Self-sabotage, What Can I Do?!

[Annie]

I'm having a couple of childhood traumas of being unwanted, excluded and neglected. Examples: I have been told by my parents at one point that having two children really is enough - I am their third child; my father nearly died due to an accident when I was just 4 months old, therefore my mother had other things than me on her mind; they were business owners and business came before family; both my (much) older sisters get along great, they act like I don't exist, they meet up regularly and simply exclude me; I've always had skin problems which didn't make me look exactly pretty, children in Kindergarten didn't even want to give me their hands much less play with me; nobody showed up to my birthday-parties; I don't have many friends; I have no support with my two small children from any family member (never even once offered to babysit so hubby and I could have quality couple time or anything like that); I'm super insecure and fear my hubby trading me for someone else and I'm extremely jealous which I is a trait I hate about me. He's a great person and I never want to lose him yet I keep sabotaging the relationship all the time. I don't understand why this is happening and what I can do about it. I'm desperate. I know there is no quick fix but I need help. I carry around those demons of the past with me where ever I go and I can't seem to get rid of them.

[Clay]

Thank you for sharing your story, Annie.

For every negative aspect you have mentioned, there are 10 more things to be grateful for in life. Try to provide as much positivity as you can in the relationships you have, without expecting anything back, and strive for everlasting improvement in all areas of your life—that's the best you can do. 

[ElvisN]

@Annie Hi Annie,

Thanks for your story. Let me share a bit of mine: I also grew up with trauma and deep emotional and psychological issues. This especially affected my relationships with people and my social life. I know what it feels like to have self sabotaging behavior and feeling worthless. I had a lot of social anxiety, strong negative emotional reactions, low self esteem and OCD, both towards others and toward myself. I could see that my experience of life was very very different from the way other normal people experienced it.

I also want to tell you that today, however, I am predominantly psychologically healthy, and have pretty much overcome most of my self sabotaging behavior, and rarely experience strong negative emotional reactions. You can get here. Believe that this is possible for you.

For most of my life I didn't understand what was causing these negative experiences. However, in 2014 I came across a man called Steve Pavlina. He has a popular personal development blog, and I read it voraciously. He's a person who'd been pursuing personal growth for more than 15 years, and shared intimate details about himself, his thoughts, and his life. Pursuing growth for 15 years made him not only very psychologically healthy and strong, but thrive in life. This was important because it gave me a vision, a picture, a model of what life could be like for me. It expanded what was possible in life. His passion for growth rubbed off on me, and it became increasingly important to me. At one point, I became totally committed to personal growth.

That commitment I made is what got me, eventually, out of all my problems. At the time I didn't even understand my problems well, but that commitment made me push forward until I did. I started reading self help books, looking for a solution. I discovered Leo Gura, and he was a blessing because he too had suffered from many of my problems, and published videos that talked about how he overcame it and how I can too. That was a good starting point, but it was not enough. Eventually, somewhat by accident, I discovered that the root of my problems was low self esteem. I read Nathaniel Branden's book The Six Pillars of Self Esteem, which was another blessing.

Annie, I would suggest that you get therapy. If you're concerned about the cost, I think that overcoming these psychological issues is more than worthwhile for it.

Also, scan through Leo's older videos, and watch any and all that relate to what you're going through.

Important: Read Nathaniel Branden's book The Six Pillars of Self Esteem. This is THE book to read on this topic.

Stay committed. Know that although you won't overcome your problems overnight, you eventually will, over a period of weeks, months and years. Reframe this healing process as psychological growth. As you grow, you'll feel very amazing inner psychological changes. At times, you'll feel like the core of you is changing - use this thrill of experiencing deep inner change and growth to motivate yourself and stay committed to this.

Most of the work lies in your hands. Take positive responsibility for your life. Those who manage to overcome the kind of issues you have are those who know in their bones that there is an alternative, and that by pushing forward and persisting in the will to understand, despite difficulty, they can get there.

Aim to not only reach psychological health like me, but to surpass that and live a richer and more powerful life.

You can start with something small. Take a small step every day.

Annie, I wish you the very best.

Hope my message wasn't too long

[vizual]

No need to dig up all your past demons but seeing through the belief systems that do more harm than good in your life can change your reality drastically, for the better. You gotta own up to it though, you can't play the victim.

 

 

[ElvisN]

@Annie I highly recommend watching Teal Swan's videos on YouTube. Her entire channel is focused mainly on dealing with the kind of issues you have. Teal has faced all of these, and helps people to overcome trauma and self sabotaging behavior. Her videos are insightful and informative. Highly recommended.

