I almost hate to admit it but I am the Queen of getting in my own way- at the very least a princess of sorts.
I don’t know where I picked up this habit, but it’s alive & well & going strong.
That is, until this very moment.
You see, writing this little piece is a reminder to both me and you that we all can stand to get out of our own ways a little more often than we are currently doing.
What do I mean by that?
Well, let me break it down into one itty bitty word that is going to make a whole bunch of sense: Sabotage.
Sabotage is, in essence, a fancy french word that means that something has gotten in your way, something has stopped you from proceeding.
I would like to argue that most forms of sabotage are man-made and more specifically, made by you & by me for ourselves.
Yikes! Sucks doesn’t it?
I’m going to be using myself as an example and as a painful reminder to myself of all the artful & creative ways that I have sabotaged myself in the past.
Feel free to snicker, gasp and identify with the following example.
BTW, I’m laying it all out. The good, the bad and the ugly, coming your way. Doesn’t do either of us any good for me to pretend that I’m some all knowing, all powerful guru on top of the mountain- I happen to live in a house way closer to sea level…
No gurus or guru-ism here.
I’m going to bring you back about 9 years or so ago, when I weighed close to 200 lbs. I was 5′ 5″, still am so you can imagine the mass on my frame. I can still argue that I carried a lot of muscle on my frame, but really, who am I kidding? I’m no body builder.
So I was a bit of a heifer. Not a huge one, mind you, but definitely someone who was not by any stretch of the imagination comfortable in her own skin. I would go so far to say that my skin was probably about 3 sizes bigger than I had wanted it to be. Lots of room for sure, but I was taking up too much room in my mind.
I could have gone the easy route- like I tell my clients now- eat higher quality foods, find out what foods work for you, find a type of exercise that works and actually do it. blah blah blah. We know how that goes.
But what I did was exercise excessively to the point where it was never going to be sustainable and take those lovely ephredra based diet pills just to help the process. My heart was racing, my palms were sweating and that wasn’t because of the shrinking heifer in the mirror. It was my body telling me- like I had told others- that this was not right. This was not normal and if you don’t stop it, you’re going to pay for it big time.
See, I was a bit of a hypocrite back in those days.
I was talking a good game, but not actually following it through myself. I knew all the buzz words, I knew all the tricks of the trade, but I was NOT using them on myself.
It was almost like I was purposely sabotaging myself because of some unknown reason.
But why?
Well looking back at that diet pill popping, exercise fanatic heifer, I can tell you that she wasn’t happy and she was, in fact, punishing herself for a failed relationship, for not falling into that perfect job post-college and letting herself believe that she was incapable and not deserving of all the good that most people would like to have.
Pretty heavy, right?
Problem is, I’m not special. I’m not unique & this is most definitely not the first time this scenario has been played out.
Raise your hand if it sounds familiar.
When it comes down to it, I held a belief that I wasn’t good enough even though on the outside I put on a different facade.
I was subconsciously sabotaging myself when it was coming to my health & made it impossible for any long term changes that I was making to actually stick.
Worse than that, I was lying to myself that what I was doing was the right thing, was going to help me move forward, find a healthy relationship, land that dream job, make lots of money and ride off into the sunset to my own personal castle in the sky.
Not gonna happen…
So if you’re finding yourself in a similar or even the same boat, it’s time to take a deeper look at what’s going on.
Are you standing in your own way? Can you see it?
Do you think it’s something else entirely?
Whatever it is, open it up to conversation.
Find someone you trust or drop me a line and talk to me- a perfect stranger : )
Like I said, I’m not perfect. I’m no guru but I will be honest with you. If I can see something you can’t, I’ll let you know.
What do you have to lose?
I lost a heifer, but that’s a story for another time.
Please feel free to comment below, I’d love to know what’s going through your mind. Thanks!
