"The Sneaky Influence: How Self-Sabotage Ideas Slip into Our Psyche
Karim Baz • May 21, 2024
How We Unconsciously Adopt Self-Sabotage?
Have you ever found yourself constantly self-sabotaging your success without even realizing it?
Many of us do this without even knowing why we do it or how it affects us. In this article, we will delve into how we unconsciously psychologically adopt self-sabotage ideas, why we do it, and how it impacts our lives.
How Does Bullying Affect Our Unconscious?
Bullying can have a profound impact on our mental and emotional well-being, even long after the bullying has stopped.
One of the ways bullying can affect us is by planting seeds of doubt and insecurity in our minds. These negative beliefs can manifest as self-sabotaging behaviors as we grow older.
When we are constantly told negative things about ourselves, we may start to believe them on a deep, unconscious level. This can lead to a cycle of self-sabotage where we undermine our own success and happiness.
Why Do We Adopt Certain Self-Sabotaging Ideas?
There are many reasons why we may unconsciously adopt self-sabotaging ideas.
One common reason is fear of failure. We may doubt our own abilities and feel that we don't deserve success, so we sabotage ourselves to avoid facing the possibility of failure.
Another reason may be imposter syndrome, where we feel like a fraud and believe that we will eventually be exposed. This can lead us to undermine our achievements and opportunities.
Why Do We Self-Sabotage?
Self-sabotage can be a way for our unconscious minds to protect us from potential harm or rejection. By sabotaging our efforts, we may be trying to avoid taking risks that could lead to failure or disappointment.
It can also be a way of staying within our comfort zones and avoiding the unknown. However, self-sabotage ultimately holds us back from reaching our full potential and living a fulfilling life.
How to Overcome Self-Sabotage Recognize your self-sabotaging behaviors:
The first step to overcoming self-sabotage is to become aware of your destructive patterns.
Pay attention to when you are undermining your own success and try to identify the triggers.
- Challenge your negative beliefs: Once you have identified your self-sabotaging beliefs, challenge them. Are they based on reality, or are they simply insecurities and fears?
- Replace these negative beliefs with positive affirmations and truths about yourself.
- Seek support: It's essential to seek support from friends, family, or a therapist if you are struggling with self-sabotage. Talking about your feelings and experiences can help you gain new perspectives and insights.
- Set realistic goals: Break down your goals into smaller, achievable steps. This can help you build confidence and momentum, reducing the likelihood of self-sabotage.
- Practice self-care: Take care of your mental and emotional well-being by engaging in activities that bring you joy and relaxation. This can help you build resilience and healthily cope with stress.
Self-sabotage is a common but damaging behavior that many of us unconsciously adopt.
By understanding the root causes of self-sabotage and taking proactive steps to overcome it, we can break free from negative patterns and live more fulfilling lives.
Remember, you deserve success and happiness!
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pHOTO CREDIT: PIXABAY
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Some habits are unconsciously developed from internal or external stress, and others are developed mindfully and for a specific goal; but what are habits? how do they form in the brain, and why does it feel so hard sometimes to release them and integrate new ones? Through the work of Descartes, Kant, and Sartre, habit was thought to be a kind of “mechanism that inhibits consciousness and freedom”. Philosophers like Felix Ravaisson who considered that “actions that are repeated over time become habits, with a curious life of their own” and Henry-Luis Bergson, who took cues from Ravaisson to write about active and passive habits, understood Habit as creative and addressed to the future, rather than negative and arresting freedom. Today, The American Journal of Psychology defines a “habit, from a psychological perspective, [as] a more or less fixed way of thinking, willing, or feeling acquired through previous repetition of a mental experience", and neuroscience has its standpoint on the topic. Neuroscientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that when practicing a habitual routine such as brushing one’s teeth, certain neurons in the basal ganglia will activate or “fire” at the beginning of the routine. Then, they lay quiet while the routine proceeds. Finally, they fire again when the routine is completed (Martiros, Burgess, & Graybiel, 2018). So now we know that neuronal networks lay the infrastructure for habits. A Habit becomes integrated into our life, so even if we think of something else, some specialized neurons in our brains will “make sure” to remind us to perform the habit.
What we call today psychedelic substances, were for a very long time considered sacred natural medicine among different cultures, mainly the Indigenous peoples of America including the Shipibo, Huichol, and Mazatec as well as the Aztec, Maya, Olmec societies, among others… Unfortunately, this kind of wisdom and knowledge have witnessed centuries of extremely aggressive suppression that started with the Inquisition of the Americas and got even worse upon the start of the “War on drugs” led by the USA in 1971, which was the main reason behind cutting the funding on a large number of clinical trials and studies that were going on at that time, aiming to learn and understand the medical benefits of these naturally occurring substances. Despite all the political pressure, a large number of professionals from the medical field - especially the mental health field - believed in our need for this kind of research after seeing that mental health problems are always on the rise, and the typical treatments used today, are not proving their effectiveness in many of the cases; as a result, the studies on the topic have reemerged over the past couple of decades, proving the potential of addressing specific mental health problems and even enhancing the well-being in general.
The Bandhas are much more than muscle activation; They are considered Energy “locks” and by activating them, we retain or seal our Pranic energy within the central energy channel in our body, the “Sushumna nadi” which in Yogic beliefs, is believed to run along the Spine. There are 3 main bandhas, the Mula bandha which is the pelvic lock – the Udiyana bandha which is the abdominal lock, Jalandhara bandha which is the chin lock. There is a fourth bandha which is the Maha bandha, which includes all three bandhas in it. On a physical level, while practicing Bandhas’ activation the flow of the blood is temporarily halted, and once released, the flow increases again which affects directly and positively the blood circulation and the activation of body organs. We have different sphincters in our Digestive system, which are specialized rings of muscles that remain in a continuous state of contraction and serve in closing and releasing an opening, and three out of them can be voluntarily contracted to activate these energy locks or Bandhas: The ( IAS ) or the Internal anal sphincter, the sphincter of Oddi, and the lower esophageal sphincter ( LES ).
The word Stoicism as defined in the Oxford English dictionary: “an ancient Greek school of philosophy founded at Athens by Zeno of Citium. T he school taught that virtue, the highest good, is based on knowledge; the wise live in harmony with the divine Reason (also identified with Fate and Providence) that governs nature, and are indifferent to the vicissitudes of fortune and pleasure and pain.” Passing through hard times or living difficult situations sometimes leads people to states of despair, but what about having no expectations of how the world should be and dealing with it the way it is and not the way it “should” be? The once wealthy merchant “Zeno of Cyprus” was shipwrecked in Athens around 300 BCE and lost all his possessions and wealth, which instead of leading him to despair, became the foundation of his legacy, the Stoic school of thought. After starting to read for Socrates, Zeno the Cyprus decided to learn from the city philosophers to later become a teacher himself, teaching students a new philosophy called Stoicism which name originates from stoa poikilê- a public colonnade where Zeno and his students gathered to discuss different topics.
Sometimes before going to a place where we have never been before, we try to Visualize the road, to plan the way. This act of Visualization is done using our imagination, and interestingly enough, this same act has bigger powers than just helping us mentally draw the lines of the way to a friend’s house, and use these powers properly, there is no need for any ritual or spell, these are creative techniques and mental laws. Visualization is considered a cognitive process that relates to consciously creating vivid images in our brain, and by changing the “imaginary” image, our feelings about its subject change as well. Scientists using brain imagery could suggest that through Visualization, our neurons interpret the image as equivalent to a real-life action and receive an “order” from the brain to “act” or “perform” accordingly.
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