Conquering Self-Sabotage

This is the first article I've chosen to write - well it kind of chose me. I woke up and started thinking about it and just put pen to paper and it wrote itself.

Self-sabotage is the hidden enemy! We need to conquer it in order to attain success in creating a life we love.

Self-sabotage is when we ‘scupper’ ourselves. (Scupper: 1. To sink a ship, especially to sink your own vessel intentionally 2. To wreck, defeat, or ruin something).

In other words, we’re on the road to success when suddenly we cock it all up. We make ‘silly’ mistakes or say the ‘wrong’ thing.

Self-sabotage is pretty much an ‘unconscious’ action. We often don’t see it coming. We do it because on some level we don’t think we ‘deserve’ or we think we’re ‘not good enough’ or that ‘it isn’t possible’ or ‘it isn’t possible for ME anyway’, or some other limiting belief.Our beliefs are deeply engrained within us. Many of them, we know nothing about as they’re buried deep in our unconscious mind. Other beliefs we’re very much conscious of.

If you believe most rich people are b****ds, and you believe that you are a ‘nice’ person, you will never allow yourself to become rich. If 'rich; to you means haughty, uncaring, and trampling over others to get to the top, you will never become wealthy. You’ll sabotage your potential success at every turn.

Throughout my life I’ve noticed this pattern of self-sabotage on MANY occasions. And I have to tell you, there comes a point when you are thoroughly sick of it!

Now, you can use positive affirmations and try to change your beliefs and that’s great if it works for you. If you know what the unhelpful beliefs are it likely will work.

But what about the beliefs you’re not aware of? What about those limiting beliefs that are deeply hidden. Beliefs such as ‘I am not worthy’?

‘Of course I’m worthy!’ you may say. 'Of course I deserve success/happiness/a great income/a fantastic relationship'. But maybe you feel unworthy of love on an unconscious level. Or perhaps you think success is not good. Here’s an example:

Supposing you had a very ‘successful’ father as a child. He was so successful you saw little of him as he was busy working and travelling. Maybe on some level you felt he didn’t love you enough or that you weren’t good enough. If you were lovable and good enough surely he’d be around more and be spending time with you?

In your child-mind you had put 2 and 2 together and made 84. It doesn’t matter that you got it wrong, that your father loved you dearly. You didn’t know you got it wrong. As a result, your sub-conscious mind has carried that erroneous belief for the length of your life-time. That little child with that belief still exists within you. And that little child does not want to be hurt again.

Let's say you are now grown up with children of your own. But your subconscious mind has stored away memories of your childhood pain and sadness around your father’s absence. You’d never put your own children through that pain.

So when success comes knocking – guess what? Self-sabotage kicks in. You hear the knock and what do you do? You baracade the door and go into the kitchen to make a cup of tea...

Now, if through therapy or self-exploration you’ve figured this one out – great! You can work with installing new beliefs and logic to overcome this particular self-sabotage pattern. You will be able to work it so that your success does not impact negatively on your children, and you have plenty of (fun!)time with them.

But what if you haven’t figured out the ‘whys’ of your self-sabotage mechanisms?

As I say, I’ve been working on my own self-sabotage patterns for many years with some success (hoorah!) But I haven’t quite eradicated ALL of them.

I’ve discovered one great resource that is effortless. I don’t even have to know what my self-sabotage beliefs are or how they got there.

It’s a recording by Tom Kenyon, an accomplished sound healer. I have found it helpful to listen to it at night when I’m asleep and also during the day when I’m awake.

A few words about Tom Kenyon and this is only my personal opinion. I’ve bought a number of his healing meditations and I really like them. But some of his work I find a little weird to listen to, particularly the angel stuff. Now maybe I’m not ready for such ‘high and divine channeling’ – who knows! So I stay away from the stuff I’m not keen on and focus on the stuff I DO like and am finding helpful.

When I first listened to Tom I wasn’t sure about the intonation of his voice. To keep your conscious mind busy he tells you a story (there are subliminal messages and healing sounds for your sub-conscious mind underneath the story).

The thing is, it sounded to me by his intonation as though he’s telling a child a story. I just felt slightly irritated. BUT! Each time I listened I felt better. And NOW I love his voice! Each time I settle down to listen on my i-pod I feel like I’m settling down with an old friend.

I also ‘get’ more each time I listen to it about the story he tells. I kind of uncover ‘deeper’ meanings through the story about how it relates to me and to my life. It’s quite inspiring.

By the way, the recording I've been talking about is called 'Freedom to Be (Freedom to Change)' and it also works for 'low self-esteem', 'addiction' and 'emotional overwhelm', not just self-sabotage. So if you've got any of those as well, you'll be onto a good thing! Here’s the link if you want to check it out. You can listen to snippets of all the recordings before you buy.

Link to Tom Kenyon's website