[OWL]

There are many things you can do that will help you now and also in the long run.

The first thing is to rise your level of consciousness, you have to understand that you and everyone of us was born perfect, but when we are infants we depend completely on other people and there for we take little or no responsibility of ourselves. This results in our minds getting programed in certain ways while we are uncoscious. 

If you try to stop your thoughts, you will see that they just keep coming even if you want it or not. The content of this thoughts depend on how your mind is programed right now, if your mind is programed for failure your thoughts will be: "I'm flawed", "I don't deserve to be happy", "I am not lovable".

This thoughts are limiting beliefs created by the subconscious mind because it has been unconsciously programed that way, what you have to do is to reprogram your mind for success. 

One simple and very powerful exercise is to 1.take a paper. 2.fold it in half. 3.write your limiting beliefs in the left side. 4.write the oposite of those beliefs in the right side. 

Example: limiting beliefs "I hate my body" "People hate me" Cure to this beliefs "I love my body" "People love me".

5. Cut the paper in half, keep the right part where you have positive afirmations, and destroy the left part where are the limiting beliefs.

6. Read the paper with your new positive afirmations once in the morning when you wake up and once in the night before going to sleep.

This will make you destroy the previous failure program of your subconscious and now you will have a new success program that will make you feel much better and bring you great results.

Letting your mind being programed by the world is like letting a ship to be steared by the waves. 

 

 

[Mal]

@Annie

Hi Annie,

All of the above advice is good.  What I see though is a possible false situation due to an intense investment in your current "self image"

The reason I say current self image is because the good news is, your self image CAN be developed and updated. 

So let's attempt to go from Annie version 1 to Annie version 2!

One of the most effective things to do at any level of growth is to be able to take a step back from your self identity and take a position of observer to all of this. 

Simple meditation for 2-3 minutes per day will give you the leverage you would not think is currently possible.  

What it looks like you are attempting to do is solve a problem at the level the problem was created - on the thought level.

It's actually a worthless practice to try to solve your problems by excessive identification with them.  So take some time in the day to just observe your breath and observe "Annie" in action.  The most important thing you can do while on your journey is to learn to just make some space between you and your mental/emotional self.

If you follow these instructions you will probably find that the "hoplessness" is self created - illusions of your thinking mind.  

This is not to discredit that there are things in life that need to be dealt with, but it will take the urgency and intensity out of them if you can just get a glimpse of how your own mind is playing tricks on you.

I wish you the best

Mal

[Bombardini]

@Mal I like you.

[Leo Gura]

@Annie Here's a very direct approach to solving self-sabotage: simply be very mindful of yourself WHILE you're engaging in the self-destructive behavior. Don't stop the behavior. Do it, BUT remain aware of how it is hurting you. Don't try to stop yourself.

After a while of that, the behavior should auto-correct.

[Annie]

I am very grateful for all of your kind words and advice, thank you very much!

 

@OWL

I do understand everyone's born perfect. Have you by any chance ever read “The continuum concept” by Jean Liedloff? It explains in great detail how easily infants become traumatized. A very interesting read which I highly recommend if you're interested in early childhood trauma (and it should be a must read for all parents-to-be!)

I will definitely do that exercise, thank you very much!

 

@Leo Gura Actually on my last big “outburst” (I'll just call it that for lack of a better word) I became aware of what was happening. However a huge fight between me and my hubby had already broken out with no way of going back. He's still extremely mad and barely talks to me a week later. On the good side I now finally understand what my feelings are which trigger me to get me into another “outburst”. Only took me about 10 years...

[OWL]

@Annie

I'm glad to help you, if you want to take if further there is an even better exercise that @Leo Gura Has in his life purpose course, It helped me to get rid of my limiting beliefs. 

It is basically to also write your limiting beliefs, but instead of just writing the opposite on the other side you answer some questions.

Hope Leo does't ban me for this but the questions are something like: 

Where did I got this belief?

How does this belief protect me?

Is this believe true just in certain perspective?

What can be another another valid interpretation of the events were I got this belief?

Can this believe be just false?

What will an external third person think about keeping this belief?

What are some examples that prove this belief is wrong?

Do I want my children to adopt this belief?

The price of keeping this belief is?

Do I want to keep this belief?

Can I drop this belief?

Without this belief my life can improve in some way?

Another valid belief that will get me much better results if I adopt it will be...

 

The point of this exercise is to rise awareness over the limiting beliefs and bust them.

This exercise was took from Leo's live purpose course which I highly recommend.

 

 

 

 

 

[Mal]

@Emilio