Episode 309 Transcript
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[00:00:00] You are listening to episode 309 of the Peaceful Mind Podcast.
Welcome to the Peaceful Mind Podcast, a place for creating the peace of mind you need to be the best mom you are created by God to be. If you want to bring more balance, more joy, and more peace to your motherhood, this is the place for you. I'm your host, certified life coach at Catholic Mom Danielle Thienel.
In the name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Let's get started.
Hello everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. Thank you for listening. I'm so glad you're here for this one today. I was talking to a client recently who said something that really stuck with me. And is, helping me birth ideas to be able to put out [00:01:00] episodes that are relevant to you all.
This is what she said. She said, Danielle, I feel like I'm my own worst enemy. Every time things start going well, I somehow find a way to mess it up. Maybe you can relate to that feeling or to what she said. It's, I know that she was thinking.
Because we talked about a little bit more like that there's some invisible force that's working against her. And what I want you all to see today that force is actually you, right? It's you in the way that your mind is offering things that self-sabotage you. Now, many of you, this episode comes out in January the month of January. So we've got a new year and a lot of us, as myself included, have made new goals.
Some, we, some people [00:02:00] call them resolutions. There is those that love to have that like word of the year, but it's just a naturally a time, a season of, a renewed focus, a start over kind of thing. And I, that's why I thought it was really relevant to do an episode because so many of us at this time of year set out and embark on goals and changes. And then what happens is that we end up self-sabotaging.
So I'm hoping that what I have to offer you here is going to be, a support to you, a guide to you, a strategy to put in so that you can avert that this year avert self-sabotaging. And so you can keep going to your finish line to reach your goal to that change that you want so much.
[00:03:00] Okay, so this is what I just want to ponder for you to ponder. If you've ever wondered why you keep getting in your own way, why you make choices that don't align with what you really want or why you seem to hit the same walls over and over again, then keep listening. 'cause we're talking about self-sabotage.
Maybe not in the way you might expect. I wanna offer you some surprising ways that this shows up in your life as a busy mom, and more importantly, I wanna empower you to know how to stop it. So let's start by getting clear on what self-sabotage actually is, because it's not always as obvious as you might think as we use this word loosely and in different ways.
But for today's purpose, I want. To give you the definition that self-sabotage is any behavior or [00:04:00] any thought pattern that undermines your own success, your own happiness, or your own wellbeing. But here's the thing, it's not usually some dramatic obvious like act of self-destruction that we do more often.
It's the subtle ways that we hold ourselves back. It's procrastinating on the thing that could change our life. It's saying yes to everyone else's priorities while neglecting our own. And it's also like staying small when we know that we are meant for more. Like you just have that drive in your heart.
You just have this knowing like, I'm meant for more, but we self-sabotage ourselves to stay small. And it's definitely. Because we're working against our brain that wants nothing but pleasure and easy [00:05:00] and no discomfort at all. It's when we choose the familiar kind of struggle over this like unknown possibility.
This is definitely when self-sabotage shows up and here's the, might be the surprising part for you. Self-sabotage. It's actually a coping mechanism. It's your brain's attempt. Let me reword that. It's your brain's misguided attempt to protect you. Our minds are designed to keep us safe. It's been programmed that familiar equals safe.
Even when familiar makes us miserable it's still, the safe part overrides the miserable. That's why we keep ourselves from creating what we want. Self-sabotage. It comes from [00:06:00] the fear of the unknown. So think about it when we're on the verge of something new, something, what you might say, bigger, something that really could change our lives.
What happens? Our brain starts sending up all kinds of warning signals. When I'm in my coaching sessions with my clients, I'm like I I make a fist and then open up my fingers really wide and I do that again and again. 'cause I'm like, this is when our brain is going. Warning. What if you fail?
What if you're not good enough? What if this ruins everything? What if you're wrong about this helping you? That is literally that fear of the unknown, and that's where sa self-sabotage comes in. So for a busy mom, which I'm always equating it back to, right? We, that is the, that is this main mission is to bring more peace of mind, right?
But self-sabotage [00:07:00] does not bring us more peace of mind. So relating this to a busy mom life it might look like these scenarios, it might look like you finally decide to start that business that you've been dreaming about and then suddenly you find every excuse not to work on it. And I'm definitely, this is the year of no excuses in my coaching program.
This is how I want you to view the objections that your brain, that you know comes up with to tell you why you can't do that business, right? For a busy mom, it might be deciding you're gonna prioritize your health this year. And then we sabotage our efforts by stress eating every time we feel overwhelmed.
Or another example is let's say you know that you need to have a difficult conversation with your spouse about something that's important to you, [00:08:00] and then we like start picking fights about smaller issues. Instead these, or do any of these relate to you in your life than you are self sabotaging?
