How *not* to Self-Sabotage
the-easier-said-than-done of unlearning perfectionism & trusting relaxation
I’ve been reflecting on the potentiality of self-sabotage and I wanted to offer a few of my reflections. Self-sabotage can feel like a very powerless experience and there isn’t much support in how to consciously NOT self-sabotage.
In my own process, I’ve found becoming aware of earlier cues of the cycle of self-sabotage have helped me to intervene before I’ve done the actual sabotage. My example for this is being able to listen to smaller cues of annoyance or frustration in my body before I get into a full on rage fest. When we experience trauma, we become dissociated from these smaller cues so it isn’t until the cycle is on full-blast we recognize it for what it is. Like needing a LOT of pressure in a massage for it to register as a sensation at all.
The first general rule I have for self-sabotage is to slow down. When we’re moving really quickly, we’re often reacting from an unconscious trauma response that’s trying to find control in an otherwise powerless feeling situation. What’s somewhat ironic is the self-sabotage cycle itself is powerless so the response of self-sabotage both creates and relieves powerlessness (just like addiction both creates and relieves stress). When you feel like doing something externally, just take a moment to reflect on where that THING might exist in you. If you are jealous, is that jealousy a projected fear of abandonment?
When we’re dealing with attachment based wounds (which is, hi, all the time), it is high stakes and usually unconscious. Knowing and becoming familiar with our self-sabotage cycle is crucial because what is familiar is coded as normal and safe - not because it is, but just because it is familiar. If yelling or drama is familiar in relationships, that’s where we feel most safe - not because it is actually safe but because it is most familiar. I always studied at the kitchen table or on the couch in university so that’s where I naturally do my work now - I have a desk I don’t use because it isn’t familiar. Knowing what we find familiar means we can start to ask if we consent to what is familiar.
My cycle (below) is about usefulness. I want to be useful because to be needed is less risky than just being wanted because if I am needed (necessary), I can’t be rejected. In being useful, I am used because that is the cycle I participate in (unconsciously). I take on too much responsibility and get resentful for being used and drop everything. Then I feel the annihilation empty void because if I am not useful, do I even exist? All of this hinges upon FEAR - for me, it is fear of my own power so I play hot potato and externalize my power by being useful to others instead of focusing on myself. I can see now when I am being useful (even now in writing this) and consent to it more consciously.
We have to first become familiar with our cycle so we can begin to titrate towards a more conscious way of being in the world. My metaphor for this is covering up the old decrepit roadways in our neuropathways and building new ones is not a seamless process. It’s like when you move to a new apartment and you’re driving home from work and accidentally drive halfway to your old apartment - that old neuropathway roadway in your brain is still not fully covered and the new roadway is still not complete. This is why unlearning perfectionism is so crucial for our healing. Because we are in process, we are a work in progress (we hate it, it’s fine), this can lead to all-or-nothing-fuck-it thinking of “what’s the point” that ends up handing power BACK over to the unconscious processing. We want our healing to be complete before we do it but it isn’t.
When most of our relationships are shit, marked by monumental betrayals and fear - not only in adulthood but also alienation and abuse as children, our self-sabotage cycles get activated WITHIN relationships themselves.
Closeness can be coded as unsafe because those closest to you have been the causes of the most pain and the most betrayal. When we experience early traumas, our danger-safe cues are skewed so where you should feel safe, you feel danger and where you should feel danger, you feel safe. {like knowing your role in a toxic relationship and feeling bored in a healthy one} When we experience trauma, safety or relaxation actually become coded as UNSAFE because if I am relaxed AND THEN am attacked, then the cycle of self-blame may have merit (the narrative “I should have expected this” “what was I thinking” etc). If I am hyper vigilant all the time (hello adrenal fatigue), then when the inevitable betrayal happens, I’ll be ready.
The thing with that coping strategy is is it actually just ends up prolonging our suffering. We remain tense and braced our whole lives, preparing for a betrayal and when it comes, we are still devastated. Hypervigilance doesn’t protect us - it just creates more tension. Besides, we know that when people are asleep during a car accident, they have less injury BECAUSE their body was relaxed. When people see a car accident about to happen and their body tenses, they actually have more injury. Bracing for impact doesn’t actually help us.
Bracing doesn’t help because we are in relationship with fallible human people. And we are fallible human people. The thing is, when you experience trauma, you experience the darkest shadow of humanity’s fallible evil. When most people talk about fallibility, we mean they’re a bit judgmental or selfish but when you experience trauma, we come face to face with not only fallibility but HARM. So when we witness the inevitable human-ness of the people we are in relationship with, that becomes a red flag for DANGER. It is important we differentiate between what is human and what is harmful & dangerous. It’s just that not everyone’s humanity is dangerous.
Our self-sabotage cycles rarely have anything to do with the people actually involved in the cycle - it is what they represent. Most often, the people who become players in our self-sabotage cycles represent an invitation to start to shift the danger-safe cue compass back to its pre-natal orientation AND ALSO you don’t need to accept that invitation. You will have many other opportunities to address this cycle & bring it into consciousness. Our psyche is consensual and won’t force us into something we aren’t ready for.
There is so much healing we do on our own in solitude but relationships are such a different container because they require vulnerability and exposure. When we’ve experienced trauma, exposure is obviously dangerous (in imposter syndrome, this is the fear of being found out the fear of being exposed the fear it was all my fault).
The foundation to this cycle is self-trust. Self-trust requires viewing myself as “good” (or at least, good enough to be trustworthy) so self-trust is inseparable from self-worth. This is the Catch-22 of healing because we have to believe we’re worthy of healing and in order to heal, we have to trust ourselves. Where I like to start with self-trust is focusing on where and when you 100% can trust yourself - decisions you made that didn’t make sense to other people but are and were the absolute right decision for you. Because we are fallible people, I also like to acknowledge times when we aren’t trustworthy to ourselves. We can hold the Both-And of our own humanity.
When we can clarify what was happening for us at the time and acknowledge we made the best decision within that mindset (like me getting married), it shifts from a powerless feeling to empowering.
Interrupting cycles of self-sabotage is a continual scaffolding of worthiness, self-trust and orienting towards a new familiar based in authenticity not reactive fear. It takes time, patience and safe containers to practice all of these. It is hard work that requires us to be soft but we don’t have to do this work alone. You got this.
