Are You Sabotaging Your Success and Happiness?

In this podcast we're exploring a behavioural pattern that I see a lot of in my holistic coaching practice; that of self-sabotage. 

Our inner saboteur can show up in a myriad of ways. Perhaps you can relate to one of these…

• Do you often feel trapped by fear?
• Are you always second-guessing yourself?
• Do you avoid setting goals or find yourself setting unrealistic ones?
• Have things not gone the way you’d planned more times than you’d like?
• Are you neglecting or doing things that undermine your health?
• Do you keep stumbling in your relationships?
• Do you blame yourself for messing up?

If any of these resonate, this episode will help you get clarity on what’s going on.

With the help of a fascinating case study, we’re going to unravel what self-sabotage is … how to recognise it … what impact it has on our lives … and most importantly, what you can do to untangle yourself from its hindering and sometimes destructive influence.

Thanks for listening!

You can discover more about my work on my website: https://www.harinderghatora.co.uk

Follow me on Instagram for free information on healthy, balanced living: https://www.instagram.com/harinder_ghatora/

Transcript

Hi there! I hope you’ve had a great month. 

Now, in today’s podcast we’ll be exploring a topic that touches on something that’s often found lurking in the shadows of our minds - self-sabotage. 

What exactly is it … how does it impact our lives? And, more importantly what can you do to untangle yourself from its hindering and sometimes destructive influence. 

 Stay tuned as we unravel the patterns of self-sabotage and discover ways to foster growth and success.

 This is Harinder and you’re listening to the Bringing You Back into Balance podcast.

 I see a lot of people struggling with self-sabotage in my holistic coaching practice, and these programmes show up in a myriad of ways. Over the years I’ve observed that, at best, they keep people stuck and confused, and at worst they cause deep mental and emotional distress. It’s really sad to see how much guilt, shame, self-recrimination, anxiety and sadness show up…. with people blaming themselves for something that they can’t control. 

 So, what exactly is self-sabotage? 

 At its core, self-sabotage refers to any action or thought pattern that hinders our own progress, growth and success.  It's like an internal saboteur that undermines our efforts, often without our conscious awareness. This phenomenon can manifest in various aspects of our lives, affecting not only our careers but also our relationships, mental health, and our unique spiritual journeys. And it causes deep unhappiness.

 I’m pretty sure we’ve all come face to face with our own inner saboteur at some point in our lives. Mine shows up quite regularly – lately she’s been making herself known whenever I get into a good, balanced routine – where I get up on time, I do my morning yoga and meditation, I eat well, stay hydrated throughout the day, actively wind down at the end of an evening and get to sleep at a sensible hour. I can comfortably maintain this over very many weeks and just when I start to feel really good – I’ll mess it all up, and it can take me very many days, if not weeks, to reset the balance again. 

 I’ve been consciously monitoring myself for a while now and I can see a pattern - it usually starts with one evening when I’m tired and instead of going straight up to bed I’ll plonk myself in front of the TV and start binge watching something… one split second of indiscipline can throw my entire routine out of the window for ages.  I stay up late, so then I’m too tired to get up the next morning, I miss my morning stretches and my meditation practice….my mind and body then start to get cranky…I then start mindlessly eating sugar to make myself feel better …..then due to this excessive consumption of sugar I can’t sleep which in turn messes up my next day…..and so on and so on. Then sadly, it has to get really bad for me to muster up the self-discipline to sort myself out all over again. Hmmm.. it’s not a good feeling to know that I’ve done it to myself. The saboteur in me seems to like messing up my beautiful life. 

 Okay…can you relate to any of these common real-life examples of self-sabotage?

 The fear of failure: Are you afraid of failing? Do you avoid opportunities or procrastinate because a big part of you fears you won’t measure up? This fear can be paralysing – it prevents us from taking risks and pursuing our dreams.

 Then there’s imposter syndrome: do you doubt your accomplishments and have a persistent fear that you’re going to be found out…that people are going to realise you’re not as good as they think you are… and then you’ll be exposed as a fraud? This fear can gnaw away at a person. It often leads us to saying no to opportunities or not fully embracing or enjoying our achievements.  

