Let Go and Be Free Podcast: Episode 26 (Avoiding Self-Sabotage)

Identifying self-sabotage behavior takes time, patience, and hard work, but it’s not impossible. Learn how you can identify dysfunctional behavior, understand why you fall back on the self-sabotage, and overcome it.

Critical steps in the process are:

  • Self-assessment and honest look at your behavior.

  • Acceptance

  • Work to overcome self-sabotaging behaviors.

  • Accept yourself as you are: You are worthy and loved.

More Information about Let Go and Be Free:

Want to learn more about Let Go and Be Free? Check out the Let Go and Be Free book series.

I’m not a medical expert. If you need help, please reach out to a medical professional.

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Transcript

Welcome to the let go and be free podcast, A podcast for those who grew up in an alcoholic or dysfunctional family. I'm your host, Ron Vitale, author of The let go and be free series for adult children of alcoholics. On this podcast, we'll talk about everything from dealing with ruminating thoughts, just stopping dysfunctional behaviors that you learned as a child. Together, we'll shine a light to dispel any shame you might feel about your upbringing, and learn practical tips that will help you live a healthier life. If you'd like to learn more, feel free to visit, let go and be free.com Hello, and welcome to this week's show.

On the episode today, we're going to talk about self sabotage and how to avoid that. So if you've ever been in a situation, and things are going amazingly wonderful, and then suddenly, you kind of hit a wall. And then dysfunctional behaviors and bad behaviors kind of come in, and suddenly, things are a wreck, and how close you are to something, suddenly, everything all falls apart. And this is a pattern that, you know, I've seen many people who are in the adult children of alcoholics, and dysfunctional families fear of talk about, it's a challenge, which is frustrating for people because in their mind, they want, you know, to achieve happiness, and fulfillment and love. And yet, when, you know, getting close to that arises, then there's all these obstacles and roadblocks. So kind of wanted to talk a little bit about that.

And you know, that self sabotage is very closely related to that self fulfilling prophecy. So if you're in a situation, then you think, Oh, this is gonna go horribly wrong. And then suddenly, it does, it might be because you set up that environment, you made choices that you didn't have to, the challenge is, is that sometimes the fear of the new is greater than the pain or the confusion or frustration of the old. So, you know, to give some examples, you know, you might be in a situation where, let's say a person is lonely. And they have a pattern of dysfunctional romantic relationships.

So they're lonely. And instead of working on therapy, and on themselves and self care, they come across the path of somebody that they get that, you know, massive amount of infatuation from, and, you know, chemical response between two people is amazing, and they fall madly in love. And in the course of a couple of weeks, the relationship goes from, you know, person was with no one to suddenly it's become like this horrible situation, a bad breakup. And, you know, when we have the hindsight of looking back at those type of situations, we can easily say, with a little bit of distance, say, you know, maybe we shouldn't have been involved in that relationship. Maybe we weren't ready for it. And the challenge is we, we self sabotage, because if it's something that we're used to growing up in that adult child and alcoholic, dysfunctional family, the patterns that we saw, the constant bickering, the lying, you know, fighting, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, all those things, all compound it together has made, you know, our responses to different situations, very complex.

And sometimes, like a knee jerk reaction story that I had shared on a, you know, episode recently is that for me, a big trigger is dealing with finances, if there's a fear of lack of money, lack of funds to be able to pay bills, or get food or whatever, that really sets me off. I get very worried about that, because it reminds me of some of the challenges that, you know, I grew up with, in which, you know, with my mom and divorcing my father, my brother and I weren't quite sure what was going to happen to us. Like we knew that, you know, grandfather and grandmother were going to take us in, but we were like, well, how are we going to your house mom got to pay all the bills, and how's that all gonna work out?

