Self-sabatoge

“What next?!”

Jessica is having one of THOSE days.

You know, one of THOSE days when everything seems to be going wrong.
She discovered that her favorite shirt has a big stain. Her car
overheated on the drive to work. Her boss called her out for a
mistake and she has lunch with a particularly difficult client
scheduled for today.

On a day like this, the question “What next?” looms in Jessica’s
mind. She nervously anticipates the next hassle she’ll have to deal
with.

It’s no wonder that Jessica feels stressed out and has a headache.
****************************************************
Megan is having a fabulous day. In fact, her life lately has been
wonderful. She has been dating a great guy for six months and
absolutely adores him. Her job is stimulating and rewarding. And,
she recently had a healing talk with her father from whom she’d
previously been estranged.

With all of this positive stuff going one, Megan can’t understand
why she so often feels an impending sense of doom. She’s up most
nights feeling anxious and worried. It doesn’t make sense, but even
as Megan enjoys her relationship and career successes, a part of her
is waiting….

She’s waiting for that proverbial other shoe to drop.

She’s waiting for something to happen to take away this wonderful
life she’s currently living.
*****************************************************
Worries, fears, anxiety and stress are expected and make sense when
challenges and difficulties are happening. But, some of us
experience those same worries, fears, anxiety and stress when the
conditions of our lives are going well and are what we’ve always
wanted.

We don’t mean to expect the worst, but we do.

Maybe you expect the worst because it’s what you believe you’ve
mostly experienced in life. There’s no trouble remembering the many
times something happened to ruin fun, enjoyment and prosperity. You
may even feel like a victim of uncontrollable forces.

Expecting the worst may come from a long list of past experiences—
some of them possibly traumatic. This habit might also stem from low
self esteem and a belief that you are somehow unworthy of the
happiness that you want and that you are already experiencing.

Expecting the worst is a form of self-sabotage.

Here’s why…

When you expect the worst, you take your attention away from the
things that are possibly working themselves out or improving. You
direct your energy toward the problems that— from your view— are
unsolvable.

You also discount what’s going well in your life. What Jessica
can’t see when she’s caught up in her misery of irritating client and
malfunctioning car is that her friend sent her a really sweet email
this morning. Her dog greets her at the door each night with love
and sloppy kisses, along with countless other pleasant and joy-
bringing moments.

She can’t see or feel the benefits because she’s anticipating the
next disaster. Unfortunately, she’ll get more of what she expects.

Megan is also in self-sabotage mode even though it’s less obvious.
In her mind, she is watching her great boyfriend for signs of lying.
She’s smiling, but she’s also on the lookout for any indication that
he’s deceptive and hurtful like her ex.

She wants to be happy, but she can’t seem to open up to the
happiness that’s already present. She doesn’t trust herself or
others and this keeps her closed off and, especially on the inside,
miserable.

See your self-sabotaging patterns.

So many of us sabotage our own happiness and success and don’t
realize it. Regardless of whether your current life sounds like more
like Megan’s or Jessica’s experience, pay attention if you are
frequently anxious, tense and disappointed.

These are signs to wake up and pay attention.

The other people and external conditions do have an effect on your
life satisfaction, but you have a bigger effect. Recognize the ways
that you self-sabotage.

What are your usual first reactions when you come up against
something new and unexpected? What are usual ways of interacting
with people? How do you generally go about making a decision?

Take a look and notice if you often anticipate the worst or short-
circuit your own happiness in other ways.

Soothe your fears and anxiety.

If you self-sabotage, there’s probably a “good” reason why. The
fears and anxiety probably don’t come from nothing. Your closed down
state as you wait for the other shoe to drop makes some sense. Sort
of.

It’s probable the you’ve had some harrowing past experiences that
are sticking around. At some point and under different circumstances,
the guardedness was a protection that served you.

The trouble is…

You don’t need that in every moment of your life or right now.

As you better understand what’s contributed to your self-sabotage,
take gentle care of yourself. Soothe your fears and calm your
anxiety without discounting or making yourself wrong for feeling the
way you do. Do so in a way that doesn’t perpetuate the worries and
stress.

Attend to the feeling and focus less on the memory or thoughts.

Soothing can happen when you acknowledge what scares you and remind
yourself of the truth. Calm can come over you when you remember to
breathe and pause to re-gain your center.

The more care you give yourself during stressed out times, the more
you’ll stop self-sabotage and fully open to the happiness.


I found this girl who runs a pretty good tumblr arthlete.tumble.com she draws her own pictures an makes them inspirational. The reason why I said was pretty good because 1. She's 100% against anorexia (I have no problem with being against it but sometimes people can't help but be pulled into that mental frame) 2. She has a bit of an attitude when it comes to criticism and she becomes over reactive. It's all about healthy lifestyle which is great and it may help some people who have anorexic tendencies overcome their problems but personally I don't dub it to be all that completely wonderful. Most of these pictures are hers and I'll post more tomorrow because I'm on my itouch and it's slow and annoying trying to load all these pictures from here lol