472: The Real Reason You Keep Self-Sabotaging

Why do we do the very things that keep us stuck? Whether it's falling off a new routine, pulling away from a great relationship, or creating drama when things are finally going well, self-sabotage can show up in so many ways, and it’s incredibly frustrating.

In this episode, I’m breaking down what self-sabotage is, why it happens, and how to shift out of it using the Adult Chair model. You’ll learn how to identify the unconscious parts driving the behavior and how to reparent those parts with compassion, so you can finally get out of your way and start living the life you truly want.

Transcript

Welcome to the Michelle Chalfant Show,

The next evolution of the Adult Share Podcast.

I am Michelle Chalfant and my goal is to help you to awaken to your true self.

Together we will break through your barriers so you can find your purpose and live a soul aligned life.

Each week I'll bring you powerful conversations with thought leaders,

Spiritual teachers,

Healers and change makers,

Along with actionable insights to help you to transform your life from the inside out.

Welcome to the Michelle Chalfant Show.

Hello everybody and welcome to the Adult Share Podcast.

I am Michelle Chalfant.

As always,

So happy to be here with you.

Today I'm talking all about self-sabotage.

Who does not know about that?

But we all know about self-sabotage,

So we need to talk about not only what it is,

I think we all know what it is,

But more importantly,

What do we do about it?

How do we stop it from happening?

I'm going to give you,

As you know,

You know my style,

Simple,

Simple,

Simple,

I'm all about simple,

But simple ways in order to correct your self-sabotage.

You'll be able to take these simple tools and apply them today.

You know me.

I'm all about simple psychology,

Grounded spirituality.

That's what we're all about here at the Adult Share.

So what is self-sabotage?

I think we all know,

But I'm going to give you some examples in case you're wondering like,

Is this what I'm doing?

Because I'm not quite sure.

The classic way that we self-sabotage that most people know about would be when we're starting a diet or an exercise program.

So let's just say you have this plan to lose,

You know,

10 pounds and I'm going to change the way I'm eating and I'm going to exercise on a regular basis and I'm going to go to the gym four times a week,

Et cetera,

Et cetera.

And the first week is fantastic and you do such a great job.

And then you go out with your friends and you have wine and you have chocolate cake and you have French fries.

And it's like,

Why would I do that?

I had a whole great first week or two weeks or a month.

You know,

Why am I self-sabotaging?

Why am I ruining what I'm doing?

Or maybe you start sleeping in and not going to the gym in the morning.

Or again,

Maybe you're someone that wants to just curb your alcohol intake.

You're like,

Okay,

I'm only going to have one glass of wine every Saturday and that's it.

And then you find yourself having two every single day of the week.

It's like,

What the heck is going on?

Why does this keep happening?

Another way that we self-sabotage,

I hear from people that say things like,

You know,

I had my dream job.

You know,

I wanted to get this job.

I landed this job.

Couldn't wait to get into the job.

Started working there.

And then I don't know what's going on,

But all of a sudden I'm showing up late to work.

Why am I showing up late to work every day?

And my boss had to give me a warning about that.

Yet I still showed up late,

Even though it's my dream job.

Why am I doing this?

It makes no sense.

I'm trying to get to work on time.

This is my dream job.

Self-sabotage.

Another thing that we do is in relationships.

Have you ever dated someone or even on your way to marriage and then all of a sudden you're like,

Oh my gosh,

This is my dream person or this person and I are getting along so well.

The relationship is going so well.

All of a sudden you cheat on that person or all of a sudden you start treating them poorly or start picking fights and it makes no sense.

The key is this.

It makes no sense.

And it's like,

I was so driven.

I was so excited about this relationship again,

Or the diet.

Why am I doing this?

Doesn't make any sense.

When you start hearing that internal dialogue,

Like why am I doing this to myself?

Why would I self-sabotage?

Why does this,

Why would I do this?

It makes absolutely no sense.

That's just a sign that there's a self-sabotaging part inside of you.

So some of the comments that came in said,

Can you explain why we self-sabotage?

I don't like the question why,

But I'm going to answer it.