And would we have enough for X, Y or Z? And, you know, I believe I shared the story of being in elementary school and I was Given a bunch of sneakers that were used, they were bought at a flea market, and they were gold. And I remember my grandfather giving them to me and saying, you know, where are these sneakers, you know, they've achieved this what we can afford, and I'm like, I don't want to wear the sneakers. And because I knew that kids were gonna, like, make fun of me. And it's horrible in which, you know, we grow up in an environment in which we worry so much about what other people say about either what we wear, or how we look, or how we act.

And I kind of fell into that. So I wore the sneakers, because that's what we had, you know, money wise. That's what I got. And I remember taking him to the gym later that week, and I was mercilessly teased by the kids, you've got the gold sneakers, you got Bobo's. And, you know, this, that and I was just just really made fun of, and I felt so ashamed that, you know, it wasn't going to have enough money, you know, for the, you know, our family, they'd be able to get by, and I was worried that, you know, peer pressure and worrying about, you know, look, if these were the best sneakers I can get, what am I going to do, it was just, it was a mess, as a little kid, being in that kind of circumstance.

And so in growing up, you know, the self sabotage. You know, I've seen situations where people overspend, you know, on things because they grew up in an environment where money was like scarce. So when they do have money that just goes through their hands like water. And then they're like, oh, I have no money. So, you know, the difficult thing in dealing with self sabotaging is one recognizing behaviors, recognizing dysfunctional behaviors. So for example, you know, when I was younger, there was a pattern to my romantic relationships, it would be, you know, I meet up with somebody, I'd fall madly in love, she was going to be the one for me to marry.

And, you know, not because that was true, if it's just because, you know, in my head, it was like, well, you, when you feel love for somebody, then you must marry that person. And going through that, and then the relationship falling apart, and then feeling horrible, for good amount of time, then meeting somebody else. And then the cycle would start up again, if like, Oh, I feel feelings with this person, I'm going to fall in love with this person, I'm going to marry that person. And then, you know, the, the pattern. And the, the thread through those relationships is that at the time, what was going through my head is that I felt incomplete and broken.

And I would become attracted to people who are also searching for themselves looking to fix themselves. And either I thought I could fix them or our love together could fix them. Unfortunately, I was so wrong. I was I couldn't be more wrong. But with that self sabotaging, instead of going to therapy and learning about myself and becoming comfortable with being alone, and learning how to love myself, and self parent, and doing all that foundational work, I would just feel really horrible that I wasn't with someone after the breakup, you know, go along the path of doing the best I could to quote unquote, fix myself, then I'd meet somebody else, and then go back into the same pattern again. And then, you know, when it would fall apart, be just as brokenhearted and upset.

And if that happened a couple times, you know, I had to take a step back and be like, what's the, what's the common denominator here? Me, I'm making decisions that are not healthy for myself, I am self sabotaging, that I could have happiness, and fulfillment, and the self love that I've been looking for. But the easier route is to take that infatuation path and get through yourself into a relationship, because then you can focus on the other person's problems, not your own, because you're perfect.

Again, that was that was very misguided, you know, of me, and I made many, many, many mistakes for that, and I can only imagine, you know, now looking back thinking of the women I was with during that time, of how, you know, they must have been so upset with me dealing with things that they were trying to grow up and, you know, if you're a teenager and early 20s, and you're trying to learn who you are, figure yourself out, and then me just coming in, like, you know, Wrecking Ball of, you know, thinking that love's gonna save the world. But I didn't spend the time in taking care of my own problems. So that's a, I think, a really good personal example of like, self sabotage. The reason Why, like why do we self sabotage I mentioned it earlier could be fear of the unknown fear of change, it could just be a habit that we think is right. But in actuality, it causes us more stress and more harm.

