass through the threshold of self sabotage.
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