End Self-Sabotage ~ Rewire 4/4 E108

Do you find yourself getting in your way, sabotaging your happiness and well-being? Are you aware of the shadow aspects of yourself? The subconscious drivers that keep us on repeat and moving away from our self-worth.

Learn how to connect to your inner knowing and allow it to guide you to the life you desire and deserve.
Build your wellness toolbox for whole-body health.

Transcript

Hi!

Welcome to week four of Rewire to Love.

When you're thinking about how we digest the world around us,

There are many ways that we can kind of get in our own way.

We can move ourselves away from a heart-space connection or we can also kind of boomerang.

You know,

We'll try to throw it out there to someone else or put it on someone else even though it comes back to us because it's really our stuff to begin with.

One of those areas has to do with shadow work.

You might have heard about this before.

It goes all the way back to Carl Jung who's a psychoanalyst from a while ago who has a lot of different concepts and theories but this particular one,

Shadow work,

Has a lot of other language that has come to understand the concept around it.

So you might have heard it to be called something else as well but this is when we will have a reaction to someone else but it's really about something within ourselves that we might need to spend some time with,

Work through,

Or break apart in a cycle.

Sometimes we're kind of aware and sometimes we're not so aware because of the busyness.

We go through life very busy and it's not really the way to be living.

The slowing down is when we get to see,

Understand,

And hear ourselves.

But often sometimes these,

The boomerang or the shadow,

It can even be a subconscious thing until we slow down and recognize and we're like,

Oh okay,

Hold on,

I do that too.

Now I see what's going on there.

And this boomerang or this shadow part goes two different directions.

What will stir us up from someone else?

So say,

I'll just kind of try to stick with a theme,

You know,

That I used before last week.

Say,

For example,

Someone is being passive-aggressive in their language.

Yes,

There's the boundaries around it,

Right?

Like we have,

We don't want someone,

You know,

To speak to us a certain way,

Especially aggressive communication,

Even passive-aggressive.

But where it sits within us and how much it stirs us up or the reaction cycle it might create within us is about where we're at in our own healing of those aspects.

So before I had mentioned last week that I,

You know,

Used to be a bit more passive-aggressive in my communication style,

Just what I was used to and what I absorbed growing up.

And before,

Back then,

When I was kind of in the cusps of trying to transition away from that type of communication style,

It would really stir me up if someone else was speaking that way.

Because it was still something within me that I was working through and needed to be healed.

And I was aware of it,

But also not so aware initially of how I was getting this,

This kind of secondary stir up,

Where I was getting stirred up by something I was seeing or experiencing within someone else or by someone else or in their behaviors or communication that was impacting me because it was something I also had to be working through and working on.

And that can go in a multitude of different directions.

It's when we slow down that we get to understand and see.

It's that mirror impact that we can have.

The other,

How I said,

It can kind of go two different directions.

The other thing to keep in mind here is when you notice that you really admire something within someone else,

Quality,

A strength,

A characteristic,

It's the same thing.

You also have that within you.

You know that somewhere,

Maybe not consciously,

Kind of how I was talking about the affirmations and how,

You know,

Start with I am.

Even if you don't believe it to be true right now,

Inside your awareness of self,

It knows it to be true.

Even if up here is trying to tell you something totally different.

So when you are noticing that you really admire a quality or characteristic in someone else,

That is also something within yourself.

So the things that stir you,

Slowing down,

Hmm,

Do I notice that within me?

What's that about within me that's really kind of activating me or really making me experience something here in this moment?

And that's when we get to understand ourselves.

Otherwise,

We'll throw those daggers.

The pointer is ego.

If I didn't mention that last week,

The pointer is ego.

So if we're pointing,

Pointing,

Pointing,

You,

You,

You,

Just slow down and see what's going on here.

It's all under that judgment category,

If you think about it.

Judging the other person or we're avoiding inner awareness and instead judging ourselves,

Which creates avoidance of looking within.

Oftentimes,

We avoid the awareness or looking within because it's difficult.

It's not always easy.

It's where the growth happens.

It's where the work happens.

But,

You know,

It's really easy to sometimes put it somewhere else initially until you get to really experience,

Which we're,

You know,

In week four,

You're priority experiencing what it feels like in the heart to really start embracing your heart.

The other area to open up some awareness around in terms of judgment,

This is about our connection to our own worth and value.

So this is how we kind of judge ourselves and where we hold our worth and value.

And this goes in the category of self-sabotage.

We can get into auto patterns and cycles that we will actually sabotage our own happiness.