And these behaviors, the examples that I gave, they often stem from an inner, like inner talk, an inner what came to mind was newsreel, but an inner narrative that's either outdated. It's definitely limiting or it's simply incorrect, and I call that inner narrative that, that are incorrect. I call them thought errors, right?
Or it's outdated because it's something you used to believe, but you're just on automatic to keep believing it, but you really down deep, you don't believe it anymore, or you've just been in the habit of this inner narrative that is. Limiting meaning it's a limited [00:09:00] belief. Like you, you can't get past it.
If you keep believing this similar or the same belief about something, then there's no way you can get past it and maybe you're still operating from the belief that good moms put everyone else first. Even though like intellectually, that taking care of yourself is pretty vital and essential too.
Maybe you're carrying around the story that I'm not the type of person who succeeds at big things based on maybe something that happened years ago. So that would be an example of the outdated inner narrative, but self-sabotage it. It comes from our belief systems about what we deserve. We tie it to our worth.
And it also self-sabotage comes from what we have been the system of belief around what we think is possible [00:10:00] for us, for our life, for our family. And here is where I really need you to get honest with yourself. Because if you think you could be doing better in life, you might be right. And if you think there's more that you're here to accomplish, you might be right.
And if you think you're not being your like authentic self right now, you're not fully aligned, you might be right. And one of the greatest acts of self-love is to no longer accept a life you're unhappy with. Or even if it's not like general in life, like if there's a sub area in your life that you're no not happy with, we don't have to throw in the whole life in there.
There can be a certain category or a certain, experience that you're unhappy with. [00:11:00] It. It's to be able to state the problem plainly and in a straightforward manner, and then you take action to change it. This is the greatest act of self love. Now, if any thoughts came up as you heard me say that and say I know I'm unhappy with aspects of my life, but I can't really see what the problem is, or I don't know how to change it effectively, this might be a perfect time for you to schedule a Peaceful Mom strategy call with me.
If you have recognized yourself if you can literally name when I talked about the definition of self-sabotage, that yep, that's me. I know I do that. I know. Then consider that call with me. Okay? Because sometimes we're so close to our own patterns, we can't see them clearly. And the outside perspective that I can offer can make all the difference.
So [00:12:00] just, put a pin in that. There's, you can definitely check out the show notes to be able to, but I also want you to listen to the rest of this episode and again, see if this is something you feel like spoke to you that. You can totally became aware that this is what's going on for you.
And I, I hope that then we can take action to change it. So here, this is like in the title of the podcast, right? I wanna offer you some, I wanna first bring to you these surprising ways of how we could be self-sabotaging in our life, and then, of course offer you some ways to help with that.
These are the five ways, and I'm just starting out with this first one that this was so me. Okay. It's commonly shows up in the lives of moms and that first [00:13:00] one is when we use perfectionism as protection. Okay. We often think of perfectionism as trying really hard, but it's actually a form of self-sabotage.
Yeah, it's and this was me all the time trying to make progress, trying to make progress, keep my perfectionism, oh, self-sabotage my goals. And the reason is when we demand perfection from ourselves, we will end up not starting at all in a lot of things, or we then quit. As soon as something either becomes really hard and painful, it either we quit when we get some kind of signal that we might end up failing and we'll quit as soon as it doesn't go like exactly as planned.
And it perfectionism is really just fear that says, if I can't do this perfectly, I just won't do it at all. Or if somebody is gonna find out [00:14:00] that I have a flaw or I'm not perfect, then yeah, then I'm out. I'm done. I'm not gonna do that, which conveniently gets us off the hook from having to try at all and potentially fail.
So for a mom, this might look like, again, not starting that exercise routine because you can't commit to going to the gym five days a week, so you just end up not. Going at all, right? You think that's what I need to do that would be the, that would be the perfect plan. And really your brain sees that as a lot of pain.
It won't be easy, it'll be like a lot of sacrifice. And so it literally says, if I can't do it right, then I'm not gonna do it at all. And so we don't go. Or maybe there's a hobby you wanna pursue, you're just like you're interested in, because maybe you're not naturally talent at it, but maybe there's somebody else that you see who gets [00:15:00] joy or there's some kind of inclination inside that you think, oh, that would be fun if I did know how.
Maybe it's, not having friends over your house because it's not magazine ready, right? This would be how you would keep yourself from this hobby. The enjoyment or the skill of learning, whatever it is. Or maybe it's some type of sport or outing. So you would self-sabotage yourself from having the experience or the chance to, to be able to have that hobby or with the friends over example you self-sabotage yourself, that you lose, like what fun you might have, what connection with others, literally because your brain thinks that it needs, everything needs to be perfect. So we don't invite them over at all. And then, yeah, we lose out.