 Then there’s persistent negative self-talk. Is the voice in your head particularly harsh? Does it belittle you and make you feel bad? We all know that the words we speak to ourselves hold incredible power but most of us have an unruly, loud inner critic who loves reminding us that we’re just not good enough…. we’re too fat, too thin, too dumb, too crazy….on and on it goes. This kind of constant negative self-talk has the power to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we repeatedly feed ourselves negative messages about ourselves, we soon start to believe them as true and this inadvertently sabotages our chances of success.

 Are you a procrastinator? Do you put off doing things at the right time and then end up beating yourself up? This is another classic and very common form of self-sabotage. Delaying important tasks or goals can create unnecessary and prolonged stress and seriously hinder our progress. 

 How about perfectionism? Is this the way you trip yourself up? Perfectionism is a common sabotage programme particularly among high performers. Constantly striving for flawlessness and setting ridiculously high standards for performance, makes for nothing but misery, especially as this pattern is more often than not accompanied by tendencies for overly critical evaluations. I know this pattern very well, as a recovering perfectionist. I’m always on the lookout for this part of my character as she has the potential to slow down everything I do and make me stress about everything I put out into the world…is it good enough?….could it be better?  Well, of course it could be better….but if I listen to her voice I would get nothing finished. 

 And, then there’s the big one…. which leads to lots of heartache - relationship sabotage. Do you sabotage your relationships? Do you push people away due to the fear of getting too close? Do you engage in self-destructive behaviours that jeopardize healthy harmonious connections, such as overworking or infidelity? Our relationships can become a battleground for our own internal struggles. 

 An example of this would be someone who has chronic insecurity & trust issues. I’ve worked with cases where people have bombarded their partners with text and phone messages and expect an instant response back each and every time to help them feel safe, secure and loved in their relationship. But as you can imagine this behaviour causes such overwhelm and upset for their partners that it would inevitably put a massive strain on the relationship…which could then easily breakdown. Self-sabotage.

 Another example is avoidance – where someone avoids communicating their true thoughts and feelings and insists everything is fine when it’s not. It doesn’t take long before this kind of unhappiness turns into martyrdom and bitterness which then results in passive aggressive behaviours. We all know how toxic and painful this kind of relating pattern can be for the person on the receiving end.  

 Recognising our patterns of self-sabotage and uncovering their roots are crucial steps when it comes to unhooking ourselves from these obstructive and upsetting behaviours. 

 I often find myself on a fascinating journey with my healing clients when we come up against a strong blocking energy in their life. I love unravelling the different programmes that are running in a person’s matrix. Sabotage programming is very common when someone reports wanting to achieve something and not being able to. Once these programmes have been identified and then removed it makes a marked difference in a person’s life. All the blocking energies disappear, and life starts moving in a positive direction. 

 Another thing I find is that, if we are self-aware enough, we may figure out that we are self-sabotaging but working out why we’re doing it isn’t always that straightforward. 

 Let me give you an example by taking you on a journey with a fictional character who we’ll call Jay. Although Jay is a made-up character his story is a composite of real client material. As always, let me state quite clearly at this point that I’m being very careful not to violate any of my clients’ privacy. I’ve found that presenting case studies helps to make abstract concepts clearer and more relatable. So, this is why I’ve chosen to share these stories. 

 Jay was unhappy because no matter how hard he worked and how much money he earnt he seemed to never amass any wealth. This issue had been going on for a long time and he really couldn’t fathom what was going on. 

 Jay had his own business which he had built from scratch. He worked in the haulage industry.  He had worked really hard and over a ten-year period he now owned a fleet of trucks and had secured some very lucrative contracts. By his own admission he was doing incredibly well if that is, we looked at the amount of revenue flowing into this business. But, after ten years of hard graft he had little to show for it. He’d noticed a pattern;  whenever he got paid a large sum of money he would instantly blow it. He would either give it away to someone who he thought needed it more than he did – friends, family, business partners ….or he would do something reckless like visit a casino and, combined with excessive drinking on such nights – he would blow it all away… I was shocked to hear that one such night he had gambled away £26,000. I was stunned. That is a breath-taking amount of money to lose….let alone lose in one night. 