We will sabotage our joy,

Even sabotage love,

And we can do it in some kind of calculated ways towards ourselves.

I know,

Right?

We can be so confusing.

Sometimes people will sign themselves up for a course or exercise class or something like that.

And they'll get even in it for a bit and then they won't complete it.

And sometimes people will not complete it all the way up to like they'll have like two classes left and they will not finish it.

And they'll notice that they keep doing this.

They keep like repeating that pattern but doesn't slow down enough to notice like,

Oh wait,

What am I denying myself here?

I'm gonna give a couple other examples and I'll expand on that.

Another example would be,

Which is really common for a lot of people,

We won't clean our house.

I mean,

We'll clean our house,

But like clean,

Clean our house until someone's coming over.

And then suddenly,

You know,

You do like some magazine shots in your house,

Like it's the cleanest,

Cleanest ever.

And we live in the house every day.

Yeah,

So you know,

Things get cluttered and things like that.

But just the everyday keeping our house clean makes us feel good too.

It's not just making a visitor feel good.

We feel good when it's done,

But we kind of deny ourselves that.

We don't let ourselves do or create the space or environment that's going to make us feel good in our every day.

It's even when people are going to sell their home,

They'll do the projects that they were waiting on forever.

And then they sell their home for the next person to enjoy all the things they had on their list for a long time.

And these ways that we can deny ourselves our own worth and value,

Because those things will also feel good to us.

But we just don't hold ourselves to the same same caliber,

Like the same level of worth and value.

And again,

It comes even to that happiness,

The joy or the love.

And sometimes that has to do with the worth and value and also the fear element that can come in there.

People at times will fear joy and happiness because it's with,

As with all emotions,

It's impermanent.

All emotions are impermanent,

Including joy and happiness.

But people will almost get a bit of attachment to joy and happiness,

Like they want that to be their baseline.

It's an emotion that's going to fluctuate.

It's going to come and it's going to go.

And so there's fear around the experience of it because,

Well,

What happens when it goes?

You know,

Then what?

Then I'm gonna be sad or I'm gonna be anxious again.

So they will,

Again,

Sometimes consciously,

Sometimes it's subconscious stuff until we work through it,

But get in their own way of experiencing joy and happiness as well as love.

We talked last,

Or I shared last week about love languages.

Also love,

We can sabotage ourselves in love due to fear.

And sometimes that might be fear of what we've experienced in love or fear of how we learned what love looked like.

Maybe not even about how we were loved,

Maybe just how we witnessed love being.

And so we kind of get like walls up around there.

And it can come in then to self-sabotage,

Where we'll get in our own way,

We'll create obstacles,

Or like we go into this joy and happiness and love with like a sledgehammer instead of,

You know,

A warm embrace.

Self-sabotage,

Where do you potentially get in your own way of emotions that you want to experience,

Life that you want to experience,

Goals that you want to complete,

And then the ways that maybe,

You know,

You can slow down and notice that will allow you then to rework and do a different system.

We have to see before we can change.

One other area to point out or be aware of is environment.

Think of the environment that you absorb.

And the environment you absorb would include things like your space,

Kind of how I said a little bit ago about cleanliness,

Clutter,

How we keep our environment impacts how we feel.

How you wake up and what you look at first thing is going to impact how you're going to want to move forward in the day.

So thinking about the environment around you in terms of what you're absorbing in your space,

Also what you're absorbing in the information that you're bringing in to your mind.

Are you watching a bunch of news?

What kind of music even are you listening to?

You can even use that opposite to emotion.

Music is a great tool there.

If you're feeling sad,

Sadness is a great emotion.

All emotions are important and it's important to experience and feel those emotions.

But for regulation,

You might not want to go in for hours and listen to sad songs unless you're wanting to really kind of embrace,

Which again,

Super important to embrace our sadness.

But if you're wanting to balance a bit,

You might listen to a different type of music.

Or if you're listening to rage music and you're already feeling like all pumped up and angry,

Well,

It might,

You know,

Get you going.

If you're starting and ending your day with the news,

Think about it.

So think about the environment,

What you're absorbing,

And that goes like with so many different areas.

I'm trying,

As you're probably getting to know me a bit through this,

I'm really trying to stay focused.

There's just so much I want to share with you guys,

But I just have to piece it out.

Because,

You know,

Environment and even with our heart space has to do with like the food we bring in to our body,

How we're digesting,

All that stuff.

So think about your environment.

I won't go off on a tangent there,

But just think about your environment.

Think about what you're absorbing through your environment,

How it looks.

Is it cluttered?

Is it clean?

Are you presenting yourself and your space like you would for someone you love?

