You’re Not Self-Sabotaging. You’re Self-Protecting.

You're not self sabotaging, you're self protecting. Hi, my name is Rachel Havocost. I'm a writer and mental health advocate and I've been in therapy for over 19 years for my own mental health. And I am just here to share things that I have learned at therapy and along the way to help one person feel less alone. So if you're someone that self sabotages, same I do it all the time. I want to give you a reframe. What if you're not self sabotaging? What if you're actually self protecting? And I know that might sound counterproductive or counterintuitive because oftentimes when we self sabotage, we hurt ourselves.

So how can that be protecting ourselves? So this is why. Think about times in your life when you've self sabotaged. Maybe it's a time when you were avoiding an emotionally healthy relationship. Maybe it was a time when you were seeking chaos instead of stillness. Maybe it was a time that you avoided doing a job or something on your to do list that you really needed to get done. What if these are all ways that your brain is trying to protect you from something, but it's doing it the only way it knows how because it was raised in an environment that taught it how to do these things in one way?

If we're stopping ourselves from doing a job that we have to do or getting a to do list, maybe it's because there's perfectionism that's standing in our way and so the self sabotage is protecting us from that fear of not being perfect or the fear of failure or the fear of making a mistake. If we're avoiding healthy relationships or being emotionally vulnerable, maybe it's because it feels safer to remain closed off because then we can't get rejected and we can't get hurt or abandoned. Maybe we seek chaos in times of stillness because growing up we were so used to chaotic homes that stillness doesn't feel safe even though it is.

So if we can start to reframe self sabotage as self protection, that doesn't mean that we're excusing the behavior or saying that we are going to continue doing it. What it does is it allows us a chance to reduce the shame around the sabotage and actually get curious and ask ourselves what am I protecting myself from? Once we can ask ourselves what is this behavior serving and what am I protecting myself from? We can get a little bit more self awareness and start to make different choices based on what we are trying to protect ourselves from and how to do that in a way that's healthy.