Self-Sabotage

• Many self-sabotaging cycles are trauma responses and patterns learned earlier in life as self-preservation.
• A fear of abandonment is really a fear of intimacy and connection.
• To change these patterns, we need to be willing to unlearn patterns of self-preservation while learning patterns of self-healing.

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Familiar and comfortable are not the same thing as healthy and safe. Yet, we are often attracted to what is familiar and comfortable because it resonates with our early conditioning. Until we begin taking a deep dive into our personal history, our repetitive patterns, and our learned conditioning, our ability to see whether we’re engaging in self-sabotaging behavior may be blurred. 

We may be in denial or turn to rationalizations or projections as excuses for why we continue repeating unhealthy patterns. At the core of all self-sabotaging behavior, we typically find fears of being abandoned, not feeling "good enough," and struggles with self-identity and self-esteem. However, once we peel back these layers, we begin seeing that many self-sabotaging cycles are trauma responses and patterns learned earlier in life as self-preservation.

Why We Self-Sabotage

Unresolved trauma: If we grew up in a toxic family, we were probably handed certain implicit roles, often for survival. We may have had narcissistic or abusive parents who shamed us, physically abused us, or emotionally neglected us. Or we may have had a parent who enabled others in the family to continue cycles of self-defeating behavior, including their own. 

These wounds are what get carried with us as self-sabotaging behavior. We often recreate the same patterns in our adult relationships that were modeled and conditioned for us in our childhood, including messages of not feeling worthy, fearing abandonment, or believing maladaptive mindsets that were taught as normal. Eventually, we wind up turning to more misery as “comfortable” or “familiar.”  READ MORE...