Remember,

You love yourself and the people that you keep around you.

It's another thing about your environment.

We absorb,

And I won't go,

See,

I'm about to go on another side tangent here.

I won't.

But we,

It impacts us,

The company that we keep around us.

Just keep in mind how it can impact you personally and the time and space you keep around you and what that means in terms of your own heart space,

Your own mental health,

And your own well-being.

Which leads me to the next tool,

And that is your felt sense.

We've been exploring and understanding and learning about the ways that we might be judging ourselves or judging others,

The ego versus the soul.

And our soul,

Our body,

Our being,

Our intuition,

And we're vibrational beings,

We absorb.

But it guides us in this felt sense.

The more we pay attention to it and we recognize it,

The more it can also be our guide.

Your felt sense can feel like a lot of different things.

It can feel like warmth when something is really feeling connected to you.

It could feel like even the bit of butterfly and excitability.

But you also want to be cautious about butterflies,

Kind of,

You know,

In that love part.

Sometimes butterflies can mean,

Let's see,

It's a whole nother topic.

But sometimes butterflies in our connection with others can mean more actually about trauma bonding and bonding through an experience of anxiety.

And it's not about like,

Oh,

I've got butterflies.

And it can be,

That can be confusing for people too.

This felt sense,

It could feel like the butterflies,

But notice what the butterflies mean for you.

Sometimes butterflies can be about something we're excited about,

Anxiety about something of excitement.

It was like a music event,

You were gonna go see one of your favorite artists,

Or you were going to go to an art museum,

Or you're going to go see a friend you haven't seen in a long time.

And that can give us butterflies,

Excitable energy.

But maybe also you notice anytime you go around someone,

It feels similar to butterflies,

But it's more of like a gut anxious feeling of discomfort underneath,

Or how I said slowing down and noticing how you feel when you hear certain things,

You might notice that when you slow down,

When you're watching the news,

And you notice how you feel that there's like a trickle effect that you feel a little bit anxious or short,

More frustration.

And that might come in as muscle tension,

Even in your shoulders or your neck,

But also internal.

So you might notice just like a different feeling around your heart space,

Felt sense is a little different for each person.

And the more you sit in a bit of stillness and awareness with yourself,

You're going to get to tune in and and see and feel what it is for you.

For example,

In those environmental things I talked about,

You can start to pay attention to how you feel inside when you slow down and hear if you hear someone who is judging someone else absorb it,

Observe it,

Notice it,

The non verbals,

The energy,

The experience way it impacts the receiver and see how that feels for you.

Change and awareness can be challenging not only in the process,

But also it elevates our feeling.

The more we become aware of judgment,

The more the awareness expands beyond self.

And it can feel a little prickly for a bit.

And sometimes it also means establishing deeper boundaries and even changing dynamics of relationships.

And I understand completely personally,

But also as a therapist,

How challenging that can be.

The more we tap in,

The more we notice our felt sense,

It can guide us more in to what is in alignment with our genuine self.

And that lets us create something new.

The last thing I will say is about the book ends of your day.

Think about creating bookends of your day that create balance and connection to your heart.

A very simple practice,

Something I mentioned last week,

Is just bookending with gratitude.

Doing it for more than a minute.

Thinking about,

I know this might sound like a lot,

But the 30 minutes of thinking about the bookends of your day,

How you start and how you end the day,

And designing that in a way that is a balance,

Self care and self love that is filled with compassion and heart space energy.

Starting your day with gratitude and excitement and appreciation for the day ahead of you,

Even if it's busy and maybe full of things that can be a little overwhelming.

Trying to start with gratitude,

Trying not to watch the news right as you open your eyes or jump right on to social media.

And same with the end of your day.

I know I sound strange when I say this to many,

But trying to fall asleep and having at least 30 minutes before you go to bed with no TV,

No music,

Just silence.

If you have to read,

Maybe reading,

I would encourage maybe journaling instead.

Because even reading,

It's getting our mind busy.

And we want to be slowing down.

So bookends of your day.

And again,

Try to incorporate and keep building the tools that you have that you've been building.

Know that you want to be embracing yourself with lots of love,

Kindness and compassion so that you can more move forward into that space with yourself.

Because change and awareness is not always easy.

The more we become aware of judgment,

The more challenging it can be initially until we start reworking that hamster wheel like we've been doing.

Thank you so much for being part of this process with me.

And in the process,

I hope that you are finding much more connection to your heart space,

Which will allow it to go out to the collective and help all change into wellness.

Thank you,

My friends.

I will see you again soon.