 As you can imagine, this would then trigger a cycle of shame and self-retribution where he’d get really upset with himself – especially the next morning when he sobered up and reflected on what he had done….his partner would get mad at him….they would fight…..she would threaten to leave and each time he would vow never to do this again.  But again, the next time a large amount of money came in he would repeat the cycle. He could not figure out what was going on. Why would he keep messing up like this even when he tried so hard not to? This cycle had been going on for several years. Jay was 42 years old and other than his flat he had little to show for the successful business he ran. And now it wasn’t just about the money – he was in danger of losing the love of his life. She wanted to have children and he kept showing her that he was unreliable and untrustworthy.

 From what I’ve seen people are generally quite smart. They know what they’re doing, they often know why they are doing those things, and they have the personal power to change the things that trouble them if they want to. That is, if these things are in the conscious realm.

 Whenever I come up against someone who tries to change their behaviour but genuinely can’t ….no matter how hard they try, I know that we are dealing with the unconscious realm.  We are dealing with patterns that are lurking about in the shadows – controlling our thoughts, feelings and behaviours from behind the scenes so to speak. 

 I’m sure you’ve heard the analogy of an iceberg where only 10% of the iceberg is visible …90% of it is unseen as it exists below the water. This is not all that different to the human psyche. Our egoic minds like to think that we are in complete command of our inner world but a signficant proportion of the psyche operates from the unconscious parts of our being. 

 This is where the healing work that I do really comes into its own. I have great respect for talking therapies, I’m a qualified counsellor, I’ve seen the powerful transformative effects of psychotherapy but, we can only talk about the parts of us that are in the conscious realm at any point in time. 

 Healing enables us to access hidden realms…the parts of us that we aren’t fully aware of. 

And the thing about sabotage programmes is that they are often underpinned by subconscious and even unconscious hidden agendas. 

Jay and I had been working together for a while, so we booked a healing session to work on this self-sabotage programme that now, since his partner had given him an ultimatum, was causing him serious anguish. I think he was in a state of denial prior to this. 

 Divine healing invites a person’s Higher Self to take the driving seat. Once we are in the healing space, we present the problem and simply ask what is going on here. And we follow the leads. I was absolutely blown away by what showed up in Jay’s session.

 Two hidden subconscious agendas. There were some very powerful forces at play within Jay’s psyche almost compelling him to throw his money away! And he had no idea they were there.

 The first was to keep a vow or an oath. I put this to Jay – did this mean anything to him? He said ‘no’. He doesn’t recall taking any vows. Okay so then this must be a past life programme imprinted on his soul which he’d carried into this lifetime. Vows of poverty and the like were very common among members of monastic orders both in the West – with the Catholic, orthodox and Anglican traditions and in the East – with renunciates from the Hindu and Buddhist traditions. Vows and oaths cut deep. Sometimes people’s ancestors take vows that affect many generations to come. 

 When I got married my mother-in-law said that I wasn’t allowed to buy any glass bangles as there was some ancestral oath that had been taken where someone had requested something from the universal powers-to-be, and said that in return the entire clan’s daughters-in-law would never purchase glass bangles again. So intriguing…what the hell had this ancestor requested, and did they get it? I wonder. And, what would happen if a daughter-in-law did purchase some glass bangles? Any why glass bangles, and not something else? As usual, no-one had any answers to these kinds of questions. I’m not a bangles type of person so this didn’t really bother me. Out of respect for my kind, gentle mother-in-law I just did what I was told at the tender age of 23. She did say if I wanted to wear them then someone could buy them for me…just she or I couldn’t buy them. I probably privately scoffed at it at the time – I actually don’t remember… I mean it could easily be labelled as superstitious mumbo-jumbo. But you know what, since my healing training and all the unconscious, past life stuff that comes up in client sessions…I would actually take this kind of stuff seriously now, and get the programmes cleared for myself and future members of the clan. 

 Well, I transgress. Let’s get back to Jay. We were being told that the sabotage to wealth was in part coming from a hidden agenda to keep a vow. This made a lot of sense. Perhaps Jay had taken a vow of poverty in some past life. Perhaps he was a monk (his soul plan numbers supported this theory – he had very evolved spiritual numbers). Members of monastic orders renounce all their personal ownership of material goods and live a simple, modest life, usually relying on the support of the community or the alms of others. This made sense. If at a soul level Jay had an imprint of such a vow (perhaps he’d been a monk very many times) he would unconsciously do whatever he could to get rid of this stuff, even though this was not appropriate in the setting of this lifetime. We did have a laugh that monasticism, drinking and gambling don’t quite sit together but he wasn’t a monk in this life….he had taken an oath – these are powerful…they are carried down from one lifetime to the next and don’t disappear until they are consciously renounced. 

