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Chronicles Of A Therapist
Chronicles Of A Therapist
It's Sabotage!
Welcome back to Chronicles of a Therapist with Cassandra Shepard! In this episode, Cassandra dives deep into the concept of self-sabotage and how it can manifest in our lives without us even realizing it. She discusses the fear of happiness, the struggle with intense emotions, and the importance of problem-solving skills. Cassandra shares personal anecdotes and practical advice on how to recognize and combat self-sabotaging behaviors. Learn how to set goals, reflect on your life, and surround yourself with supportive people to break free from the cycle of sabotage. Don't miss this insightful discussion that encourages you to take control of your life and pursue your passions!
**Chapters:**
00:00 Introduction
01:15 Understanding Self-Sabotage
03:30 The Fear of Happiness
05:45 Managing Intense Emotions
08:00 The Importance of Problem-Solving
10:30 Recognizing Negative Patterns
12:00 Setting Goals and Making Plans
15:00 Surrounding Yourself with Supportive People
17:00 Conclusion and Encouragement
18:30 How to Connect with Cassandra
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Hey guys, welcome back to Chronicles of a Therapist. I am Cassandra Shepherd, and welcome to my space of a therapist. I am Cassandra Shepherd and welcome to my space, and today I wanted to talk about something that I've kind of come across. As a therapist. I see this more than probably in my personal life, but it's amazing listening to people and hearing them struggle and not knowing what exactly they're struggling with, and so I wanted to talk about sabotage and how easily it is for you to sabotage your life.
Speaker 1:I think that sometimes people don't even realize to the extent of how sabotage looks, and I think when you think about that concept, you think about somebody doing it to you, like somebody, an outside source, person, place, thing doing it to you. But more recently I have actually found that people are literally sabotaging their own life, and I got to pull up my notes. That looks like lack of intense feelings of joy, and not just lack of intense feelings of joy, but knowing how to manage it. These are the people who are scared of happiness or are scared of good things happening, like I've talked to people and they've had monumental great things happening before, but then they don't know what to do with it, or they're upset that the things that they wanted or worked towards or have been really, really looking forward to happened, and then they don't know what to do with it. So those intense feelings of joy and then unable to understand intense negative emotions. So I think, people, in our human state, we don't like intense emotions, good or bad. I don't believe that people understand what intense negative emotions look and feel like, because, yes, you can be disgusted, you can be disappointed, but those negative feelings are like those deep, the deep disdain, the self-hatred, people who do things that now affect their own well-being. So that's that negative, intense emotion and because they don't understand them, they can't pull the correct coping skills.
Speaker 1:So, for instance, if I as a person me, if I am struggling and I am having and I do have, actually I do have bad days, I have bad days and for me, bad days look like being emotionally drained and not having I've talked about this not having the capacity or the space to navigate all of life's happenstance. Nothing has, nothing bad has happened, but you, just you, you know you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, which it wasn't until that started happening. To me it didn't make sense, but for me, something that I know that works for me is I know how to stop and pray, because that's important for me, because for me that now grounds me and, if nothing else, that can always remind me of my purpose and why I do love what I do. So if you can't tap into that, because your negative emotions, your depression, your anxiety, your anger, your hurt is so deep you can't pull from, ok, maybe I can think about my purpose in life. Maybe I can think about what I enjoy about life. Purpose in life. Maybe I can think about what I enjoy about life. Maybe I can think about something else to reflect, to push past your negative emotion. Because let's be real, things are going to happen. You know, when I totaled my Jeep, I didn't think that I was going to total my. I didn't wake up that morning to say you know what? I'm going to total my Jeep, let's know.
Speaker 1:But part of being an adult and part of living life is being able to say things happen. I can't stay stuck there. Things will happen. Like you can plan everything out to a T and I've been a person to do that and they still don't go right. Things still don't go right. So we can't stay stuck in those negative emotions because they're not going how we want them to be.