Because that's the question that came in.

Just,

I'm just going to give you a few ideas of why we might be self-sabotaging.

Number one,

We fear success.

Think about it.

Like with that job I was just saying,

Like if we show up and do well at work,

We may get noticed and maybe we don't want to be noticed.

So we start,

We start sabotaging ourselves.

Maybe we don't want to get promoted.

Think about it like this.

It's like,

If I get promoted,

Then I may be noticed at work and I might get more money.

And you know,

My dad always said that if I make too much money,

I'm going to be a snob.

So it's like all these underlying ideas are swimming around inside of us.

So we better self-sabotage it because I wouldn't want to do that.

So we start blowing off our jobs and we're,

You know,

All of these weird things.

It's like when it's weird or we question ourselves,

It's like,

What am I doing?

Why am I doing this?

It could be a self-confidence issue,

All of that kind of thing.

Again,

I already talked about relationships,

But again,

In relationships,

It could be an issue of self-worth.

It could be that I don't feel good enough to be with this person.

It could be that if I'm successful,

Then I don't know what that's like because my parents got a divorce when I was a child.

So I don't know what really a successful relationship looks like.

So I want to be like my parents and sabotage this relationship.

One of the other reasons that we self-sabotage,

Of course,

Is control.

We want control.

So there's a chance that you may fail.

What happens is,

Is we make sure we fail ahead of time.

It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It's like you want to control the outcome.

So if I know the negative is coming,

I'm going to make sure it happens and I'm going to make sure it happens before it happens to me.

I'm going to make sure it happens.

So it's like a control issue.

One more thing I want to share is like if we grow up with a lot of drama in our lives when we're children,

Then we don't know what it's like to be calm and relaxed and not have drama.

So again,

We just unconsciously start creating drama because that's what feels right.

And we have a lot of drama that can sabotage just about anything from a job to a diet to exercise to giving up drinking and drinking to relationships,

All of it.

So I hope I answered some of your questions on why.

Again,

I don't like that question very much,

But I answered it.

I think I've given you guys some good stuff.

Now let's get to my favorite part,

Which is let's look at what you need to do no matter what you are sabotaging and why you are sabotaging it.

Because honestly,

Those reasons don't matter as much as this.

This is how you correct it.

And we're just going to plug it into the adult chair model,

Which is simple,

You guys.

We want to look at again,

The three chairs.

So we've got the child,

The adolescent and the adult,

And we want to examine self-sabotage through the lens of the adult chair.

So we're going to look at each chair if necessary,

And we're going to figure out what in the world is going on and why we are self-sabotaging.

I'm going to explain to you exactly how we do this.

Okay.

So something we want to get really clear on when we set a goal,

Again,

Weight loss,

Taking this new job,

I'm in this relationship,

Et cetera,

Et cetera.

What we want to do,

First of all,

Is find out who made the decision to fill in the blank,

Start the diet,

Exercise,

Give up wine,

Whatever you're doing,

Take the job,

Be in the relationship.

What part of you made that decision or choice?

We want to make sure we're making these decisions from our adult,

Okay?

So the adult decisions are solid.

They're grounded.

They are coming from this present space,

Okay?

They are clear.

It's like,

I'm going to lose 10 pounds,

And this is what I'm going to do.

I'm going to go to the gym two times a week,

And I'm going to walk around my neighborhood three times a week for at least 20 minutes,

And I'm going to eat less carbs and cut out sugar.

So it's like very clear,

Or I'm going to take this new job.

I'm going to show up every day on time,

And I'm going to really put my all into this job.

It's clear,

Okay?

Adults,

Healthy adults,

The age that we are today,

Okay?

If we do start,

Let's just say we're at a job,

And we're realizing,

Oh my gosh,

I'm going to be late to work.

We're going to speed our way into getting ready in the morning so we're not late for work.

A healthy adult shows up on time for work.

A healthy adult in relationships,

And again,

We all need help in our relationships.

Nobody has relationships perfectly,

Okay?

Our job is not to be perfect in relationships.

It's to be healthy.

Healthy adults speak up with how we're feeling.

