A short educational talk by Dr. Karol Darsa (psychologist, founder of Reconnect Trauma Treatment Center) explaining what self-sabotage is, how it can be unconscious or conscious, common examples (avoiding exercise, breaking promises to oneself, addictive behaviors), and a stepwise approach to address it: increase awareness, use a written dialogue between parts of the self to explore roots (including childhood trauma), ask what the sabotaging part needs, practice curiosity and compassion, and seek professional help when behaviors meet criteria for addiction or are trauma-related. The talk emphasizes trauma as an underlying lens and recommends containment strategies if the work becomes overwhelming.
Chapters
Today we're going to talk about self sabotage, what it means, where it's coming from, and what to do about it. Hi, I'm Dr. Carol Darca, author, psychologist and founder of Reconnect Trauma Treatment center in Los Angeles. All right, self sabotage, what does it mean? It's a behavior that you do when you know that it's not good for you. Well, that assumes people know that they're self sabotaging, but it's actually not always the case. So sometimes you could be sabotaging your life, but you may not even be aware of it. You might think that you're doing for other reasons, but, but underneath is really some form of a self hurt or self hatred or self maybe judgment and trying to get out of a situation that you couldn't get out otherwise. So let's talk about what kind of examples we're talking about. What constitutes a self sabotage. So the most common one that people that they know is actually when they're aware, let's say they have to exercise because their doctor said it's crucial, it's very healthy for them. They don't have another choice if they want to overcome an illness. And in turn they look at their watch and go, I'm just not gonna do it. I know I'm supposed to, but I don't feel like it. And day after day they're getting sicker or they're feeling worse and they just decide not to do it. Another good example is promising things to yourself. I'm not gonna eat sugar, I'm not going to overwork, or I'm not gonna call this person who always hurts my feelings. And in turn again doing them, knowing that they're not good for you. So it seems a little bit, some of it, I'm talking about addiction, but it's, it's sort of a cousin of the addiction where you're actually really sabotaging what's good for you, right? You're sabotaging your own well being, just like how you would maybe do for someone else. Although people tend to hurt themselves much more than hurting other people. So the most important thing to understand is that it is actually a self sabotage once you have the awareness of why something is happening. So it's easy to say, well, I was lazy, I was tired, or whatever. The, it was rainy, right? These external excuses actually stop the person from having an awareness. If you have the awareness that you're doing something against your own well being, you might then want to explore the reasons of it. Which comes to second step awareness. First Second is the reasons. So in order to find the reason of a behavior, right the underneath, the root cause of a behavior, I suggest a form of writing for you. So this can be done in sort of a right hand, left handwriting or some form of a dialogue writing where you write, okay, let's say I, me, myself, Carol, I want to be able to exercise every day. And then that is a part of me, that self sabotaging part that says I don't want to exercise every day. In fact, instead of that, I want to watch tv. So I'm going to start a dialogue between the two parts. You could assign one part to one hand and then the other hand, so it's a dominant and non dominant hand. You'll find that actually in my book as well when I talk about it in the trauma map book. But even if you haven't read that, you can basically do a dialogue just like you would read a screenplay or a theater play where you're seeing a dialogue. So you want to ask the question of, hey, what's happening? How come you don't want to do the exercise that the doctor prescribed for us? Please be careful that you're not attacking yourself. So it's not with this full of anger of how come you're not doing this, but it's really this curiosity, right? When you're curious about your behaviors, you can then actually really have an understanding of what's happening. All right, I'll continue the dialogue. How come you're not wanting to do or what's happening? And then let my other hand, or if you're doing with the same hand, let the other part talk to you and say, I don't know, I just don't feel good or I'm feeling tired or whatever the reason may be. Continue to do the dialogue until you actually have a sense of what's really the bottom line feeling. Is it just really like the tiredness or does it mean something else? A good question to the self sabotage part could be actually, what will happen if you do do the exercises every day, if you do what's required and if we take care of ourselves, how does that feel like for you? And kind of notice what the answer will be. Is there a fear of, well, I'll do it one time, but then I won't be able to do it? Or is there a sense of I'm actually unworthy, I shouldn't feel so good? Is there a fear of feeling good or looking good? Right. If I feel good, then something bad is going to happen because after every Happiness, some bad thing can happen. So it could be a lot of different reasons of why that part of you is really trying to stop you from actually being successful again. Curiosity, trying to understand, show compassion to that part. Ask this is this might be a little bit different for you guys, but ask how old that part feels because you'll be surprised. Even