Topic: Self sabotaging relationship patterns

ERP 150: What To Do When Stuck In Self-Sabotage

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Welcome to The Empowered Relationship Podcast, helping you turn relationship challenges into opportunities and setting you up for relationship success. Your host, Dr. Jessica Higgins, is a licensed psychologist and relationship coach who shares valuable tips, tools and resources for you to dramatically improve your relationship.

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Hi, thank you for joining today’s podcast episode. Today’s episode is 150, “What to do when stuck in self-sabotage.” This topic comes from a recent session with a client of mine where she was asking me about what’s the difference between feeling fear and feeling triggered, and self-sabotage.

In today’s episode, I’ll be providing a general overview of what is all involved in the process of self sabotaging relationship patterns – the constricting and limiting of our life force energy. As I describe some of the principles, I will give some story, an example to some of the principles. As with a podcast episode, I’m limited in my capacity to give the comprehensive view.

I will be recommending a book that gives you an opportunity to go deeper with this topic of self-sabotage, or as Gay Hendricks would call, the upper limit problem.

Also I wanna note that in my Connected Couple program, which is a comprehensive support system for developing happy, lasting love, I also give exercise, resource and practice for how to recognize and work and repattern these limiting, self-sabotaging behaviors so that we can expand and be in a fuller expression of our life force energy, essentially.

You can find the link to Connected Couple, as well as the book, which is by Gay Hendricks, called “The Big Leap” – you can find those links on today’s show notes, which can be found on my website, which is DrJessicaHiggins.com, click on Podcast, and you can find today’s episode 150, “What to do when stuck in self-sabotage.”

If you will, I just want to bring into practice at this moment with you, as you’re listening and as I’m sharing, and as we ground in the intention to learn and grow as we are engaged in a relationship… Whether or not you are interested in improving the quality of your relationship right now, or if you’re contemplating relationship that you want to develop. Perhaps you’ve just broken up with someone or gotten a divorce, or have been separated for a period of time and are contemplating the type of relationship you wanna say yes to.

In a moment, I wanna encourage us to all take a collective breath together. Now, yes, we may be listening at different times and obviously I’m recording this before you are listening to it, but in some sense, the connection that we share in engaging with the Empowered Relationship Podcast, we’re tuning into the vibration of expanding our skillfulness in relationship; that’s both individually and in partnership… And that as we take this collective breath, that there’s a recognition that we’re all doing the best that we can; that there’s a love that we feel inside of us that wants to be expressed and individually, and also wants to be shared in connection… And that we all are coming from different circumstances, situations, and yet there’s a similarity in our desire to feel, again, the freedom of our unique individual expression, and to feel support around that, as well as to feel a deep sense of bond and quality of connection, that’s authentic and genuine and real.

I know that that’s gonna look different for all of us, but as we take this inhale together and exhale together, that there’s a learning in this. It’s not about getting the information and then implementing it and being successful right away; if you’ve listened to any of my previous podcasts, particularly the ones about pain – there’s a learning curve here… So my intention of providing some of these topics and principles and exercises is for you to recognize that we are all on this path of progression.

I have told you guys many times that I am a practicer of these principles. As much as I try to guide and facilitate others, I do my very best to walk the talk… So I am in this with you as I grow myself and I grow my relationship. So as we take this breath together, just recognizing there’s a community within us. Again, we may not make direct contact with one another, but again, we are connecting in this intention together. So with the inhale, and the exhale, we center into that.

Today’s podcast episode, again, 150 – “What to do when stuck in self-sabotage.” Again, this comes from a recent session with a client of mine, and she has been dating after having been divorced and single for a period of time and had been exploring relationship and just bumping up against some of her fear and her old trauma, essentially, and how to negotiate when she feels scared, essentially fearing rejection, fearing abandonment, and how to basically care for the part of her that feels freaked out, and then also stay engaged in possibility for relationship. And the thing that I was posing with her is also is she putting herself in situations that are not in alignment or not in integrity with what’s she’s ultimately wanting?