We share our reality with our other person,

Whether it's a friend or a love interest.

But this is what we do.

We don't isolate,

Stonewall.

What else do we do in relationships?

We don't run away.

If I'm feeling uncomfortable,

I'm going to share it with you.

So that's what healthy adults do.

However,

However,

Comma,

Even when we set clear goals,

Even though this is part one,

And this is part one,

We have to be clear.

And by the way,

I would get really clear on what you want to do in your life and what you want to accomplish or whatever goal it is,

And you've got to write it down and be really specific with what your steps are in order to make that happen.

Get clear,

Part one.

However,

This is where the self-sabotage happens.

We have in the adolescent chair,

And it could actually be from the child chair too,

But we have parts.

In the adolescent chair,

I want you to understand,

It's not one part of us.

It is the ego.

But remember,

The ego fragments off into many,

Many,

Many parts as we grow up.

So there are many parts of us that live in this adolescent chair.

We've got the procrastinator part.

We've got the victim.

We may have the codependent.

We may have the narcissist in there.

We've got the people pleaser in there.

We've got the blamer,

The shamer.

All of these parts make up our whole.

The whole self is child,

Adolescent,

And adult.

But in this adolescent chair,

Man,

There are so many parts.

These are the unconscious,

Egoic parts that get in the way,

And yes,

My friends,

Self-sabotage.

So we have,

You ready for the drum roll,

A sabotager part.

But it might not be the sabotager part,

By the way,

That's getting in the way of your,

Whatever your goal is,

Your diet,

Your exercising part,

The person that's going to work.

It might not be your sabotager part.

It might be another part.

So what we want to do,

Regardless of what is going on in your life,

Is we want to get in touch with the part that is disturbing,

Disrupting,

Whatever you want to call it,

Our goal,

What's getting in the way.

Okay?

So instead of getting mad at yourself,

You don't have to do that.

What you want to do instead is what we do from our adult chair is we get curious.

Geez,

I just ate chocolate cake and I'm trying to lose 10 pounds.

This is not okay.

What in the world is going on?

So instead of saying,

I'm such an idiot,

I'm such a loser,

I can't believe I ate all this cake,

You want to instead go,

I wonder what part of me ate that cake?

What part of me suddenly was in charge?

What happens throughout the day?

I want you to understand this.

We are traveling between child,

Adolescent,

Adult energy or chairs.

There's three chairs,

But let's look at it as energy.

There's an energy of clarity and truth and presence.

That's when we're in our adult.

Then there's an energy of protection,

Defending,

Getting off track,

Et cetera.

That's the adolescent,

Living in past and future.

Then we have the child,

Precious,

True feelings and emotions,

True needs,

Intimacy,

Vulnerability.

So we're swinging back and forth throughout all these chairs.

The ultimate goal is to sit in our adult and tune in,

And where we're grounded by the way,

And tune into this adolescent chair and say,

Hmm,

I wonder which part of me just decided to eat that chocolate cake?

Because I'm pretty clear over here that I want to lose the 10 pounds.

So we want to tune into,

I wonder what part of me ate the chocolate cake?

Because it wasn't all of you,

It's a part of you,

Okay?

I had this really,

Really,

Really great session with a client,

And let me share with you just a little bit of the highlights.

She did say I could share some of this with you guys.

Here's a really great way to find out which parts are chiming in into your life,

Because these parts are chiming in all the time.

When you are defending,

When you are triggered,

All of that,

They're just parts of you.

So what we want to do is,

Here's a great way,

If you're a visual person or even a sensing person,

However you are sensing parts,

This is a great analogy or a metaphor with how to find them.

There are many ways.

You can just ask yourself,

Which part?

And then you can find it like that.

But let me tell you what happened with this client.

She was somebody that,

Again,

She's trying to get in better shape and diet and was going keto.

She was eating keto and doing so,

So,

So well.

And she said,

I don't know what happens.

I do really well for a while,

My microbiome,

She's had that tested,

Everything's going really well.

And then boom,

Sabotage.

I said,

Okay,

Let's go find the part of you that is sabotaging you.