But learning how to break that pattern, and stop self sabotaging is not easy, and often takes help, sometimes professional health therapists, and that's not something that, you know, you can just like snap a finger and be like, today, I am no longer going to self sabotage. So I guess step one, when you take a step back, I always, you know, look at my own life and kind of focus on being a little bit easier on myself, because I am really hard, myself, I am driven, I'm type A personality, if I say I'm going to do something, I will do everything I can to make that happen. However, it's also important to rest, sleep, eat, have fun, build relationships, you can't just be like, totally dedicated and always on, it's just no one's that perfect. So, you know, in my circumstance, we could find it difficult to say no, you know, to things, I'll take on volunteer work ticket work. And I'll just keep piling stuff on.

And it gets to a point where, you know, I'm setting myself up for failure, that self sabotage, because if I can't say no, or can't face that conflict, to be like, Look, I can't take any more, I would like to, but, you know, I'm at my wit's end, right now, if I take any more, it's just not going to be good, because I won't be able to succeed at this, I've been got, I've gotten better at saying that when it comes to, like, work environment, not so good. Still working on that on the home front. You know, if I need help with something, if I'm taking on a lot of different tasks, and chores and things, I'll just pile things on pile things on until it gets to the point where, you know, I can't take any more. And it's like, that kind of stuff is the, you know, the snap that I'll just be like, I can't take any more, nobody helps me, blah, blah, blah. And then I regret that. And so again, it's like setting that up for that self sabotage, in which things are going wonderful. But then, if I keep taking on that responsibility, and I'm not carving out the time for myself to rest, eat, whatever.

And then don't say to others, that I need help, then I'm just basically just on overdrive and the engines gonna break. Like, at some point, you would think that that's something that, you know, is easy for me to learn. But it is a, you know, it's a common thread that I have noticed that my own, you know, behavior that I have to kind of be aware of, and watch out for. So when I think of the those type of things, and self sabotage, I laugh because it's very easy for me to see how others do that. But then to take a step back and be objective and look at my own behavior, that's a little bit harder to do.

The recognition of self sabotage, and that behavior pattern, it's not to do it to, you know, make fun of yourself to feel ashamed. It's to say, I see these patterns, objectively pull those emotions out of it, and say, If I continue on this path, what is going to happen? And then, you know, you could kind of play the scenario out in your head and like, well, sooner or later this or that could happen. And if it leads you down a path of unhappiness and sadness, the question could then turn back to be, maybe it is important to just kind of hold off and admit that the behavior pattern, which is unhealthy is being repeated again, and it's just gonna cause more stress and create more problems for you and your life.

So, you know, I, I say this, because I have experience in it. I don't say this to point a finger at any of you as listeners and be like, oh, you know, these are the things you need to work on. I think the hardest thing for anyone to do is to do that self assessment. You know, check in with oneself. And then to focus on the fact of, you know, maybe it is important that we stand up for ourselves with ourselves, and don't beat ourselves up so much to focus on self care is not just woowoo words. These are not just things of like, Oh, that's so you know, new Reiji are so whatever touchy feely, it's as people, we need time to be able to rest, to have fun, to be able to cultivate time to think, to process to feel, we can always be on, we can't always be perfect.

And we can't always, you know, think that we're always right. We're not we're human, you know, and the interaction with people in relationships, adding on the complexity of just but the world itself things going on politically, pandemic, you know, what, what's going to happen this fall with Coronavirus and COVID. Is it going to get worse? Is it not going to be as bad as last year? I mean, you go on and on and on, with all the stress that people all around the world are dealing with. And it's how we interact with all those pressure points along with how we interact with our relationships, co workers, spouses, siblings, children, you name it, it's just a very complicated web, and the pulled us all back, focusing on that self sabotage, identification, admitting it, like thinking through and be like, Hmm, what are the various patterns that I see, you know, that I go through in life, recognizing those admitting to those, and then learning to change that behavior is a very, very difficult process. It's something that takes time, it takes patience, it takes work.