 It’s easy to do this so I took Jay through a process to break the vow – rescinding any and all vows, contracts, declarations, oaths, pacts, promises and agreements that he’d taken/made at any point on his soul’s journey for himself and his ancestors. 

 This process always feels so freeing and people often report feeling expanded and lighter. 

 We continued with the session. And, to my surprise something else came up around hidden subconscious agendas. This sabotage to accumulating wealth was also being driven by self-punishment. More often than not, the things that come up in a divine healing session don’t make any sense to me but when put back to my clients – they usually know exactly what their Higher Self is referring to.

 Right, Jay, what are you punishing yourself for? Does this mean anything to you?

 Jay went very quiet. I sensed this was not a reflective quietness….it felt like a solemn quietness. It felt like my question had forced Jay to dredge up something from deep within his being. Something he clearly didn’t want to remember. I gave him a moment. And also noted the huge wave of sadness that came over me. What was going on here? 

 Finally Jay came up with a memory from when he was a teenager. He was in a pub with his friends – a man that he’d often seen in that pub had come up him and his two friends and asked for money – he’d definitely had too much to drink and was worse for wear – he said he needed the money for a cab. Jay and his two friends refused – and said they couldn’t help. They watched him ask a few other people and everyone said no. The bartender told him to stop bothering people and asked the man to leave. The man left. A week later Jay found out that that man hadn’t made it home. He had been found dead in the river. 

 Jay broke down at this point. This was clearly a traumatic memory that he had pushed into the shadows. We had unearthed it. How terribly sad…. for this man and for Jay and his friends. It didn’t take long for us to put two and two together and work out that Jay handing his money out willy nilly was being driven by the guilt of not having given this man cab fare some twenty odd years ago. If he’d given him the money, he may have got home safely. And the refusal to amass any wealth now was being driven by self-punishment – he didn’t deserve to have lots of money.

 Wow! I was stunned by this. But it so made sense. Isn’t it amazing what was actually going on in the shadows of Jay’s psyche?

 Well, we cleared the trauma and this hidden agenda to punish himself.  Hidden agendas like this often serve a purpose. There’s a payoff in having the sabotage. The purpose is often to avoid some emotional pain. At some level that behaviour helps us to survive. In Jay’s case it appears that the payoff was to deal with and alleviate his deep sense of guilt. 

 We continued the session, and some other things came up around unworthiness which were also creating a massive hinderance to Jay having money and, interestingly, a fear of other peoples’ jealousy. Jay had grown up with a mum who always talked about the evil eye…other people’s bad intentions jinxing your life in a scary way …..so again this made sense to Jay. This fear was so strong in him that it stopped him having any wealth – he couldn’t be judged and envied if he didn’t have any wealth to flaunt in the first place. 

 Well, by the end of the session Jay was exhausted. We’d uncovered a lot of low frequency programming, and it would take a day or so for him to integrate these changes. 

 I have no doubt that we’d taken out the programmes that were driving Jay’s self-sabotage pattern. When you consider how many of the programmes were in the unconscious realm was it any surprise that Jay was confused and felt powerless to change his behaviour? Accumulatively these programmes were way more powerful than this conscious mind. And of course he noticed a powerful shift – the compulsive need to part with this money gradually disappeared over a few months after the session. 

 I get to witness all sorts of fascinating stuff in the healing sessions.

 From my experience it’s apparent that self-sabotage is strongly driven by unconscious forces in our psyches … and often we don’t know what’s at the root of them … unless we do some concerted detective work like we do in a divine healing session. Otherwise, we keep repeating the same behaviours, blame ourselves, and stay stuck and miserable.

 For example, sometimes we make unconscious commitments to an idea or an identity which keeps us firmly tethered to the past and hinders our progress. I remember someone who reported deep feelings of unhappiness. And, when we uncovered the root causes it turned out that the unhappiness was being driven by a grudge which the person wasn’t willing to let go of because there was a hidden ego agenda to stay stuck to the identity of being a victim. This person had created such a story around being cheated out of some family inheritance for so long that who would they be without this story?

