Self-Sabotage Is Well-Meaning But Not Helpful
This occurs when your ego thinks it’s protecting you.
Probably the single greatest obstacle between where I am and where I desire to be is myself. Through meditation, mindfulness practices, and therapy, I’ve identified how I self-sabotage my own efforts. Why? Because of my fear of abandonment, which mostly manifests as an equal fear of success and failure.
What does this look like? It’s the voice in my head telling me I’m not enough, not good enough, and that there isn’t sufficient this, that, or the other thing – tangible or intangible – to go around. It’s rational and irrational concerns about running out of time, money, energy, and so forth.
Where I am now is known. It is, relatively speaking, safe and certain. I know this time, this place, this experience because I’m in it. Rocking the boat could destroy it. Of course, the truth is, it’ll change no matter what I do. Change is the only constant in the universe.
Self-sabotage is a product of the ego. It’s well-meaning but not helpful because it’s designed to protect me. Except I don’t need to be protected, especially when I’m working on intentional change.
Overcoming it requires applied mindfulness via active conscious awareness.
But before I get into that, let’s define ego in this context.
What is the ego?
There are multiple definitions of ego. One of the best-known is from Freudian psychology and the concepts of id (the primal you), superego (the optimal, ethereal you), and ego (the you that is physically present). Another notion of ego is all about attitude and how you present yourself (which is where the idea of an overinflated ego comes from).
My definition of ego is the construct created at one time in your life when your conscious mind, in communication with your subconscious beliefs and values, determined who, what, where, how, and why you are. But instead of simply being that person in the moment, it got carried forward as your identity.
Hence, your egoic self is who you believe you are based on who you were. That’s why, even when you are working on growing, changing, and evolving, you still believe an outdated notion of yourself.
For example, until recently, I thought I didn’t work hard at all. I believed that I was mostly lazy, putting in little to no effort with anything, and doing too little. My therapist pointed out that this was untrue, and through some exercises analyzing what all I do in a given day, I see it for myself. I do work hard.
It still takes conscious effort on my part to fight Resistance and believe the truth of this. That’s because my ego, the impression of who I am, has held onto this outdated notion of this concept. And that takes effort to release.
Enter self-sabotage
Self-sabotage comes in because of fear of the unknown and potential consequences of addressing it. More often than not, in my experience, the fear of suffering is where the real suffering is. As Paulo Coelho states in The Alchemist,
“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself.”
The reality tends to be that the amount of suffering you think you’ll experience is exponentially worse than what actually happens. However, convincing yourself of this is not easy. All the what-ifs, uncertainty, concerns, and fears can pile up. And then your ego, set in its ways, finds a way to put up Resistance, roadblocks, and obstacles.
These manifest in different ways. The inability to fall asleep the night before an important interview. A sudden desire to follow a distraction over doing work. Having meaningless sex, getting drunk, or getting high. “Forgetting” an appointment. Half-assing a project. Calling it quits moments before you’re finished or bailing at the 11th hour.
Why do we do these things? Because of fear of the unknown. Uncertainty about outcomes. The potential to fail and shrink or grow and expand, and whoknowswhat after that. Because you know, at least somewhat, right here and now, who, what, where, how, and why you are. Do that thing, finish that project, get that job, take that life-changing trip, and what will become of you?
Self-sabotage is a product of the ego as it protects you. Doing so is well-meaning, in that it’s meant to be about safety, but it’s not helpful because it causes stagnation, inaction, and worse. It causes you to leave your comfort zone.
This requires addressing the truth about comfort zones.
Comfort zone is a misnomer
What is a comfort zone? Ideally, it’s the place you’re comfortable. In theory, it’s where you know yourself, feel good about your life, and are snuggled up warm and comfy in a down comforter of certainty.
Of course, this tends to be total bullshit. More often than not, the comfort zone is a place of familiarity, where you have a degree of certainty and unchanging. It’s the place where you experience various forms of stability. But that doesn’t make it necessarily comfortable.
Comfort zones often include relationships that are no longer working, jobs that make you miserable, friendships with people you have nothing at all in common with, and accepting less than you’re worth because that’s how it has always been, and so on. Little to no real comfort, just a degree of familiarity and stability.
Comfort zones are impermanent. Staying in them and their relative (but not always real) safety is something the ego desires. A lot. The ego abhors change. So you self-sabotage and stay where you are.
Except where you are is never, ever, unchanging. That’s because change is the only constant in the universe. So it comes whether you like it or not. But you have the power to work with it, alter it, redirect it, and choose it.
Self-sabotage is resistance to change
Change is often framed as terrifying. Worse, some people go to great lengths to weaponize it to control as many others as they can. The MAGA movement and large swaths of Conservative thought are based on this – the changing world is leaving you behind and will destroy you – as their entire narrative.
Despite change being inevitable and constant, you are not without power to do something with it. Via active conscious awareness – i.e., mindfulness – you can choose and decide on what change to work with and for. But this can only be applied to you by you. You cannot change anyone or much of everything else.
Self-sabotage is often a product of knowing, at least subconsciously, that you can’t undo, redo, or take back change. Because of the overwrought fear of suffering, you self-sabotage to protect yourself from what might occur if the change goes wrong and/or fails.
Self-sabotage is resistance to change. It’s a product of the ego meant to protect you from suffering. But it’s not helpful because it prevents you from growing and evolving and experiencing new and potentially amazing things.
While yes, you might have current circumstances with few to no choices, you still have choices and decisions you can make for yourself. They might only lead to tiny stepping stones from point A to point B. But every time you make a conscious choice, you strengthen that muscle and expand your empowerment.
Self-sabotage rears its ugly head because your ego is unprepared to be destroyed. But since it’s just a construct of who you were, not who you are now, it’s subject to change.
Preventing and overcoming self-sabotage
Let’s address a very important truth. For the most part, you always have choices and decisions available as long as you live. You’re breathing, alive, thinking, and feeling? Great, you have choices and decisions available.
True, circumstances might make them be between bad and worse. But they still exist, and intentionally choosing is ALWAYS better than not choosing. Mindfully making choices and decisions expands your empowerment.
Unless the result might be death, the suffering you fear will happen after making a choice can be overcome. This, however, requires active conscious awareness. This is easier than it seems: it just takes a little effort.
To overcome and prevent self-sabotage, be mindful and in the present. Be here now. Engage your conscious awareness by first checking in with your senses – what are you seeing, tasting, touching, smelling, hearing, and sensing? Then, engage your mindset/headspace/psyche self. This is done by asking questions only answerable here and now, like:
- What am I thinking?
- What am I feeling?
- How am I feeling?
- What are my intentions here?
- Is my approach positive or negative?
- What am I doing?
Mindfulness thus engaged, if you dislike or disagree with any of the answers to the above, you can make intentional choices and decisions to change them.
To help you be here in the present and connect to your mindset/headspace/psyche conscious self, set a timer for 2 minutes. During those 2 minutes, take a deep breath in, then let it out fully. Focus everything on breathing in and out repetitively for the whole 2 minutes. This helps you to be here now.
With a little effort, you can apply mindfulness to overcome and prevent self-sabotage. And this is good, because you are worthy and deserving of being your ideal self.
Have you had to overcome self-sabotage to get where you desire to be?
This is the seventh-hundred-sixty-fifth (765) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share my philosophy because I desire to make a difference in the world and help as many people as I can to find their empowerment with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to share and/or repost where it might do good for you and others.
The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available here.
Also, please check out my author website for the rest of my published fiction and nonfiction works.
Follow me here!
