Are you self-sabotaging because of fear?

Fear is a huge part of self-sabotage. Fear of failure, fear of the unknown, fear of change, fear of loss of control, fear of judgement, fear of rejection, fear of something bad happening. So.Much.Fear.

I know that in my life I have let fear hold me back in so many ways. It is one of the ways that I self- sabotage. It has kept me on the sidelines and stuck for most of my life. Kept me from doing things I wanted to do, from accomplishing goals, sometimes from even setting goals, and from peace and health.

Fear keeps us stuck in the status quo, and most of us are not thriving in the status quo. For instance, I have mentioned before that I was too scared for so long to start doing cleanses and juice fasts and make changes in my life that I was not used to. Funny that I was not afraid of the obesity and diabetes and other health problems and chronic pain. Well, to be fair I was to some extent, I would talk about needing to lose weight and get healthy, but for the most part I would just try the same things that had not worked for me at all or that I did not sustain. Honestly, I tried it all, I tried everything in every magazine and most of the big name programs. When finally introduced to something that would work, I was very resistant. Because it was the real deal, it actually forced me to look at some of the things going on in my life and health, my priorities, my fears, wounds, and ultimately if I felt I was deserving of the effort and the changes.

One thing most people do not consider is fear of things getting better, and most people will deny they do this until they are blue in the face. Most of us however have something tied to the things in our lives that we want to change whether being overweight, poor health, unhealthy relationships or other patterns that are not helping us succeed and thrive.

In my therapy career, we called that secondary gain. Most of the time the thing people are gaining is not something in their awareness.

It is very important to look at reasons that you are choosing to stay sick, stuck, unhappy, a victim, etc. For example, if you are overweight and are feeling protected, nurtured, and safe by having the extra weight especially if attached to past trauma, it is very likely that you will sabotage your efforts to lose or keep it off (no matter how much you believe you hate it). Some people also have attachments to problematic things in their life due to ties to their identity, roles/their place in their family, for attention, to elicit help or time for rest, not having to do as many manual tasks/chores, or to continue a victim/martyr scenario. There is a lot involved in this.
Finding the sabotage and identifying the secondary gains and related wounding (there is always related wounding) that keep us stuck can be challenging to identify and work through on your own. When you are ready to make some changes, or even ready to look at gearing up for the possibility to change the way you view change, I will meet you where you are and at your level of readiness. You can decide to empower yourself by disempowering the fear and self-doubt!