Speaker 1:And, more importantly, I think the people sabotage more because they don't have the examples of what perseverance looks like. They don't have examples to know what it looks like going from zero to you know, maybe being maybe not wealthy, but in a better place. So if you've never seen that, you know I talk a lot about my family and my parents and I'm so appreciative of all that they poured Like I never realized some of the small things that they were doing, like how to problem solve. I didn't know that they were teaching me that as a kid, like I had. And so as an adult, I'm finding that there are literal adults who do not know how to problem solve. And why that's important is well, when I totaled my Jeep, problem solving said okay, you totaled your Jeep, I'm grateful. Yay, you have insurance. So what do I need to do? First, I'm in the ER. Okay, let me call my insurance company right now so we can make a plan, because that's why I'm paying y'all for it, right? So because I have been instilled the ability to have problem solving even in adversity. Yes, can I take a breather? Can I take a moment. But guess what? Things still have to be done.
Speaker 1:And so, when you are a person who is struggling with sabotage and you've never seen people have problem solving, be perseverant. Like, have a plan, even if having a plan A, b and C that is definitely something Frank Shepard taught us. Like, you always have a plan, but you also have a backup plan and sometimes a C plan, because that is a part of life. You have to problem solve. You got to be able to pick, and if nobody's ever taught you to do that and things aren't going well, then you will sabotage your life, things will go wrong for you.
Speaker 1:And so I would encourage people if you are struggling with, you know, sabotaging your life and you don't even know it you need to find different ways, one to think differently. How do we do that? Because I know that's what everybody thinks. Well, how are you going to tell me to think differently? Well, first of all, clearly, the people around you. If they're allowing you to sabotage, like if you literally are sabotaging your life, I know people who will just stop working. Yes, you might be going through depression, but you, unless you have, like, a pension or you know you got some money stacked away, you might need to have a plan B. I am all for.
Speaker 1:If your job is completely destroying your mental health and causing you so much emotional pain, please leave. And causing you so much emotional pain, please leave. Yeah, if it's completely affecting your well-being, nothing is that important. I don't care. Nothing is that important, get out of it. But if it's not that detrimental, then you need to have an alternate plan.
Speaker 1:So sabotage is well. I just. I don't like my boss, I don't like how he's looking at me, so I'm just going to quit. Okay, you're going to quit. You ain't got no resume made, you ain't been in no networking. You just want to quit, like. So you want to get evicted. You want your car to get repoed and and you can't then complain about the repercussions of of you not working through what is a problem solving. Okay, your boss doesn't like you. Have you said something to your boss? And if you don't feel comfortable?
Speaker 1:That is why HR now, granted, we all say HR, this, hr, that right. But HR is really for a company to make sure that they're not doing anything illegal. So I say that CYA, if you don't know what that means, cover your ass. If you have a job and you feel like your boss is treating you wrong or poorly, then you do go to HR. And you know why you go to HR Because that is illegal, not just because you're sensitive, but if you have actual evidence and it's not, you're not delusional, you're not making things up then you should go to your HR. But please, ma'am, please, sir, know that there absolutely would be some kind of consequences going to the HR, because now HR, now you're the flagged HR, so now you can't come to work late, you can't take long breaks, because now HR sees that you have an issue, so now they're going to critique the entire existence of your work history. So that's not necessarily you sabotaging.
Speaker 1:You have to understand what is going on in your life. And sabotaging means you didn't think about this. Like I said, maybe you don't know how to problem solve, maybe you didn't have that. So I think it's important one to check your surroundings. Like I said, what are your friends? Are your friends helping you sabotage your life? Like, there are sometimes people in your life who really are jealous and haters and don't like you, like, and, and they are a wolf in sheep's clothing, like, and it wasn't until I became an adult that I realized that that really is a thing like you hear people say stuff like that, but the reason why some people are like that is because they have their own hurt and pain and if you are not surrounding yourself with people who have their your best interest I've talked about that before then you might need to get some new friends circle. Check your circle If you feel like you are sabotaging or you just feel like things are going really, really poorly.
