Welcome.
I am so looking forward to sharing with you in the next two episodes all about our developed coping mechanisms.
We are going to explore our coping strategies and how they impact our ability to create our dream life.
Coping strategies are mechanisms we have developed in our childhood or later in life to help us survive or deal with a certain situation.
Similar to our different nervous system stages,
They only mean well and want the best for us.
The problem with these mechanisms is that they often remain active long after they are no longer needed.
They no longer support who we have grown into,
Namely our most authentic soul-aligned self.
Instead,
They keep us small and hold us back from creating our dream lives with ease.
It's as if we are wearing glasses coloured in a past shade from which we look at our current life situation,
Work and relationships,
Wondering why we are consistently running into the same or similar problems.
This strains and frustrates us,
Brings up more exhaustion and can be triggering.
The coping strategies and stuck nervous system stages then come out even stronger as they perceive these stresses as threats and feel like they need to support us even more.
It's like a vicious circle.
So what's the solution,
You ask?
It's becoming aware of them,
Making peace with them,
Catching them when they want to come out and play,
And rewire our experience to soften their impact.
As this helps us to move beyond them,
Lower the impact they hold on us,
And help us to show up more authentically as who we truly are.
This is the place when magic happens as life starts to unfold and flow differently.
Shehzad Kameen,
The author of the New York Times bestseller Positive Intelligence,
Has done wonderful research on them and their impact.
He refers to them as saboteurs.
I came across his work in 2020 and shortly after became a certified Positive Intelligence coach because this knowledge felt like such a crucial additional part to my work.
And the impact I have witnessed so far,
Implementing this,
Has been profound.
What really stands out for me is what a deep impact these saboteurs can have on us,
Even after many years in the coaching and healing industry,
And of personal development and deep transformation,
The impact I witnessed within my own experience of life and also within my clients' experiences was profound.
I've learned firsthand that through the understanding of these coping mechanisms,
As well as through rewiring our cognitive patterns,
Deep shifts could happen much quicker,
Freeing us from having to live from past experiences.
Somehow it feels like the handbrake of our existence has been loosened.
Not only could the understanding of ourselves shift,
But also the previous work that has shaped us could propel us into a deeper experience.
Yet,
I noticed that when we are stuck in one of the nervous system stages I shared in the previous episodes from last month,
It can be very difficult and take a long time for us to build the capacity to deeply rewire our coping strategies due to the vicious cycle I just talked about.
With this in mind,
I invite you,
If you have not done so already,
To listen to these episodes from last month,
To get an understanding of how and where you might experience a stuckness within your own nervous system,
And how to start supporting yourself to come more into rest and regulation.
So you can take the combined awareness and build true capacity for change.
This is crucial as the awareness alone you are building in today's episode can only get you so far.
Okay,
So let's dive into the different saboteurs.
In general,
We have about 9 saboteurs and one overarching judge that activates these saboteurs.
To make sure that I keep the episodes digestible,
I will cover 4 of them in today's episode and the other 5 in the next one,
In which I will also include some tips and tricks on how you can work and rewire them.
I invite you to have an open mind when you go through the different types of saboteurs and see whether you can recognize any of them and think of any situations in which they might show up.
I myself have a few saboteurs,
Some of them are active in my business,
Others at home.
The triggers are all different,
So becoming aware of this helps us to catch them.
Okay,
Let's start with the avoider.
We have an avoider saboteur when we solely focus on the positive things and deny anything that is not positive,
Including the parts of us that might be messy and seem unfit.
We often procrastinate when we have a strong avoider saboteur or have developed an avoidant coping mechanism around things that would bring us forward.
Because taking action steps to move forward in our lives can be very uncomfortable.
We might need to do things we are not familiar with,
And this can bring up uncertainty and be scary at times.
You might say,
But focusing on the positive thing is something good.
Well,
Yes and no.
It's a two-sided sword.
Something I often like to share with my clients is that in general,
Energy always follows energy.
Because where our thoughts go,
The energy flows.
So if we try to manifest or create something in our life by avoiding something subconsciously,
And really deep down we know that we are avoiding it,
The feeling associated with this avoidance is a negative feeling.
And that feeling is the energy that is always flowing.
In this case,
Thinking positively comes with a negative,
Let's call it undercurrent,
Which creates an internal battle.
We wonder why our feelings don't match our positive thoughts.
And that can bring up anxiety,
Frustration,
And overwhelm.
Because maybe what we like to create is not in alignment with who we truly are at the soul level.
Or it might go against our subconscious programming.
It's also spiritually bypassing because we don't look at the whole picture,
And there are no parts of us.
So we can never show up fully authentically.
So if you feel like you are prone to procrastinate and avoid things,
To not wanting to feel uncomfortable feelings,
Then maybe the avoider coping strategy is active within your system.
And again,
There is nothing wrong with any of the saboteurs because we develop them to survive a certain situation in our life.
The issue arises when these saboteurs are calling the shots for us,
Because that's when our authenticity goes out the window.
And we can't really make a life decision that is fully in alignment with who we truly are.
And then we wonder why we couldn't help it and had unnecessary arguments with our loved ones,
Coworkers,
Or spouses,
And why things are playing out a certain way over and over in our lives and businesses.
I hope this makes sense so far.
So the next saboteur is the controller.
You have an active controller coping mechanism if you can't outsource help.
Check on the work others do over and over.
And tell yourself the story that you have to do everything yourself because others can't do it.
Often this comes from experiences we had in the past where we learned that no one can do it the way we like to have it done.
This often leaves us exhausted,
Frustrated,
And lacking trust in the ability of others.
I experienced this in my business,
For example,
In the past.