We lose out from that life that we really want or the changes [00:16:00] that we want. So how do we resolve this? Our perfectionism, we start practicing what I call good enough with love and the actual tool in my mom toolbox inside my coaching program is called B minus.
To decide what our good enough is because perfection comes once we pass from this human life, not before. So on the regular, you wanna be asking yourself, what would good enough look like here? What's the minimum viable version? Or I say minimum baseline version of this thing that I wanna do.
Then do that with intention and more love knowing. I know you've heard this before, right? To pick some progress over perfection or that done is better than [00:17:00] perfect and the reason why we hear those is because it's true. Okay? You can always improve as you go, and we wanna learn as we go. And so perfectionism is number one way how we self-sabotage.
Okay? The second one is emotional avoidance. Many of us were never taught how to properly feel our feelings. We were never taught how to process. Difficult emotions. So we've along the way, developed these elaborate systems to avoid feeling them at all. But when we can't handle our own emotions, we absolutely will sabotage [00:18:00] ourselves to avoid situations that might bring up feelings that we don't wanna deal with.
So this might look like staying busy all the time. And definitely listen to last week's podcast if that is something that you struggle with. And because if you're not, then you know what you'd have to sit with maybe some anxiety or sadness or boredom, right? Or avoiding opportunities that like excite you because they also make you nervous.
So that would be like if you, maybe it's excites you to be like a public STE speaker or do a TED talk or to have a video, I don't know, go viral on social media or something, but. We have this emotional avoidance, right? But we definitely are avoiding because we don't know how to allow ourselves to actually feel the feeling of nervous or process it through or to get on the other [00:19:00] side of it so that we could take action on that speaking engagement.
Also creating drama in our relationships. When things get too good or too peaceful, will self-sabotage because conflict feels more familiar to you than the feeling of contentment. So if you're feeling more contentment in your relationships, if you. Avoid emotions like it, and you're not used to it.
You're used to that conflict feeling. You will self-sabotage yourself to go back to the conflict feeling because contentment, believe it or not, actually doesn't feel comfortable in your body because you're not used to it, because it's not familiar. So how do we resolve emotional avoidance the way that we resolve it?
Is to learn the skill of processing your [00:20:00] emotions. And this is one of the skills before I met my life coach years ago I didn't know how to do it. And really everyone, there's not it's not taught in schools. Maybe. Maybe a little bit more these days, I would say. But if you miss that boat sometimes this is a skill you will learn in coaching.
In fact, for my process, the cyclone mom method, if in order to be a cyclone mom you will learn and know the skill of processing your own emotions, because emotions are literally just vibrations in your body. They cannot hurt you. They can't actually hurt you. Practice sitting with difficult feelings instead of immediately trying to fix them, distract from them or make them go away, this is where our brain tells us to avoid them.
And so we [00:21:00] resist, we react we avoid actually feeling our feelings. And we end up like creating more negative feelings because of that, or we end up self-sabotaging ourselves from making progress on our goals. The way out of that is to go through, to lean into, to actually go towards. Feeling negative not to avoid it and fix it and turn it around.
There is a process again, would love to walk you through that to be able to be somebody who doesn't avoid their emotions, that you actually learn the skill of feeling them, and this is how we can make some really good progress. If we're somebody who selfs, [00:22:00] sabotages. Number three. The surprising ways we self-sabotage is living in disorganization and chaos.
And this may sound harsh, and some of you may feel called out, but I want you to hear me out. Sometimes we keep our homes and lives in disarray. Not because we're too busy to organize or to get a plan to, tackle it or figure it out or clean it up. It's, but the reason why is because the chaos serves us.
Because when everything is a mess, we have a built in excuse for why we can't pursue our goals, to take care of ourselves. The clutter and chaos. They create constant distractions and emergencies that [00:23:00] then keep us from focusing on what really matters or what we truly want. 'cause it's really hard to work on your dreams when you can't find a clean space to work in.
It's really hard to, go after your goals when you're always looking for lost items or not having what you need to be able to support you to getting things done that you want to. Or how about if you're constantly putting out buyers, right? If that's happening again, I'm just trying to show you these little ways that we self-sabotage ourselves.
But when I'm bringing this to your awareness and you're thinking, yeah, that's what's going on in my life. We wanna know there is a way to resolve it. So if you are living in disorganization right now, like I literally wanna offer, one way to resolve it [00:24:00] is to literally start small and choose one area.
Maybe it's a kitchen counter, maybe it's a bedroom dresser. And commit to keeping it clear and show yourself. You can be somewhat consistent on this. And once that becomes a little bit more automatic, you can add another area. Or maybe you'll have almost an instant boost of confidence when you see this one organized area and then it helps you feel good and you wanna take on another one sooner.