Speaker 1:Maybe you don't think that you personally are sabotaging, even though your actions are very much sabotaged. Maybe you don't realize that that's what's going on. So you need to self-reflect. You need to definitely take some time and sit with yourself, because that's how you're going know, like I encourage people who are in a place where they don't know what the hell is going on in their life, you might need to literally sit and write everything down, and the reason I say that is because now that gives you a different lens. Because, let's be real, if we just live in our head, sometimes just living in our head is not the best, because when you live in your head, even those of us who have great coping strategies have great self-talk sometimes you can talk yourself in and out of stuff that you're not supposed to. So you might need to just sit and write some stuff down. You might need to sit and write why you feel like things are going bad, why you feel like this friend seems like they aren't supportive. Write that stuff down because if you write it down, you can go back and look at it and say, oh. Then you can say, oh, I did cuss that friend out. Well, maybe that's why they're not a good friend to you, because if you cuss your friend out often, are they really your friend?
Speaker 1:The next and most important thing, if you feel like you're sabotaging your life, is make a plan. Make a plan of what it is that you want for your life. Goal setting as an adult is so important, and there's short-term and there's long-term goals. You might need to literally do 30, 60, 90 days a year, a year and a half, two years, four years, and it sounds taxing, but sometimes, when you don't know what's going on with your life, your best plan of attack is to sit down and write what it is that you want, because you can't say I want to be a millionaire in 90 days. Okay.
Speaker 1:Setting a goal also means. Well, what is your steps to get to this goal? If you want to be a millionaire and you're not working, how do we want to be a millionaire and just saying, oh, I'm going to just do content? That's still a job that still requires you to do something, that still requires you to know how to edit and and post and gather ideas. So no, so I'm not absolutely not saying that you can't, but understand that you need a plan. So make sure you set your goals and you have an understanding of what those look like.
Speaker 1:And sometimes you have to make goals that are uncomfortable. And you know why? Because if you make uncomfortable goals, you're going to have to do something that are uncomfortable. And you know why? Because if you make uncomfortable goals, you're going to have to do something different because, clearly, what you're doing now is not working. So when I told myself I wanted to be able to save and pay stuff down, that meant stop going on Amazon, stop clearing your Amazon cart and buying stuff that's been in your Amazon cart, and then you don't realize, oh, why did I buy this? Well, because you put it in your cart six months ago when you were being impulsive, right? So make a plan to stick with it.
Speaker 1:Like I said, if you feel like you are unable to accomplish your goals, then you need to figure out how to do so. You might need to take a class. Maybe you don't know how to do financial planning. Maybe you should find a class. Maybe you need to work on parenting skills. Maybe you need to find a class or a masterclass or do some research on YouTube or read a book or listen to a book. Maybe you don't want to read a book. Listen to a book. Find a way to identify these goals Because, like I said, if I want to read a book, listen to a book, find a way to identify these goals because, like I said, if I want to be a millionaire, one, do I know somebody who's a millionaire?
Speaker 1:Because if so, we need to talk. I need to know the first step of being a millionaire. I'm just not gonna be like how to be a millionaire and I'm just gonna wish, oh, I'm gonna win the lottery. Yes, all of us want to win the lottery, but let's be real. Us want to win the lottery, but let's be real. How many people do you know that's actually won the mega millions? I'll wait, exactly so surround yourself with people who can get you out of that rut so you can stop sabotaging your life. That's super, super important. Make your goals and sit with yourself. So hopefully that helps, guys. Thank you for listening. If you would like to contact me and link with me on Instagram, you can do so at cnchef underscore chronicles, and if you have not, please subscribe to the channel. And lastly, don't forget to allow your passion To prepare your purpose. Catch you next time, guys.