Are you self-sabotaging your happiness?

Are you self-sabotaging your happiness? Self -sabotaging behaviours are the number one cause of unhappiness! In this article we will look at what’s needed to turn that around. And how to create a life of health and well-being, ultimately leading to personal happiness.

There are several essential elements to well-being but the key to creating a seemingly effortless healthy lifestyle starts with self-love. Only when we hold positive beliefs of ourselves in all areas of life. Can we create a solid foundation on which to thrive and grow.   

The oxford dictionary defines self-love as “The feeling that your own happiness and wishes are important”. Sounds like a very simple concept, doesn’t it? Yet if you were asked to sit silently for just one moment. And think of a situation where we put our own happiness, wishes or dreams on hold, guaranteed there will be more than one occasion that springs to mind. Highlighting the fact that although the concept is simplistic, the execution into reality is much more complex.

In this post

We will dig into those complexities and gain a little insight into how society is exacerbating our sense of lack, worth and restriction of individuality, which compounds our ability to practice self-love with ease. Plus explore how to navigate past them.

Construction of our foundational base of individuality

Those beliefs, values, and worth, perceptions of self, start from the minute we are born and continue until the age of 7/8. All experiences and the perception of those experiences are what becomes the bedrock of who we believe ourselves to be.  Like sponges, the infant’s brain absorbs everything it is exposed to and interprets its meaning through the energetic frequencies felt, hence the perception.  

This can be demonstrated with babies that have difficulty sleeping. The parent lovingly provides all physical needs but still, the baby cries. Why? Because the baby feels unsafe. Often due to absorbing the energetic frequencies of anxiety, stress or worry from its parent. And so, the baby fights to stay awake. Innately knowing that sleep equals vulnerability, which is undesirable in an already perceived unsafe environment.  

As we grow, our personality and perception of how we see and feel about the world and ourselves are shaped by the mimicking of the behaviours of those around us. And the experiences we are exposed to. What we see, hear, smell, touch, taste, and SENSE. Plus the observations of physical and energetic reactions from those we are learning from.

Society is structured

So that few of us were allowed to explore who we were. Before being moulded by external beliefs, values, and expectations. We can see this clearly within the education system, where one shoe fits all. With little to no room for expression of individuality. This loss of identity creates fragmentation and society has encouraged us to observe ourselves and life through this fragmentation. Religion for the soul, medicine for the body and psychology for the mind, is a simple yet great demonstration of this.

“But we are not fragments, and we can only function cohesively and consciously when whole.”

Understanding now, that in all probability our core foundational beliefs stem from designed moulding rather than individual identity creating fragmentation. It’s easier to comprehend why different areas of our lives are challenging and/or dysfunctional. The first step in rectifying this is to step away from the labyrinth of societal expectations. Conformity, and cultural etiquette, which we find ourselves being bombarded by on a minute-by-minute basis. Social media and TV are good examples of this. We only need to look at the Facebook-Cambridge scandal to observe how governing bodies have/are manipulating independent thought. Once we have gained this conscious awareness of the external environment and made a conscious decision as to how much we choose to be exposed to. We can move into the realms of exploring our internal environment.

A great question to ask when beginning self-exploration is: –

What beliefs of self, do I hold and where do they come from?

If not accustomed to introspection, then this will feel uncomfortable. Remember we have been moulded/ programmed to accept the fragmentation, so questioning it will put the body/ mind into resistance. A good workaround is to set the intention to listen to the inner self-talk and take note of what we are saying to ourselves. Are there repetitive themes, is there a constant negative nag about weight, looks, intelligence, abilities, likeability, worth?

By listening for and to this inner dialogue, we extract it from the subconscious and spotlight it in the conscious. This is important as we can often experience feelings of apprehension, overwhelm, fear, or insecurity without understanding why. When the inner dialogue is spotlighted, we begin to understand and see the correlation between our inner self-talk and our emotional responses.

Once we see it and understand it, we can address it.

Addressing negative beliefs can feel daunting and where many get stuck! If you have identified a long list of negative self-talk, and beliefs, just start with one. Choose a belief that is creating the most disruption and discomfort within your life. In the coaching arena, we ask, “if you could change one thing right now, what would that be and why”? Don’t underestimate the why, this is the vision, the dream, the desired outcome.

Once we have chosen a belief, and have a clear vision of our desired outcome. It’s time to crack it wide open and discover what lies within!  Many believe the first course of action is to find its root origins. Whilst this is important, I have witnessed and personally experienced greater success by first identifying and addressing our self-sabotaging behaviours because of the belief.  It gives almost instant results and thus the motivation to continue working on ourselves.  

Let’s take worthlessness as an example belief that commonly hampers our ability to embrace self-love.

Few of us would be willing to identify ourselves as running a worthlessness belief. But when examining the lists, you will identify with at least one of the habits. And this stems back to the designed moulding discusses at the beginning of this chapter. Societal programming is designed to keep us believing we are smaller than we potentially can be. And that “playing small” mentality, equates to not fully acknowledging who we are. Thus impairing the ability to love ourselves completely and unconditionally.

Self-sabotaging habits attached to the belief of worthlessness

Physical

• Lack of sleep, poor diet, lack of exercise, not drinking enough water. Lack of interest in personal appearance, or overly concerned with appearance. Smoking, recreational drug use, excessive alcohol. Unprofessionalism, perfectionism. Engaging in abusive relationships, inaction, workaholism, refusal to take timeout/relaxation. Constantly striving for greater material gain without acknowledgement or enjoyment of what’s already been attained. Disorganisation, clutter, lack of routine, greed or self-sacrificing. Lying, cheating, asserting your way is the only way. Being submissive, allowing yourself to be financially dependent on others, avoiding responsibility, giving unsolicited advice, overprotectiveness, inability to let go.