And I wish that it would be something simple, you know, to do. But when it comes to self sabotage, sometimes these behaviors are so ingrained, you know, in us, because it might be that when we were growing up, we were told that we were useless or unloved, or we were the problem, we were the one that broke up our parents or we were the one that you know, drove people to drink, or whatever horrible things that people may have said, about us as kids, when we were growing up in these, you know, dysfunctional family environments. And that core message of something is, quote, unquote, wrong with you might be at the center of that unfulfilled moment, in that you're getting somewhere you're headed toward the goal, you want to go and then self sabotage comes in.

And you think, why? Why did I do that? Why? And it might simply be, or one of the reasons why it might be is that deep down, we don't believe that we're lovable, or we're capable, or we can achieve these things. We might still believe those things that we were told, because they were so ingrained in us as kids, you know, that our our natural reaction is to think, Oh, I'm, I'm wrong. to reprogram one's brain and think, no, I am lovable. I am, okay, I am not broken. I love myself like positive, you know, thoughts to reprogram oneself, it takes a lot of work, it takes practice. And it might be something that we have to consciously work on, you know, on a multiple times a day, because I've seen people, you know, get into a situation, create, you know, working on something, creating something doing something and make a mistake, and then they'll be like, I am dumb. And it's like, no, you are not dumb, it's you made a mistake, and how to overcome that mistake, and what to do about it. That's where that growth process kind of takes place.

But if we're on autopilot, and, you know, we're thinking, Oh, I'm gonna, you know, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. And then we're always afraid in the back of our mind that we don't deserve the success, then we're going to have these roadblocks that kind of come in our way. And there'll be there for ourselves. You know, I've seen all kinds of hurt all kinds of stories and seeing people talk about this. And adult children and alcoholic meetings have repeatable patterns. That, you know, it's frustrating that when all of us go through this, but a lot of it centers on memories of what we have, you know, as children.

And that's, that, I think, is the most damaging thing in that we might be trying to fix the unfixable in our present. Let me explain that. So if in the past, you know, in my circumstance, there was my father and his behaviors which were dysfunctional. My mom divorced him. And in my relationships in my life, there's always that trying to fix and go back and have that happy family life with either people that are not there for me emotionally, or, physically were not committed to me or whatever, you know, there was like, me trying to overcome and travel back in time to fix what happened to me as a kid through present relationships. And if you think about that, it's pretty twisted and messed up. Because that's impossible to do. There is no way that we could go back in time.

And the actions of what we do today would have any meaning, anything to do with things that happened when we were kids, we just, it just, it's impossible. But I can tell you time and time again, you know, in relationships, I found that pattern to be front front and center. And then I was always looking for someone to want to be with me, to basically tell me that they loved me, and wouldn't leave me wouldn't abandon me. Because when I was abandoned, and left, as a kid, that made a mark on me, it was like a psychological scar that stayed with me all these decades later. And, until I was able to admit and be like, hey, you know, what, I'd love myself for who I am. I'm not perfect. Here's a here's my good traits, these are the things which I need to work on, you know, all in all, I'm happy with who I am.

And where I'm headed in life, I took a long time, for me to get to that point, you know, I was always looking to be completed through someone else through a relationship, you know, like, Oh, if I only found the right person, the two of us would make this magical being, and we would, you know, live in joy and harmony for the rest of our days, and for all eternity. It just doesn't exist. You know, and unfortunately, the fairy tale that's told to us, you know, through movies, through books, it kind of warps your sense of reality, because if all you knew, in growing up is like, if a parent abandon you, you know, either psychologically or physically, you know, didn't provide any support.

There's that hole in your psyche, in your, in your mind of remembering, you know, the question of like, why wasn't I worth sticking around for, you know, like, as a kid, you think of those things? Like, why did mommy or daddy leave me or choose alcohol or drugs or whatever, over me? What, what made me not quote unquote, good. You know, and that's how, like, as a kid, I used to think these things of like, I need to take care of myself and hyper responsibility. And I can do everything I can to, you know, shoulder forth, and, you know, do everything to change my world. But facing those demons and facing those fears, takes time, energy, and effort. And in the beginning, I didn't even know how to do that, and even know where to go. So when I think of those things, and those times, and think of, you know, the sadness that I kind of bore my heart for so many years of thinking, like, I will never have a relationship, you know, with my father, like, when I was young, and he threw a ball to me, and he took time to be with me to play a game with me, like, I just don't, there's just that didn't happen. You know, there were some memories that I have there. He did nice things with me.