So if she’s wanting marriage and partnership and she’s dating someone who doesn’t wanna be married or in a long-term relationship, there’s gonna feel a sense of incongruence with that… And that that disconnect or that lack of congruence could likely feel threatening to her. But is that self-sabotage or self sabotaging relationship patterns? Well, possibly, if you look at the bigger picture; if she’s ultimately wanting a relationship and steadily choosing to be investing in men that aren’t interested in a relationship, then you could definitely subscribe that to sabotaging her ultimate goal.

In this particular session, she was describing a conflict that he had had with a gentleman that she’s been dating, and she wasn’t completely resolved about it… And yet, she was really contemplating – am I sabotaging? Because he was really showing up in a beautiful way, offering really sweet sentiment and really providing a lot of generous gesture to her, and she was like “It’s so great, so why am I bringing up the issue?” And we contemplated various aspects, one of which is the one I’ve just mentioned, which is if it’s not in alignment, that it’s possible she’s not gonna feel relaxed, regardless of how he’s showing up. Even if it appears that he’s showing up in the most beautiful way, if it’s not in alignment, she might not feel settled about it… Hence worry, hence questioning…

Secondly, if there’s a conflict that’s not resolved and he’s pursuing moving forward with resolution and she’s not clear, there’s her own acknowledgment of “I’m not totally resolved”, whether or not she pushes the issue at that moment, or just transparently says “I am really looking forward to having a beautiful night with you, and I would love to finish talking about this, because I don’t feel all the way clear about it.” I think that that could give her a platform to engage in a beautiful interaction, but also be in integrity around “I’m not fully resolved.”

There are many things that can be occurring when we feel a sense of fear or challenge in a relationship, and this is also what I give a tremendous amount of guidance in the Connected Couple around – how to flush a lot of this out. But if you’ve listened to previous podcasts around previous trauma, hurt, injury as it relates to the relationship, particularly in attachment, and feeling bonded and connected and trusting that bond, is that we can often feel threatened that the bond is not secure… Especially, again, as I mentioned, if you’re wanting a secure partnership and someone’s being much more casual, it’s likely that some of their demeanor will feel threatening, because they’re not valuing or having the same value of regard for the relationship – or for you, in that matter – that you’re interested in.

Since my client was asking about self sabotaging relationship patterns, I really wanted to give a little more support for this topic; I do believe that it is such a prevalent experience… And self-sabotage in the way that I’m referring to it today is how we all have a comfort zone in what we’ve been familiar with as it relates to abundance, financial prosperity, health and well-being, joy, happiness, love, and connection… That we’ve known a certain level in those realms.

For example, we’ve been used to a certain level of income, and we’re familiar with that. We’re likely to make about the same that we’ve been making, or that our mood, our level of happiness, or our health, for that matter – we have a certain familiarity with where our zone of operating has been… And Gay Hendricks wrote a book which I mentioned, “The Big Leap.” He describes this threshold between what we’ve known as our comfort zone and what’s possible; that’s the big leap. But the threshold is the upper limit issue or problem.

Gay Hendricks uses a thermostat analogy, in that our thermostat was programmed at an early age for a certain degree of temperature, and that’s what we’re familiar with, and the gravitational pull to come back to that setting is extremely strong.

The analogy that I like to work with or the symbolism is like of a water glass. Water that is being poured into the glass. The glass contains the capacity to hold a certain amount of volume, and in my mind, the glass represents our comfort zone – what we’ve known, what we’ve been familiar with, and what we’ve been able to essentially hold in the way of abundance, love, health, happiness, those types of things.

So it’s water that represents things like money, love, happiness… And if the water is being poured and it’s getting full, we eventually at some point if the water continues to pour, we’re gonna reach the threshold of the limitation of the glass. Now, unconsciously, if we’re reaching the threshold of what we’ve known, where we’re earning more money than we’ve ever earned in the past, or we’re happier than we’ve ever been, or we’re feeling more love and connection than we’ve ever felt in our entire life, that unconsciously we don’t know how to hold that, and unconsciously we do something to cut the flow, to stop the energy… Because in some unconscious way we’re like “We don’t have the capacity to hold more.”