I said,

There's some part of you in there that's sabotaging.

It was such a great session.

And I said,

I want you to imagine.

So this is a great,

I want to give you this tool.

I want you to imagine a dollhouse.

If you've ever seen a dollhouse,

They have got all these rooms.

So I said,

Picture a really,

Really big dollhouse and shrink yourself down.

And I want you to imagine you're in one room in that dollhouse,

Or you're walking in the front door of the dollhouse,

Whatever you want to imagine is fine.

You can't get this wrong.

And I want you to walk into the dollhouse and there's all these long hallways with doorways off of the hallway.

I said,

I want you to tune in first to the part of you that decided to eat that chocolate or whatever.

I think she ate,

I can't remember what she ate.

Her thing was sugar.

She sabotages with sugar.

I said,

So there's a part of you that's sabotaging with sugar.

This is such a cool story.

You guys are going to love it.

I loved it.

That's why I want to share it with you.

She says,

I don't get it.

It doesn't make sense.

I said,

Great.

Let's do the dollhouse.

So she walks down the hallway of the dollhouse to go find the part of her that sabotaged and reached for sugar.

And she goes,

I'm walking down the hall,

Walking down,

She goes,

Oh,

I just feel like it's this door.

I said,

Great.

Go in there.

Go in that door.

She walked in the door and she said,

Oh,

That's so weird.

She said,

This is my room when I was a little girl.

And this woman is in her forties,

Right?

Right now.

I said,

Okay,

Take a look around the room.

And she says,

It's so weird.

It's my room,

But it's my sister's bed in my room.

She goes,

What the heck is that?

I said,

I don't know.

Let's find out.

I said,

Are you,

Are you in there?

She goes,

Yeah,

There's a little me that's in there.

I can't remember how old she was.

I think she was around six.

I said,

Okay.

I want you to walk in and you guys,

I'm sharing this with you because I want you to use this for yourselves.

So I said,

Go ahead and walk in the room.

And this little six year old is going to be,

Is looking up at you,

You know,

Whatever.

I said,

Does she even notice you?

She goes,

Yeah,

She just noticed me.

I said,

We'll say hello and let her know that you are,

And she said her name,

Let's just say her name is Tracy.

I'm Tracy and I'm 45 years old.

And I've come back in time to meet with you.

I'm the grownup version of you.

I'm an adult and to come back to spend some time with you.

So I had her say that,

The little girl said,

Oh,

Nice.

It's nice.

You know,

She was happy to see her.

Now,

Sometimes I want you to know,

We went back and she happened to see a little girl.

You never know who you're going to see.

We had no idea who was going to be beyond that door.

So be very open.

She happened to see her younger self.

So maybe it was her inner child.

Maybe it was from the adolescent.

It doesn't matter.

I just said,

Just go find the part of you that wants the sugar.

So anyway,

So she went in and she had this lovely dialogue with this little six-year-old.

And this is what's so cool about this parts work that I love is that her little six-year-old,

So we did a lot of dialoguing back and forth.

I said,

Let her know that actually she thinks it's whatever 45 years ago plus six would be.

So whatever that was.

I said,

She thinks it's like 19,

Whatever,

70 something.

And she doesn't understand that she doesn't have to reach for high sugar anymore,

That we have much different things that you can eat now that can,

You know,

Crave a sweet tooth.

You've got,

You know,

The keto chocolate and all this that she loved,

But again,

Some part of her was kicking it in,

Reaching for this other high sugar treats.

And I said,

But the part of you that six doesn't know that there's keto,

Doesn't understand that there's like stevia,

Doesn't understand that there's,

What's it called,

Xylitol,

Doesn't understand that there's all these different forms of healthy sugar out there.

I said,

So we want to let her know.

So I had my client,

I said,

Reach into your pocket and pull out some of your favorite chocolate that has coconut sugar in it and that she loves.

So she did that.

And the little girl was like,

Oh my gosh,

I said,

And the little girl said,

Oh,

I like this.

Or at first she thought it was bitter.

And I said,

Oh,

Well give her one with the nuts in it.

So again,

We're just using the mind and the imagination.