But there are certain things of like, teaching me how to ride a bike or, you know, having a catch or taking me to a ball game like, companion like experiences. Like, yes, I did have some of those experiences with my grandfather. But knowing that you're your central, parental person in your mind, your mom and your dad and half of that is your dad and decides to leave. It just created a great, a great void vacuum in my heart. And, you know, through self sabotage, I just would like inadvertently be repeating that same pattern in relationship after after relationship.

Again, it doesn't have to be in a relationship. I'm just using an example which is pertinent to me. It could be jobs, it could be codependency on how either a sibling or your mom or dad, that you try to take responsibility for some of their dysfunctional behavior. And then you self sabotage, like maybe anytime you're going to be happy on something, you sacrifice something to, to help them, instead of drawing a boundary line and being like, Look, I can't cross this line, because you're responsible for those things. It's your responsibility, mine falls on this side to make sure I'm happy, you need to take care of yourself that saying that and understanding that, in your head is is a very difficult thing, if you grew up in an alcoholic and dysfunctional family. So I do hope that you know, just to recap, step one, again, is like that inventory of being objective and honest with yourself and seeing Do do you do self sabotaging behavior, what are those, and then to break that chain, it's like, you have to kind of come to terms with that, in whatever way is helpful to you.

It could be writing, it could be therapy, it could be going to an ACOA meetings, it could be a combination of a bunch of different things. But coming to terms with that, and then, as I like to call it like the reprogramming of your brain takes time, you know, if you always think when you make mistake, I'm done. I'm not good enough. That has to be replaced with I made a mistake, I'm still good. I've always been good. I am worthy. I am loved. Like, that takes time for the instinct of the negativity could come up. And to replace that with new thoughts.

You know, sometimes people use things like a physical reminder on their body, like a tattoo or a bracelet or a ring or something that is a physical reminder of like, every time you see it, that symbol is a way to remind you of rethinking that different way. So that when you get into that kind of circumstance, you have a reminder, which is always on you. For longest time I was carrying around the Serenity Prayer on a coin, like in my pocket. And anytime I was really stressed out, I would say the Serenity Prayer, clutched my hand around that coin.

And, again, if you take the prayer part out of it, if you just take the what can you change? And what can't you change, understanding that, that you could change things in your own life yourself, but you cannot change or fix another person, or anything outside of your own realm. And your realm consists of what you can do for yourself that that initial foundational boundary and running everything through that every problem, every interaction, every complexity with people, just to me change things entirely, because then it'd be like, wait a minute, why am I doing this, there's a difference of like helping someone. But then there's that crossing that line and being codependent or being taken advantage of, you know, so the self sabotaging behavior can be overcome. It just takes time.

And again, I'd ask that you be patient with yourself, a lot of what I discuss it deals with patients, it takes months or years to kind of rethink things through and process it. And to come from a different perspective. Some of you may think, Oh, that's great, because you know, I won't be rushed at this. Others by thank God, that's too long. I don't want to wait that long. And I hear you, I do. I just would ask that you do be kind to yourself on a daily basis. And to reflect on what I was sharing in this, compare my stories with yours and maybe that might spark some honest conversation within yourself on what to do next of how to overcome this. So I do hope this episode has been helpful. As always, if you have enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, please visit the let go and be free.com website. There are blog posts on there that go back a couple years. There are links to the various four volume books, they let go and be free books that I have out there. And if you aren't subscribed to the podcast, I invite you to do so trying to keep this podcast going, you know as long as I can. And I'm hoping that you and others are enjoying it. So thank you so much for your time and as always be well.

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