What Gay Hendricks talks about in his book is that this essentially comes from hidden barriers, essentially fears, and I can talk about what those fears are in a moment… But if I can just continue to describe that what we will do is we don’t feel that we have the capacity or we are afraid to expand our cup size – we’re afraid of expanding our capacity to absorb more. And this is a conflict because we want to expand our capacity to earn more money, or to experience more joy, or to have more love and connection. We wanna live a fully-expressed life, and expand our expression.

If we’re unconsciously afraid of that process – again, unknowingly afraid – then we are going to sabotage, and there are many ways that we do that, which I’ll explain in a moment… But this is that classic conundrum that you hear quotes about possibly, where we typically will choose the constricted, possibly even unhealthy experience, as opposed to the uncertain life-expanding experience.

I feel like I heard a quote that we would rather choose the familiar hell, than the uncertain heaven. The goal then becomes recognizing where our fear lies that’s often steeped in early experiences, where we’ve had an early programming of why it wasn’t okay to shine or expand. With that insight, we can then consciously choose to rewrite that story and really provide a bridge to expand in a very safe way, that allows us to breathe life into shining, and taking a big leap, and experiencing more abundance, more love than we have known before, without the self sabotaging relationship patterns and the cutting off of the flow.

A little later I’m gonna give you four tips around how to negotiate this threshold in a way that helps you consciously expand. But first, let’s look at what are the ways in which we stop the flow of energy, the ways in which we self-sabotage. Let’s see if you can relate to any of these. These are listed in The Big Leap, by Gay Hendricks: worrying, blame, and criticism, getting sick, having an accident, picking a fight, hiding significant feelings, not keeping agreements, not speaking significant truth to the relevant people, and deflecting.

Again, these are all ways in which we are feeling wonderful. Things are going well, we got a raise, and then all of a sudden we crash our car. Or perhaps we are on an amazing vacation with our loved one, and we’re just in utter bliss, and then all of a sudden we’re picking a fight with them. Or perhaps we’ve just given this amazing presentation, we’ve gotten all this wonderful feedback, and then we get sick… Or some version of this.

As you’re contemplating this topic, I’m sure you can come up with your own examples or examples you’ve heard, for people you know, or even in the media… Whether it’s politicians, professional athletes, or artists, whether or not it’s singer/songwriters, or actors… There are so many examples of people who experience great levels of success and then have some form of sabotaging, bringing that energy down.

A couple of the areas that I notice my upper limit or my self-sabotage emerge is being accident-prone and worrying. If I am experiencing some level of joy or connection with my husband, if I’m feeling so bonded with him, loving him, appreciating him, I will sometimes worry about him or worry just feeling how fragile life is, and how much it means to me… And really truly, I’m not a big worrier in my nature; I’m pretty relaxed, and I love to play and be in the moment, and just be in the spontaneity of being present with people, and so worrying about someone’s well-being is not something I spend a lot of time doing… But as it relates to the upper limit, I can see how much this plays out.

So the invitation that Gay Hendricks poses is becoming more aware if you recognize worry showing up, is “What was I thinking right before I started to worry?” For some it might be “Oh my gosh, things are feeling so amazing, and I just so love him” or “I so appreciate her” and reflecting on the positive shared connection, and really enjoying it, and then some people’s nervous system starts to react, right? “Oh, what’s gonna happen now? Is the other shoe gonna drop?” or “How long is that gonna last?” and there’s this sense of like “I don’t know how to sustain this” or “I don’t wanna experience the loss of what is so significant.”

As Gay Hendricks is posing the possibility that we’re approaching that threshold of more love, safety, connection than we’ve known, and that we’re basically being called to expand our capacity and work with the fear that might be underlying… And I’ll go into that in just a moment, but I wanna just share a couple more here.

Another way that I have restricted the energy of expansion in my life has been in the way of having an accident. I’m immediately reminded of when I turned 16; I had been learning to drive and eagerly wanted to have freedom and wanted to feel my own form of transportation. I knew that it wasn’t necessarily viable for my mom to get me a car, yet I longed to have my own vehicle.

