Self-Sabotage - The Result of Inner Conflict Insights May 2005

There are so many ways to frustrate yourself:  forgetting, procrastinating, saying the wrong thing, missing a deadline, not feeling good about the time you give to family or friends, or not fulfilling your commitments to the gym, the diet, the meditation, or whatever discipline you've decided to impose.  In any given day there are plenty of things that can be criticized about yourself.  Too many things to allow a state of relaxation, and certain too much evidence of lack to allow any appreciation for yourself.   

Why is it so hard to fulfill your goals, to do what you want to do?  To truly understand why it's so difficult requires some awareness of the functions of the unconscious mind. It requires an understanding of the invisible influences on your behaviour, influences that may have an agenda contrary to what you think.    

It's easy to get used to thinking of your mind as the thought processes that run through your head.  The cognitive brain is always busy assessing what's going on in your environment, trying to predict what needs doing or needs attention, and evaluating how to successfully make it through your day, or week, or month.  You may decide not to eat junk food, or to go to the gym, or to really focus on what you want to achieve so you can finish it.     

But at the end of the day, you may have eaten junk food, not made it to the gym, and somehow not gotten through your work.  It's very frustrating.  And always, there is the continuous litany of assessment inside your head, like a running critique of shoulds and could-haves and not-good-enoughs.  It can be downright depressing, and it certainly makes it harder to get anything done.     

There are lots of elements in the subconscious mind that contribute to self-sabotage, and one big one is programmed coping mechanisms.  A coping mechanism is something that gets put in place to deal with the situations of your life.  Most coping mechanisms are established in childhood, when the choices you could make were limited by age, ability, and a child's comprehension.     

Here is one example, and there are many.  Often children react to the scents and process of meal preparation by asking for food.  Usually, the parent will respond in the negative because the food isn't ready yet.  That's perfectly reasonable and logical - except that young children are often not reasonable or logical.  Children don't develop an awareness of time until around age seven, so prior to age seven, being told to wait is equivalent to being told it will never happen.  Being told you aren't getting food when you're hungry is very frustrating for a young child.  However, the parent is the authority figure.  Depending on the type of relationship between parent and child, there are many responses the child might make.  What results from the child's response and the parent's reaction to that response, is the development of a coping mechanism in the child.     

If the child persists in their demand, either by crying or with verbal requests, and then receives comfort from the parent, the child learns that their needs are met and they are safe.   

If the child persists and the parent becomes impatient, the child believes their needs will not be met and they are not safe.  At that point they may seek comfort elsewhere, such as from food, or they may turn their frustration towards themselves.  Behaviors like kicking a sofa or hitting a sibling or breaking a toy may be an exhibition of the frustration turned inward.     

It's important to realize that you can't remember the first occurrence of establishing your coping mechanisms.  Since most of these behaviors are established before the cognitive, thinking part of the brain has even developed, they happen below the level of thinking.  You may remember later occurrences of interactions with your parents over food issues, but those will be subsequent to the early pattern-forming events, and therefore within the already-established coping methods.     

It takes some detective work to try to identify what mechanisms your unconscious mind is using to cope with stimulus, because this does not happen at the thinking level.  It's also important to realize that the mechanisms may be triggered not only by a similar situation, but by any situation that provokes a similar emotion.  Consider these elements for the previous example.  How do you feel if service in a restaurant is slow?  How do you feel if you have work to do that requires input from another person, and they are not supplying the necessary input?  How do you feel about line-ups?  About people being late?  About waiting for a bus?    

If you start to realize that some of these situations are frustrating, you may be identifying a coping mechanism of turning frustration inward.  Since you probably don't kick a sofa or break a toy or hit your sibling, how are you expressing that frustration?  Most people express their turned-inward frustration with some subliminal form of self-sabotage.  It's a form of being passive-aggressive against yourself.  Therefore, you'll be late, and become frustrated, because that expresses that turned-inward frustration.  Or you might resist going to the gym, and be frustrated with yourself, because that expresses that turned-inward frustration.    

The coping mechanisms that were programmed long before you had a thinking process to determine if they made sense may still be sabotaging you.  The good news is that you can change it.  Once you understand the link between the frustrations in your life and subliminal programming, you can start to step back and look at what frustrates you.  It's a little harder to connect the dots between being frustrated waiting for a bus and a three-year-old's desire to be fed before supper is ready, so you might need some help with that part if you feel you need to understand the link.    

Or you could decide you don't need to understand the link - it's probably not rational, anyway.  What's really important is to look at the places in your life that are frustrating you.  Once you have identified them, you can recognize that your frustration is the result of an unconscious reaction.  After all, the bus will come.  The waiter will bring your food.  Being frustrated will not change the outcome or the delay.  What being frustrated will do is damage your body with unpleasant chemical reactions and bring down your mood.  You could decide you're not willing to go that route.    

The key to changing your reactions is to provide a comfort stimulus for your body when there is a frustration trigger.  Many people do this unconsciously with food, cigarettes, or other pacifiers.  Those choices can lead to secondary problems.  But if you understand what triggers frustration, you can choose to provide a different comfort stimulus.  One that won't pile on the pounds or put harmful chemicals into your body!     

There are lots of choices, and it's important to pick what works for you.  Reading a magazine might pass the time on the bus-stop.  Assuming the waiter will be slow creates the possibility of a pleasant surprise at the restaurant.  The key is to anticipate the challenge and subvert it with a solution - not a solution to the situation, but a solution to you being frustrated.  Something as simple as a magazine at a bus-stop may sound simplistic.  It's just the implementation of an important understanding.  The important understanding that you have unconscious triggers that provoke coping mechanisms that may hurt you, and that recognition of what is happening gives you another choice.  

When you have a choice, you can change things.  Imagine reaching the end of the day with little or no frustration.  Imagine if that frustration wasn't creating self-sabotage, and you started to achieve your goals.  You might make it to the gym, or meet your deadline - you might even feel good about your day.  The possibilities are staggering.  Become a detective in your own life, and find the places you can choose to break free of frustration.  It's a gift to everyone around you, as well as yourself.

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