Anyway,

The little girl ended up loving it.

We had a long talk with her.

My client,

Tracy said,

I really want to lose this weight.

I'm trying to get in shape.

You know,

Would you be okay if I took over and when,

And when we're,

And we don't need to use food anymore.

We dialogued all about when she was a child,

Food was very confusing.

Her mother judged her a lot for eating yet also rewarded her with sugar.

So she had gained some weight and then her mother would shame her for getting,

There's a lot of really twisted,

Twisted programming from childhood.

So we untangled all of that.

We told her what's true.

We told her,

Listen,

Mom and dad don't live with us anymore.

She had a sister that ended up bullying her.

She says,

So-and-so doesn't live here anymore.

I live by myself.

I've got dogs.

I'm,

I'm,

I love my life.

None of them are here anymore.

And the little girl was like,

Oh my gosh,

I love that.

I didn't know I was,

That you,

That you don't have to live with your family anymore.

She said,

No.

The little girl loved it.

Everything was great.

The little girl decided to let my client Tracy take over and eat how she wanted to eat.

And we wrapped it up.

It was beautiful.

And I think the,

Oh yeah.

And then we always,

I always invite the little girl or whomever,

Whatever part you're working with.

If it's an inner child part,

I said,

Hey,

Would you like to,

You know,

Come with?

And the little girl said,

Yes,

I want to come with you,

Which was Tracy.

And I said,

Well,

Come on.

So we brought her into this other room with dolls and all this stuff.

And we left her there.

And I said to my client,

I said,

So Tracy,

Are there any other parts?

She goes,

Yeah,

There's another part.

I can feel it.

She goes,

It's really angry.

And I said,

Okay,

Let's go.

So we went down the hall again.

I said,

So let's put the little girl in here,

Put a babysitter in the room with her.

Fine.

Little girl was happy as a clam.

I said,

Perfect.

So then we walked down the hallway again.

I said,

Walk down the hallway and find the other part that's not happy about all this.

She walked way down the hallway and down at the end of the hallway was the last room.

And she walked in and she was surprised.

And she said,

This is weird.

And I said,

What do you see?

And she said,

It's a teenage boy.

I said,

Oh,

Okay,

Whatever.

I said,

Well,

How old is he?

She goes,

I don't know,

Like 14,

15.

And he is pissed off.

I said,

Whatever.

Anyway,

I said,

Well,

Walk in and introduce yourself.

I did the same thing.

I guided her through this exactly like I did with the little girl.

Walk in,

Introduce yourself,

Tell him who you are.

And just because it's a boy part doesn't mean it's not part of you.

Sometimes when we have really aggressive parts,

They are more masculine.

I've had a part that showed up one time,

You guys,

So crazy.

It was,

He spoke French.

I've never taken a French class.

I'm like,

I don't even understand this guy.

He was like an older 20 year old guy.

That was one of my parts.

I'm like,

I don't know who this person is,

But whatever.

You just go with it.

You go with who and what is showing up.

So she went with this 15 year old and he really wanted no part of her.

He was ticked that she was there.

And she said,

Hey,

You know,

I want to help you.

And he's like,

Whatever.

The more we dialogued with him,

The softer he became.

And then she said,

You know,

Let me take over.

I know you're angry.

And she had a lot of anger in her childhood at her mom,

The way her mom was with her,

With her food.

Her sister was a bully.

And so there was a reason to have a lot of anger.

And for whatever reason,

It manifested and looked like this 15 year old boy.

And I said,

Let him know that you don't live with these people anymore,

Because that's the thing.

These younger parts are frozen in time.

They don't know that time has moved on.

So you've got to educate them to help them to grow up and merge back with you.

This is all about reparenting the self.

So she did that.

And he got a lot softer.

And then I said,

Okay,

She goes,

Well,

He's still kind of ticked.

And I said,

Well,

Ask him if he wants to come with you.

And she said,

Yeah,

He does not want to come with me.

I said,

Okay.

I don't know why.

I'm just I just go with this,

You guys.

There's no,

You know,

Perfect manual or way to do this.