It turns out for my 16th birthday my mother had arranged with one of her friends who had a hookup to get a really nice car. Now, it wasn’t any luxury, anything nice, but it was something that I loved; it was a Honda Civic, a blue little car that I just was thrilled with. I remember being high on life. I just felt so great, and just was beaming with excitement and was proud of my car, I loved my car… And I’m not even that materialistic, but it was just what it symbolized and represented for me – freedom, independence and all of those things.

Within a week, the driver’s side of the door was crashed in. Now, the accident wasn’t my fault technically; however, I don’t think I was skilled enough of a  driver to be defensive. It was an unfortunate incident, by all accounts. Luckily, no one was hurt, and at that time I learned the very important lesson of having uninsured motors clause, which I think is pretty standard now, but back then it wasn’t… Hence, the woman didn’t have insurance, couldn’t pay for the repairs, I was 16 and couldn’t pay for it either.

My mother didn’t wanna pay for it, seeing this being a natural consequence of learning how to defensively drive and being an owner of a vehicle. End result – I had a crashed car, and for the entire senior year, myself and the friends that joined me for whatever, going out to lunch or whatever activities we were doing, would all pile in the passenger side of the door, for the entire year.

As you can see, the experience of having a car that I loved, was proud of, felt great with and was super joyful about, to having a crashed car with the driver’s side of the door — basically, the driver’s side of the door would not open at all, so every time I got in the car, and with anybody who was with me, we all piled in the passenger side.

So the feeling of that was embarrassing and not ideal by any stretch — I even look back at that and I’m like “I can’t believe I did that for a whole year.” But talk about upper limit and restricting the energy…

As Gay Hendricks talks about in The Big Leap – again, I’ll put the link to the show notes and you can also just search “The Big Leap” by Gay Hendricks… He identifies that there are typically four hidden barriers. Now, he said in all of his coaching work he’s never come across someone who has none; usually, everyone has at least one, and sometimes a combination of more than one.

Now, these hidden barriers are essentially fears of expansion. One is feeling fundamentally flawed. Two being disloyal or abandoning family or our significant people. Number three – believing that more success brings bigger burden. Number four – the crime of outshining.

With all of these hidden barriers – these are often operating below our awareness, so it’s happening unconsciously. When we do something to self-sabotage, it’s because we are afraid of expanding, and part of the fear stems from one of these four hidden barriers. I encourage you to check out The Big Leap if you wanna get more description on these four hidden barriers because I do think it’s helpful to get stories, examples to jog the memory… Because really, as he’s describing (Gay Hendricks) these four hidden barriers, often times it’s something that we learned pretty early on, and that we basically internalized; we have this fear of growing because it might hurt someone or something’s wrong with us, or we might experience more burden or challenge.

One of the stories he told about the first hidden barrier – feeling fundamentally flawed – he described a story in working with a gentleman, and as they reflected and discovered and uncovered his early messaging around growth and expansion, he recalled what it was like growing up with divorced parents, in a highly contentious relationship.

Essentially, the story goes that his father remarried and had another family, and then he would go back and forth between his mother and his father. However, his father had commented to him at one point, essentially saying “Every time I look at you I see your mother”, and how much hatred he had towards his mother, and basically saying “I can’t look at you without conjuring up all these feelings of negativity that I have towards your mother.”

So being young and not having the brain development of an adult to be able to contextualize and say “Oh wow, you’re really struggling with your feelings towards your ex, and that interferes with your ability to fully be open and present to your son – how upsetting is that?”, he as a young little boy internalized “Something’s wrong with me”, which is really common when parents are fighting, or there’s some separation or divorce… Kids often feel like “Something’s wrong with me. It’s my fault.” So this hidden barrier around feeling flawed impacted his ability to expand.