 Unconscious fears can keep us firmly stuck in lower frequencies and prevent growth and progress. I recall someone who wanted to move house, but no matter how many times we agreed little goals to get the ball rolling – simple things like just registering with Zoopla and Rightmove, this lady just kept procrastinating. It turned out that all the indecision around whether to move, and where to move to, was being driven by a hidden agenda to resist change. There was a deep underlying fear of moving to a new area…of having to make new connections….a fear of not being accepted…..a fear of having to get out of her comfort zone – and a fear of all the effort that had to be put in to actually physically move into a new house. So, it was easier to not take any action at all. 

 There was another example where a self-sabotaging programme was unearthed around a client not wanting to recover from ill health. This is quite surprising when you first come across it – like, who wouldn’t want to get well? Of course this lady consciously wanted to recover but there was a big unconscious block. Well, during a healing session an associated hidden agenda was unearthed. It turned out to be a fear of the ending of a relationship. I put this to my client and on discussion this turned out to be her fear of her husband leaving her. They had a very rocky marriage for years and they both knew where their marriage was heading until she got diagnosed with breast cancer. Her husband put all the hostility aside and stepped up and their relationship had significantly improved. If she got better, somewhere deep deep down she feared that their relationship would deteriorate again, and her husband would leave this time. She had an investment in staying ill even though her conscious mind would never have acknowledged this. 

 Sabotage to health programmes are sometimes driven by unprocessed suppressed emotions that people are unwilling to let go of. I recall someone who had a recurring problem with boils randomly appearing on his skin. On exploration the underlying energies identified were anger and betrayal. When I put this to this man and asked if it meant anything to him, he came out with a memory about his brother betraying him with his girlfriend when they were teenagers. He was so angry and upset and wanted to continue to blame his brother because in his eyes if he let the issue go, his brother had won. This had been going on for fifteen years. 

 Another big driver of relationship sabotage is childhood trauma and the limiting beliefs that are always a legacy of childhood physical, emotional and psychological neglect, abandonment and/or abuse. When our primary caregivers don’t nurture us in the right way then we end up believing that we are unworthy, unlovable or damaged in some way. This kind of childhood trauma seriously affects the way we feel safe and settled in relationships when we are adults. On the one hand we want to get close to someone but on the other, if anyone gets too close, we are unconsciously compelled to run away or mess things up. 

 It’s really interesting how when someone’s Higher Self presents a hidden agenda people always own it and can relate to the motives uncovered even though their conscious self would never have arrived at that conclusion through self-analysis. Divine healing really is fascinatingly eye-opening.

 Okay, so let me ask you. Do you recognise any persistent self-defeating patterns operating in your life? In your relationships? At work? In meeting your personal goals? If you can then, congratulations, you’ve done the first most difficult thing and that is to become an observer of your own behaviours. You’ve taken the first step in healing which is to recognise the pattern. It’s not always easy to examine our own actions deeply enough to note these patterns of self-sabotage. It’s almost like admitting to ourselves that we are self-sabotaging is too painful. None of us rush to this conclusion as we’re all too busy trying to avoid this realisation. Pretty much like Jay. It was his wife’s ultimatum that focussed his attention on the issue. He would have carried on being upset but not actually taking responsibility to change. 

So here are some of the common things that show up. Some of the clues: 

• Do you second guess yourself a lot?
• Do you try not going after any goals or set unrealistic ones?
• Do you act as though you don’t deserve more?
• Do you feel stuck in fear a lot of the time?
• Do you neglect or do things to undermine your health?
• Do you often wonder why things don’t go as you planned or expected?
• Do you often blame yourself for messing up?
• Do you run away when things (a job, a relationship) get good?
• Do you give up easily when things get a little difficult?

Now it’s really important to not judge yourself whenever you do recognise you’re self-sabotaging. As you’ve just heard from the examples I’ve presented, these programmes usually have their roots in some deep wounds so it’s really important to treat yourself with compassion – you’re not to blame. All we need to do is bring awareness and a healthy dose of curiosity. Instead of saying “You dumb arse, what are you doing?” to yourself, try “Okay…this is interest…I wonder what is going on here.” This way the internal defences, instead of going up, come down and this makes exploration and transformation much easier.

