I’d like to share with you an interview I had with Michael David Lawrience when I got to ask him about the topic of recognizing self-sabotage and the causes of self-sabotage.
Anne Lyken-Garner: How Can We Recognize Our Self-Sabotage Behaviors?
Michael: We all have our ways of perceiving the world from our core beliefs, conscious and unconscious. We create our experiences to confirm the truth of our perceptions. We may have a core belief that we will never succeed at anything we do. So we set up our outcomes to prove that we will never succeed and thereby self-sabotage any possibility of success and we keep creating obstacles to our success on an unconscious level.
If for example we start a new relationship, expecting it to fail like all our previous ones than it probably will and we get to be right. Rather than continuing to create a false paradigm, we could choose to look at our core beliefs and “truths” to assess their degree of truth.
We might also examine our negative self-talk and our tendency to view life through the paradigm of a negative lens. As our perceptions shift, so may our outcomes.
Anne Lyken-Garner: What are the Causes of Self-Sabotage?
Michael: When we want to improve our lives we set an intention of what we would like and then we look for results. We may have visualized the result and taken some actions. Why do our intentions fall short of our desired results? Maybe it’s “counter intent
Counter Intention is a belief we hold in direct opposition to our conscious intention buried in our unconscious mind. We may for example have intent to weigh less. In the unconscious we may have a belief if we look good and attract more partners than we will have to be more intimate, yet we fear intimacy.
So which intent will win? Our unconscious or counter intention always wins because it has the greater power.
The conflict sets up an energy block within us and since our unconscious has the greater power we end up getting the opposite of our conscious intent. The energy system within our body changes polarity – a Psychological Reversal. All self-sabotage results from Psychological Reversal.
We can compare Psychological Reversal to positive and negative batteries in a flashlight. They need to be properly installed for the flashlight to work. Polarity change means the positive and negative energy systems in our body have been switched and we get the opposite of our conscious choices through self-sabotage.
Psychological Reversal occurs when our unconscious mind believes it is better for us to keep our chronic pain, extra weight, or bad habit rather than change.
The following explains in brief detail how our inner child, Shadow, or victim consciousness may self-sabotage our success.
Cathryn Taylor a counselor and author of The Inner Child Workbook explains how our inner child can sabotage us. Our inner child sabotages our efforts to succeed in an attempt to protect us from failure . . . it fears our success! It fears our being too powerful. It is frightened we will get hurt.
Our Shadow creates self-sabotage when we deny it and push feelings and behaviors we dislike down into our subconscious. As Carl Jung said the Shadow is, The negative side of the personality, the sum of all those unpleasant qualities we like to hide, together with the insufficiently developed functions. For example, intense reactions to others may indicate the same qualities within ourselves we refuse to face.
Finally, our victim mentality creates self-sabotage through unconscious thoughts of being unworthy and powerless. Victims fail to recognize themselves as victims to their own critical thoughts and beliefs.
About the Author:
Michael David Lawrience is the author of Emotional Health: The Secret from Drama, Trauma, and Pain. His book provides ways for improving emotional health, easing pain and stress, healing physical and emotional abuse, and spiritual awakening. See book on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Emotional-Health-Secret-Freedom-Trauma/dp/0615479170
Michael as a previous Residential and Self-Esteem Coach and Mentor has over 15 years’ experience teaching teen’s self-awareness, self-esteem, and self-reliance. See eBook Self Esteem- A Teen’s Guide for Girlshttps://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009L4JLMO This book is valuable for women also.
Michael offers Bowen Therapy in person in Sedona, Arizona for easing physical and emotional pain. See http://emotionalhealthtips.com/bowen-therapy
Michael also conducts personalized hiking tours in Sedona for emotional and spiritual breakthroughs.
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