though let's say you're a 30 year old person, you think you're talking to your 30 year old self. But maybe this is a pattern or a behavior that you formed from a long time ago. And maybe this was a learned behavior of self sabotage at a young age. When you determine an age you you can often find out other reasons of where certain things are coming from. A lot of the clients that I work with have had childhood abuse from their parents and to them is feeling good could be a sign of something bad is going to happen. So then it's maybe a five year old that learned When I was happy. One day I was smiling happily, playing with my friends and my dad came and slapped my face. And that day I learned every time I'm happy something bad is going to happen. Or if I was crying a little bit, then my mom yelled at me and said, I'll give you something to cry about. And so then I learned that I'm not allowed to express my feelings and I should always be on guard. So there could be a lot of reasons of where you picked up this behavior or this belief that you have to stop yourself from getting successful. So be careful with this exercise that you're not actually maybe retriggering something, but that you are finding ways to contain it. If it becomes too overwhelming, I would recommend that you pause the exercise. You reach out to someone, go for a nice walk, watch for your breathing, do something that you find soothing, could be a bubble bath or going for a nice walk in the nature. And then try to get back into the dialogue. But without understanding the reason of where this is coming from, it will be harder for you to really stop the behavior. So let's say you did that step, we finished the step of really exploring the reasons and you had a sense of where it's coming from. Then the next question to ask is what do you need? Because clearly you're doing this self sabotage because you are trying to protect us from something, right? Often there's some form of a protection self protection. How can I make you still feel good without you actually interfering in my desire to do daily exercises? I keep giving this example, but please know that this can apply for A lot of different things. So, and then you get an answer and, and if you don't get an answer that time, just continue to dialogue. This could take over many days, sometimes or weeks until you actually have a sense of what's really going on that you are always getting in your own way. Right. Sometimes we can be our own worst enemies. So asking the question of what do you need in order to feel self protected or in order to be preserved in a way that is not again interfering with our healthy choices and see what happens, it could be something like, please allow me to have my feelings or I need to talk about this past trauma that happened or I need to be validated. I want somebody to tell me that I'm okay either way. So it helps you to move into acceptance of past experiences, acceptance of the feelings rather than being really angry. So that you know, every time you get angry at yourself for doing something, it could really backfire because it doesn't really match the compassion, the caring that each person really always yearns and needs. If you have these behaviors that are now turned maybe into more addictions, such as drug use, alcohol or smoking or overeating, you know, that kind of a thing. Of course there's a similarity, but we're talking now about something that's more severe, so it has to be treated such first of all, recognize if it's an addiction. And one of the ways to know if it's an addiction is that where you really can stop doing the behavior at all. Right. I have actually have another video about addiction. You could definitely watch that as well. But just as a summary, what I would love for you guys to know is that if it's an addiction, you might have to look to see if you need professional help. Right. Number one. Number two, addiction requires really a lot more sort of intervention sometimes, especially if we're talking about substance abuse. Right. It requires actually sort of a hard, cold sense, stopping the behavior in order for the person to get out of an addictive behavior. This is where it's a little bit different. Self sabotage behavior could be a little bit more sporadic. But addiction is something where you're looking into almost daily and it's really interfering with your life. In sum, of course all of this leads to trauma, as I said earlier. Of course I'm a trauma psychologist, so you might think I see everything from the lens of a trauma. But I do do see everything from a lens of trauma. So if you look underneath of all the behaviors that are really detrimental for our well being, you might find some cause of a trauma so again you could contact Trauma Professional we are here in Los Angeles at Reconnect Trauma Treatment Center. We are always welcoming your questions and concerns in email format underneath of the YouTube or Facebook and Instagram but also of course in our social media center. And if you are out of state unfortunately that means you will have to find your own support because of the laws not allowing us to treat people from out of state. There's also great resources out there to be able to work on on your trauma on your own to a certain degree until you of course need a professional help. I want to thank you for watching and I'd recommend for you to watch the other videos so that you really inform yourself much more about trauma. The more aware you are about what's happening for you about your emotions and how to handle them, the more you'll see success in terms of handling self sabotaging behaviors as well. And remember trauma equals disconnect, healing equals reconnect. Stay connected. Sam.