I hired contractors and support only to end up doing more work because the work they did was not in alignment with me.
Of course,
We all need to own up to our part in each experience,
Too.
I might have not explained something detailed enough or had my own triggers happening.
There is always more to every story.
Either way,
For some time it was very hard for me to hand over work or ask for support.
The controller coping mechanism within me kept telling me it's a waste of money and it's not safe.
This greatly impacted how I showed up in my business because I felt deeply exhausted as I took care of everything instead of the things that lit me on fire and are connected to my genius.
Once I became aware of this,
I started working through it and rewire my experience so that eventually the right people were able to come into my life.
Once that truly supported me and everything changed for the better.
One thing that might come up for you,
And I hear it all the time,
Is,
But Corinne,
No one can do things the way I do it.
I'm so much more efficient if I do it myself.
It's like the controller coping mechanism puts a badge of honor onto your chest.
And if this is really something you want,
There is nothing wrong with it.
But if you would like more from life and are ready to live life and do business fully lit up doing the things that light up your genius so you can have the impact in the world you came here for,
It is worthwhile loosening the grip of the controller subterfuge in case this is one that presents for you.
As living with it can be very tiresome and we easily burn out.
Another way to show the impact the controller saboteur coping strategy can have on our lives and business is illustrated in the following story.
Just imagine for a moment that you are chartering a fishing boat for a week with 10 of your friends.
You are the only one that knows how to fish.
So you try to show them how,
But they keep messing it up because they are inexperienced.
And so you end up continuously taking their fishing rods out of their hands and doing it yourself.
By the end of the week,
You only managed to catch a handful of fish.
You are exhausted because you did all the work by yourself and your friends are frustrated and stopped wanting to try and learn how to fish because you haven't given them a chance to.
It could have played out totally different if you had shown your friends over and over with compassion how to fish.
It might have taken you a day or three to do so,
But after that everyone would have had an experience of success and would have been eager to do their best to catch more fish so that by the end of the week you all would have caught a substantial amount of fish.
Everyone would have been happy and content and you could have enjoyed the trip with them instead of doing all the work yourself.
In this example,
The first version was your coping strategy and the second one was your authentic self.
What do you think would be more fulfilling to live by?
So the next saboteur is the hyperachiever.
The hyperachiever coping strategy has an underlying message that says,
I'm not good enough.
I need to do more and so on and so on.
It's like we beat ourselves up over and over.
The thing I see play out most often with an active hyperachiever is that we are chasing one certification after the other,
One goal after the next.
We keep telling ourselves,
When I have finished a certification or got this new car or bigger house or the partner of my dreams or fill in the blank,
Then I have arrived.
Then I will be happy and content.
But as soon as we arrive there or quite often even before that,
Once we see the finishing line,
We start to chase after the next best thing.
Subconsciously,
We keep telling ourselves over and over that we are not worthy yet.
Similar to the controller saboteur,
This can be deeply exhausting and frustrating as there is an internal fight happening and we do not allow ourselves to celebrate our wins.
We feel too deeply unworthy to be happy and fulfilled.
Often we have learned and adopted this coping strategy in order to be valued and seen by our parents or caregivers.
Other times we have developed this because we battled against the way our caregivers or parents live their lives and want to prove to ourselves that we can do differently.
We can do better.
Most of the time,
We do not want to feel all of these underlying feelings.
So similar to the avoiding coping mechanism,
We distract ourselves only this time by being busy.
I'd like to clarify that there is again nothing wrong with wanting more from life and working towards what we want.
It is only when we are not able to cherish and celebrate the big and small successes we have and always strive for more that creates the issue.
So let's dive into the next saboteur,
The hyper-rational coping strategy.
If your coping strategy is the hyper-rational,
It's like everything needs to be scientifically proven.
Like if it's not scientifically proven,
It can't be trusted or it just can't be true.
You might have the tendency to overanalyze and often people who have a very active hyper-rational can't access how they feel.
If you ask them,
How do you feel?
They give you answers like,
I think,
Or they say they don't know.
Often they literally can't feel their emotions because feeling is something that has no logic to them.
And because they don't know what they are feeling,
They can't express them.
So if it's hard for you to experience feelings or to express your feelings,
This might be something that is present for you.
By that I don't mean you always need to tell everyone how you are feeling.
But if someone asks you honestly and you trust them,
But you still can't tell them how you are feeling about something,
Then there might be a hyper-rational saboteur active in your experience of life.
Maybe once upon a time you experienced something in your life where you didn't allow yourself to feel because it would have been too much for you to cope with.
So you might have to disassociate from your feelings and go full blast into,
Like,
Everything has to make sense,
Everything has to be a certain way,
As that's the only thing that creates safety.
Our systems are so wise and always here to help us.
So in this situation,
It was probably exactly what you needed.
Yet as it is still online,
It deprives you of living a fully alive life.
Again,
There is nothing wrong with any of the saboteurs.
It's just about having the awareness that they came here to help you and that your coping strategies have taken over to run the show for you.
Once you're aware of them,
We also have the opportunity to see the lessons we have learned from them.
So we can move forward with the gifts instead of the burden they carry.
I feel like I've shared a lot of information today.
So take some time and let it settle for a moment.
I know it can feel overwhelming becoming aware of our coping mechanisms.
Sometimes it's helpful to revisit and listen to everything again in a few days so the awareness can drop in on a deeper level.
I invite you to be gentle with yourself as you integrate this new awareness into your life.
And I'm looking forward to sharing the rest of the saboteurs in the next episode,
And also to sharing some tools with you on how you can start to rewire your experience in business and life so they show up less and less.
