Self-sabotage can show up in many different ways including procrastination, over-extending yourself and people pleasing. One thing that I hear over and over from my clients is that they self-sabotage. They have come to notice that just when things are getting good all hell breaks loose.
There are several reasons why self-sabotage rears its ugly head. Today I will discuss the unworthiness aspect to self-sabotage. When we have a deep-seeded sense of unworthiness we often unconsciously sabotage our own efforts.
I use a three-step process to help my clients conquer self-sabotage. Today we will discuss step one.
In the first step you must have an understanding of beliefs.
All of your beliefs are simply “stories” that you deem true. The “stories” that you have accepted as true almost always come from others, usually your caretakers. Even the “stories” that you have formed around your self-concept are formed as a result of how others have treated you.
Stories (beliefs) can be changed. Changing the stories around your self-concept is imperative to cultivating your self-worth.
Therefore step one is to release the emotional triggers that have empowered your stories about your self-concept. Your stories about yourself are developed around the experiences you had, usually as a youngster. Most often those experiences are painful. In order to begin conquering self-sabotage, you must release that past pain.
Consider your painful experiences from the past. What are they?
For instance, if your parents were emotionally and physically absent during your childhood you may believe that you don’t matter, or that you’re not worthy of someone’s time and attention. (The story here is that, “I don’t matter” “I’m not worthy of time and attention.”) If this is your story you may find yourself using statements like “I hate to be a bother, but…”, “I don’t mean to take up your time…”
The correlating emotions may be: feeling insignificant, overlooked, unimportant, hurt feelings, sadness etc.
Or if a teacher embarrassed you in front of the class you may fear looking stupid or that you are stupid. (The story here is “I’m stupid” or “I don’t want to look stupid” or “people will think I’m stupid”.) If this is your story you may hear yourself using the above phrases and calling yourself stupid in your own self-talk or even calling other people stupid.
The correlating emotions may be humiliation and/or embarrassment.
The first step is to release the emotional pain of those past experiences. You may think that they don’t affect you, but if they popped into your mind, they do.
As you know my favorite tool for releasing emotional pain is EFT.
This week take one topic per day and tap on it. Use the correlating emotions as your set-up phrase then use the details of your experience to tap on the major meridian points. Do as many rounds as it takes to get your numbers as close to a “0” as possible. Then tune in the following day to see if the emotion is still at a low rating. If it is, great! Go on to the next topic. If the number has risen, then tap on that topic again until it remains consistently low.
Tune in next week for step 2.
Many Blessings and Happy Tapping,
Michelle