The hidden barrier that I identify strongly with is number four, the crime of outshining. Now, I’ve done a lot of work and reflection on this, so I’m not gonna share the whole ins and outs, but I will share that in high school I remember being so conscientious about playing the middle ground. I was very aware to not be too cute, or too pretty, or to be too smart; I remember trying to really calibrate to match my friends so that I felt a sense of belonging and a sense of connection with them. I felt like if I were to expand, I would stand out and I would basically lose connection and I would either hurt somebody or I would feel hurt.

There are many layers to this, and I can just say, from my early experiences in life, shining bright was not a safe thing, whether or not I felt like it was hurting someone or I would actually be hurt or threatened. It was really painful, and I internalized the belief – unconsciously – that it’s not safe to shine.

Part of my process has involved, “How is it fair that if I’m going to expand and experience more abundance and success and health – how is that fair for other people that don’t have the same advantages or privileges or opportunities?”, the social justice, or equity, or equality. I think that that is really important to consider. And part of my journey has also involved new thought principles and teachers; I grew up in a new thought philosophy with the teachings of Mary [00:29:57.05] and I can put her link on today’s show notes…

Some of the philosophy encouraged a recognition of your beliefs, your thoughts and what you’re focused on, with recognizing that where you place your attention and your focus, that that impacts your actions and your experience in the world… And that the goal is to recognize the opportunity and the possibility of creation, co-creation with life force energy, and that as you imagine yourself and as you connect with your essence, that you’re more than your experience. Essentially, your worth is not defined by your circumstances.

So if you had a difficult upbringing, or were faced with really horrific challenges, that that does not dictate what you are to experience, it doesn’t define who you are. It’s a part of who you are in the sense of what you’ve experienced, but it’s not who you are. And that one of the best things you can do for others is to advance and grow yourself. You are in a better position to give and to be generous and to help, that you’re modeling what is possible to overcome circumstances, challenges, and that staying small actually serves no one.

Recently, my husband and I watched a documentary about Tony Robbins titled “I’m Not Your Guru”, and the main message I got from him and what he was promoting was the ability to self-construct who you are with your thinking, your beliefs, and the courage to live in alignment with what’s most important to you in values, and the capacity to raise your energy and be more self-expressed.

This sounds all wonderful and great, just the philosophy of it, but when we really tap into the humanness of what this requires of us when we’ve experienced hardship and tragedy and trauma, it is humbling. I often am confronted with the huge honor and grace to witness people contemplating pain, trauma, hardship, and the darkness of what that involves, but also to be called to still live and breathe and be expressed, and to transform and to heal and to grow.

In this documentary there was a segment where a woman was sharing her early experiences in life, being brought up essentially in a sex cult, where as a young girl she was asked and had to do sexual acts and the horrific nature of all of that. And as she contemplated the pain and the sorrow and really suicidal ideation of the pain which she was holding, and the grief, and then also being really moved around possibility and being a change agent in the world, and being able to inspire and heal and to grow… This is where I feel so inspired in my line of work.

Often, people will ask me “How do you do it? How do you sit with people’s pain, hear their grief, their trauma? How does that not bring you down?” This is truly what brings a great sense of fulfillment – helping people be able to overcome their circumstances, being able to grow and heal and expand the essence of who they are, and I see that for them, and getting a chance for me to see and support their process of living that, and not being stuck in the hardship. I have had my own experience with hardship, and I have been through the fire in many ways in my own journey, and everybody’s got their own unique challenges, and their own unique longing as far as what’s wanting to be expressed… So I truly honor the process in the deepest way.

In talking about hardship, I’m reminded of the interview with Dr. Fred Luskin, where he’s sharing with us the power of forgiveness, and that he’s devoted his life’s work to helping people be able to move forward, even despite the most horrific, mind-boggling, traumatic experiences. He says “We can’t allow all of these atrocities to form a foundation of “We are never gonna get over this.” If we were to say “Yes, this is too bad to let go of”, there would be no room left. We would simply weave a web of endless pain and hatred, which is not sustainable for the world.”