Mental

• Impossible expectation of self and or others, confusion, inability to focus. Constantly juggling tasks, procrastination, lethargy. Disinterest in life, depression, unwilling/ unable to make decisions. Habitually high-stress levels, people pleaser, seeking approval from everyone. Inability to accept criticism, avoidance of difficult conversations. Feeling compelled to explain yourself constantly, never explaining yourself for fear of opposition. Not having or maintaining personal standards, inability to stand up for yourself, need to dominate every situation. Constantly needing to be in the limelight, external validation. Holding back never taking centre stage even when more qualified than another. Lack integrity, constantly second-guessing. Worry, anxiety, constant analysing of self and others, passive-aggressive behaviour, unable to release control.

Emotional

• Reliving past situations, unhealed trauma, need to blame, mood swings, irrational behaviour. Inability/ unwillingness to take personal accountability and or responsibility. Not setting healthy boundaries, feeling we don’t have the right to set boundaries. Inability to express emotions, overly emotional, feelings of hurt when others don’t agree. Putting everyone’s emotional needs above your own, relying on others to provide your happiness. Engaging with people who don’t respect you, engaging in non-reciprocal relationships, easily persuaded. Envy, jealousy, inability to trust self, inability to trust others, unable to make judgement calls, naivety. Allowing yourself to be emotionally dependent on others. Feelings of oppression and or persecution, enduring unhealthy, unhappy situations and not taking action to remove yourself.

By no means is this a comprehensive list of self-sabotaging behaviours we partake. But there is sufficient here to demonstrate just how complex we as humans are and why the simple task of practising self-love can be fraught with challenges.

Having identified the self-sabotaging habits. What small but significant changes can we adopt to create a healthy self-perception and improve our overall health and well-being?

Reframing is the best technique to reprogram the mind. Reframing habits takes time, to ensure success choose one or two to work on. Make a list, prioritizing daily occurring habits down to occasional. Starting at the top of the list, chose one or two to focus on. Be very clear on the desired outcome. What will you feel, how will life be different once this or these habits have been reframed?

Here is an example of how we reframe and the building blocks within the reframe.

Submissive habit	Reframe 1	Reframe 2	Reframe 3
Sally is upset by her partner’s attitude towards her regarding a situation.	Sally is upset by her partner’s attitude towards her regarding a situation.	Sally is upset by her partner’s attitude towards her regarding a situation.	Sally is upset by her partner’s attitude towards her regarding a situation.
She played the peacemaker but later started getting upset and angry	She played the peacemaker but could feel anger within herself	She played the peacemaker but recognised she was disrespected; she made a mental note to discuss how she felt	She calmly tells her partner not to speak to her in that way – and removes herself from the situation
Sitting in that anger, she remembers similar events, she blames her husband and starts questioning the relationship. She spends several hours crying and is now unable to focus coherently on anything.	Sitting in that anger, she reflects that she is angry with herself for not saying anything. She takes time to explore what she needs to do, to gain the respect she feels she deserves.	Later Sally expressed her displeasure at the attitude she felt she was given and clearly sets her boundaries.	Sally thinks nothing more of the situation because she Maintained her boundariesUnderstands the situation belongs to her partner

Only when the reframed behaviour becomes a subconscious act. AKA we don’t even think about it, we just do it, do we move on to tackle the next one or two self-sabotaging habits on the list.

As we start addressing/ reframing these habits, we feel and notice a positive shift within ourselves. We become naturally inclined to think more favourably towards ourselves. Making other self-loving acts such as healthy eating plans and regular exercise easier to maintain. We gain greater awareness of ourselves and thus can quickly identify with greater ease the areas that are imbalanced. And feel motivated to work towards rebalancing and harmonizing them.

Our eyes become wide open during this phase of our personal development journey towards unconditional self-love, to the amount of controlling programs that are interjected and infused into our lives! It can be very shocking when first acknowledged, but that acknowledgement puts us on a trajectory towards freedom and empowerment.

Pathway to Freedom and Empowerment

Having gotten this far on your journey, you have a deepening understanding that the path chosen is a lifelong commitment. As we work through our list of self-sabotaging beliefs and values, we start to gain confidence in asking the bigger questions of life and ourselves.

It’s these contemplations, that take us past the day-to-day activities of career, bills, and social standing. And has us deep-diving into potential, purpose and being of service. The very act of focusing singularly on self-love brings us into the cycle of the collective. As we build that solid foundation of individuality, we become whole. And in doing so, we gain the fortitude and abundance, that affords us the ability to give unconditionally to others.

Energetic frequencies are so powerful

That these unconditional acts, trigger’s the recipient’s biomagnetic field, into the awakening state. A ripple effect in which the recipient now has a desire to explore themselves, their self-sabotaging behaviours. To attain that confidence, self-assurance, and goodness of heart they were exposed to.

Hence self-love is not only an essential part of health and wellbeing. But a catalyst for positive global change, whereby humanity evolves past the programmed beliefs of lack which creates greed. And grows in emotional intelligence, valuing compassion, acceptance, and unity.

Many of you will identify aspects of yourself in this post. And inspired to make changes and that’s fantastic news! Change always equates to growth and expansion and it’s a privilege to have been a part of that. You may have the desire to change but feel apprehensive or not know where to start. If that’s the case book a consultation and let’s have a chat.