Step 2 is to identify your triggers. After identifying the pattern you need to take note of when you do these things. What are the triggers for you? What are the circumstances? Observe yourself and learn as much as you can about what sets you off. Track your triggers in a journal. So, for example, if you’ve noticed you’re drinking too much, notice when this tends to happen? After a stressful work meeting? An argument with your spouse? When you’re feeling lonely or bored?

Step 3 is to take the process of self-reflection deeper. 

A powerful way to do this is to ask yourself the following questions to see if you can unearth anything deeper. These questions can help you uncover the underlying motives for your self-sabotaging behaviour, which you might not have recognised before. Uncovering these kinds of motives can help loosen the hold the sabotage programme has on you. Because as soon as you make the unconscious conscious it loses some of its power over you.

It’s best to journal around these questions, and not just think about them. Writing helps you go deeper into yourself. Also, answer the questions spontaneously – without thinking about it too much.

Here are the reflection prompts:

• What does this sabotaging thought or behaviour allow me to do?
• What am I avoiding by having this sabotage?
• What am I afraid would happen if I didn’t sabotage?
• What am I trying to prove with this sabotaging thought/behaviour? 
• What am I trying to get by repeating this sabotage?
• What am I afraid of losing if I let go of this pattern?

For example, if you’re drinking yourself to sleep every night then what feelings or memories are you trying to avoid? There’s always something deeper going on. It’s never as simple as “I’m just a bad person making bad choices.” And what’s the payoff? – does it make you feel good, feel like a better person, relaxes you for a time?

What are you afraid of? That facing up to painful feelings/memories would overwhelm you. This stuff can cut really deep.

Step 4 is to talk to someone you trust.

Talk about the issues that you’ve identified with a trusted friend if you can. This can really help to solidify the awareness in your conscious mind, and help you recognise and identify triggers and reactions. It can also help you uncover underlying motives – sometimes things are obvious to others, but we can’t see them clearly ourselves because we’re too enmeshed in the pattern.

Step 5: Armed with more self-awareness, take steps to address the self-defeating habit. 

First, when you notice yourself being triggered, practice mindfulness, or non-judgmental awareness of your thoughts and behaviours in the present moment. This can really help. Just notice what you’re doing without any judgment. 

Each time you uncover a trigger, try to come up with one or two productive reactions to replace the self-sabotaging behaviour if you can. For example, after a stressful day at work, the alternative could be going for a brisk walk instead of reaching for a drink? Or calling a friend. 

And then make small changes – if you’ve had the self-defeating pattern for a long time, it’s not going to disappear overnight. Practice taking the alternative/productive actions that you’ve identified and if you slip up be kind to yourself. It’s going to take time. You may be undoing habits that have been in operation for years.

Step 6: Seek help

If your own efforts to try different behaviours and responses haven’t worked, or only work for a while, seek help from a trained professional i.e. contact a therapist. I know from my work that there are sometimes things that we simply can’t talk about with just anyone. We need a safe, non-judgmental, confidential, empathic, trained listener. And, as I’ve outlined earlier in this podcast, sometimes it’s not possible to uncover all the underlying factors with your conscious mind alone.  If you believe you’ve tried really hard and nothing has worked then seek out some healing. I offer divine healing but there are many similar healing modalities out there which can help you identity and shift the emotions, thoughts and past experiences which underpin the self-sabotage. 

As you’ve heard in this podcast self-sabotaging behaviours can be complex in that they have their roots in the deepest shadows of our minds but as with anything in life, if you truly want to heal, all you have to do is muster up the will and the courage to bring these patterns and their underlying motives out of the shadows into the light of your consciousness. 

By recognizing and owning these behaviours, you’ve taken the first step toward changing them. And you don’t have to do it alone. Friends, loved ones, and trained therapists can all offer support.

Okay, so that’s it for today…I hope I’ve left you with something to think about.

If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, then please subscribe …that way you won’t miss any future episodes. And if you can leave me a good review it will help more people to access this free content as the podcast platforms promote those podcasts more. 

Right, so you enjoy the rest of your day. And remember, take really good care of yourself because you and I both know that if you don’t no one else will.

 Bye for now.