Dr. Fred Luskin also quoted Desmond Tutu by saying “Without forgiveness, there is no future.” I bring this us because I believe that it’s speaking to, again, that life that’s wanting to be expressed in us. Even if we’ve been through trauma, hardship, difficulties that seem unbearable at times, yes, there’s the pain and the process of that, but at some point, we are still living and we have choice around how to move forward. And do we carry the burden and the trauma and the imprint and letting that define us, or do we allow ourselves to understand that’s been part of our experience, and yes, we are impacted, but there’s also an essence of beauty, of strength, of wholeness that’s wanting to have full expression, and that we have the potential and the possibility to live in that space. How do we bridge this gap? How do we go from the pain and the suffering or the fear and the constricted belief about ourselves to that more fully expanded expression? There’s a gap; that’s that threshold, that upper limit that we often will self-sabotage in an unconscious way. So the invitation is to believe in the possibility of living a more expressed, expanded version, self-construct as maybe Tony Robbins might say.

In The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks, he gives us a few tools to work with, one of which is simply breathing. So often if we’re in that fear, constricted, self-sabotaging place, we are not necessarily present. We’ve lost access to our felt experience… So just the simple breathing, and the noticing, with some sense of curiosity and wonder…

Now, the curiosity and the wonder are key elements to inquiry and discovery. Because if we’re being self-judgmental, critical, or looking for a pathology, “What’s wrong with me? What’s my problem? (like my client) Why am I doing this? Am I sabotaging myself? Am I ever gonna have love?” and these questions of “Am I flawed?”, that might be the hidden barrier, the fear…

So when we are not connected to the felt experience or the breadth, we’re likely to just get into the unconscious sabotage behaviors, or whatever protective strategies we have, defense mechanisms, without the awareness and the consciousness that like “Oh, I’m scared. Oh, I feel afraid.”

Once we recognize there’s uncomfortable emotion and we can breathe with it, we’re gonna be able to understand and support that part of ourselves in a much more constructive way. And again, as Gay Hendricks invites us, to shine the light on these unconscious, hidden barriers, essentially early fears that we established based on our circumstances, and internalized. Once we identify the fear, we can assess and evaluate “Is this true, or was this something that is a product of my experience?” And yes, it made sense at the time, but does it serve me now? Is there an opportunity to revamp this, rewrite it?”

Once we’re in the mindset of what is possible, then we can start to entertain “What does it feel like? What does it look like if I imagine letting myself shine if I was doing what I loved, if I was more fully expressed, if I was experiencing love and bond and connection with my significant other in a way that is exactly what I dream of?”

Gay Hendricks provides many invitations in being able to work with your everyday experience and noticing the places where you constrict and the possibility for expansion.

He offers an affirmation… What I like about this affirmation is that it gives the mind something to imagine and focus on that may be different than your beliefs up until now. The affirmation goes like this:

“I consciously expand my capacity for more abundance, success, love every day, as I inspire those around me to do the same.”

To summarize the four tips that I just gave you – I didn’t lay them out in bullet point, but I will right here:

1. Simply breathing and bringing your attention to your felt experience at the moment.
2. Having a curious attitude or wonder and play.
3. Shine the light on what might be the underlying fear or concern.
4. Perhaps utilizing the mantra “I consciously expand my capacity for more abundance, success, love every day, as I inspire those around me to do the same.”

Thank you so much for your interest in improving your relationship. It is important to identify when having self sabotaging relationship patterns and how to work with it more consciously to improve your relationship.

If you are interested in gaining access to today’s show notes, you can visit my website, DrJessicaHiggins.com, click on Podcast, and you can find the latest episodes there at the top. Again, this is 150, “What to do when stuck in self-sabotage?”

And again, I’m referencing The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. If you have any questions, feedback, input, I would love to hear from you. You can contact me directly at [email protected], as well as the Contact page on my website.

If you have a topic that you’re interested in hearing an episode on, you can also submit a question, or request to be on the show to receive live laser coaching. Coming up next I’ll be addressing a listener’s question, I have a couple great interviews, and I just will continue the process of providing my best to you on the topic of improving your relationship.

Until next time, I hope you take great care.

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