But I said,

Listen,

I had this sense,

Like,

Ask him if you'd like us to leave an animal there with him.

And I said,

And there's a really cool dog.

And she goes,

Oh,

My gosh,

He's so excited.

So we reached out in the hallway and grabbed this.

I don't remember what kind of dog,

Like a golden retriever or something,

Left the dog.

The kid was elated.

He had a smile on his face,

So happy.

And he was going to stay in his room with his new dog.

Absolutely changed.

So the energy,

The anger was gone.

The aggressiveness was gone.

He totally transformed.

The dog came in and she said,

Hey,

Can I can I take care of eating from here on out?

There's no reason to be that upset,

Etc.

And he said,

Yeah,

For sure.

He was more happy with his dog.

And I said,

Tell him he's got to take that dog out,

Because my goal was to get this kid out of the room and get him outside in nature.

So he said,

I know I have to take the dog out.

I mean,

Such a great session.

And by the way,

I have to say,

I talked to this client today.

And she said,

I said,

How's it going?

Have you noticed any changes?

Did you notice anything that's different now,

Since your session,

And we just had a session a week ago?

And she said,

You're not going to believe it,

But yes.

She said,

I absolutely have.

When it comes to food,

She said she was unconsciously walking toward the freezer to go get some of her,

You know,

High sugar chocolate.

And the voice came in instead and said,

Or her voice,

What I would call her adult voice came in and said,

As she opened up her freezer,

The voice said,

Nope,

Don't do that.

Let's feel our feelings instead.

And she closed her freezer.

This is one week out.

That's the power of this work,

You guys.

And it's simple.

And you just go with your imagination.

And you're working with these unconscious parts and bringing them into consciousness,

Unconscious or subconscious,

Whatever you want to call them,

It's below consciousness.

But you've got to go find them.

So this part of her that was sabotaging her with food has transformed,

Transformed.

It's just been a week.

So such a cool experience.

But do this with any part of you.

Let that part rise up.

But anything that you're sabotaging,

Do this.

Do the parts work.

Find out what part of you is sabotaging you.

Find out what its purpose is.

You got to just inquire,

Ask it a lot of questions.

What's your purpose?

What do you want me to know?

So let it know who you are,

The age you are today,

The date that it is today.

Let it know you don't live with the people that you used to live with.

Let it know who you are today.

I'm married.

I have a dog and a cat and four kids or I live alone,

Whatever it is,

Let it know.

That will help to transform it.

So hope that helps you guys.

But self-sabotage is really an easy one to transform.

You just have to go in and find out who or what part is sabotaging you.

The adult chair model is so simple,

You guys.

You can truly plug it in into anything,

Like anything at all.

Please do use the dollhouse analogy or whatever feels right for you.

You can use like a road that you're driving down or you're walking down and there's pathways off the road or a path in the woods.

Whatever feels right,

Just go with it,

But do find those parts.

Sometimes if you don't want to go outside of yourself and find the parts,

Just go inside and say,

What part of me in my body feels tense right now or tension?

Oh,

It's in my stomach.

Go into your stomach.

What does that part want you to know?

Maybe it's not a human figure.

Maybe it's a blob of green energy.

It doesn't matter.

Just go inside yourself and find it.

You want to get to know your parts.

That's how then we become whole.

So what the goal is,

Again,

Is to bring your adult chair more present in your life.

You're grounding more of those parts when you can merge them back into your adult self.

Otherwise,

They're fragmented and stuck in the past.

You really can live the life you want,

Truly,

I believe that,

Instead of a life run by the old subconscious programs in your adolescent chair.

Reach for the connection to these parts and you can transform self-sabotage and anything else that's in the way of you feeling whole and complete.

So there you have it,

You guys.

I hope you find this helpful.

So have a wonderful week,

You guys.

I will see you seated right here next week in the adult chair.

Reviews

Fascinating, encouraging and so helpful. Thank you Michelle 🙏

Amazing and truly thought-provoking. However if it is possible can you create a guided session for us, and take us to the part like the one you have mentioned. Thanks 💫💫🙂‍↔️