Organization isn't about having a perfect home. We don't wanna go into that number one, sabotage or perfectionism, right? But it is about taking action and creating a way of life in the environment that you live in that supports your goals rather than sets you up for sabotaging them. The fourth surprising way we sabotage ourself is we [00:25:00] clinging to outdated dreams.
So sometimes we sabotage by staying attached to goals or dreams that no longer serve us. Are any of you right now, did you pick up a goal or a dream that you actually had last year or made last year at New Year's resolution time? And you just thought it like automatic to, do that again this year or you didn't complete it, so you just decide to repeat that goal.
Maybe you're still trying to fit into clothes from 10 years ago instead of accepting how your body has changed. Maybe you're pursuing a career path because it's what you thought you wanted five years ago, even though you've outgrown that vision. Yeah. When we don't get conscious about how. Our desires evolve because they do evolve.
That's why we have to stop and evaluate and say, Hey, am I still interested in doing this? Is this still, light me up? Does this still feel aligned with my life? Otherwise, we can spend [00:26:00] years working toward things we don't actually want anymore. A saddens me. Which, because it creates this underlining resistance, right?
That's gonna sabotage our efforts. So I want to invite you to resolve this by getting honest about what you actually want. Like right now, whenever you're hearing this, whatever the date is, whatever the year is not what you used to want. Or what you think you should want, it's okay to change your mind.
It's okay to want different things in different seasons of your life. Give yourself permission to let go of goals that no longer light you up and pursue what actually matters to you today. Okay? And the last surprising way we sabotage ourselves that I wanna bring to your awareness, I'm calling it the judgment trap.
This one, it might catch you off guard, right? [00:27:00] And that's judging others. It's actually a form of self-sabotage. When we set up judgements about other people's choices, we are creating rules that we then have to live by two. And the caveat here I wanna just say is that I. Talk about this all the time in my with my clients, and that is to have some kind of relief to know that brains literally one of its kind of jobs is to judge.
It's not something you're gonna, you're going to, stop having judgments isn't actually something that's really possible in this human life, but there are, there is a certain. Judging of others that takes place that you wanna just catch and beyond yourself about, because it's a form of self-sabotage.
So let's say if you judge [00:28:00] the mom who hires a housekeeper as lazy, then guess what? You've just made it impossible for yourself to get help with housework without feeling like a failure. If you judge the woman who takes time for herself as selfish, you've just sabotaged your own chances and attempts at self-care of having good results when you choose self-care, or you might just sabotage yourself from ever starting a self-care plan.
By judging others for what we secretly want or envy, we sabotage our own lives far more than we ever hurt anybody else with our judgments. And so how do we resolve this? We get a lot more compassionate and curious. So when you [00:29:00] catch yourself judging someone. Remember how I told you this will happen?
This is something that our brains do. It's one of the actions our brain does, right? Can, when you catch yourself judging someone else's choices, can you pause and ask yourself, what would it be like if that choice was available to me too? Because often our judgments reveal our own hidden desires or fears.
Maybe you really wish that you you wanna hire somebody to help you. Clean up, take care of your house in whatever form or fashion that looks like. Maybe you grew up hearing, I know a lot of mine came when I heard my mom say oh, we can't do that. Or the so and sos, and they would, she would have, you would hear some them saying something not nice about, a decision, somebody else, or how they're acting in their life.
And so you just took that on. But really now as an adult, and here, this is something you would like and you think is good, right? This is when we wanna catch ourselves. [00:30:00] Again, what would it be like if that choice was available to me too? So use your own desires, right? Your hidden desires. Use them as information about what you might want to explore in your own life.
Even use the fears that bubble up. Use them to help you decide to go forward, not stop and self-sabotage your own life. So I can't not bring up the book The Big Leap when I'm talking about self-sabotage because the author of The Big Leap Gay Hendrix, this is a concept and idea that has really.
Brought a lot of awareness into my life and this book in the Big Lead talks about the idea that we all have an unconscious thermostat [00:31:00] for how much success, love, and happiness we think we can handle. And when we start exceeding that limit, we unconsciously sabotage ourselves to bring things back to a level that feels familiar and.
The key and in the book they call it your. Upper, the upper limit. That's the name of this, talking about this concept in this way. The key is learning to recognize when you're hitting your upper limit and choosing to expand it instead of contracting back to what feels safe again. This is why we self-sabotage ourselves.
It's to get back to that familiar feeling or get back to that feeling of safe and safety. So you wanna notice when you start to feel quote too good and watch for the ways you might be tempted to sabotage that maybe you're [00:32:00] having an amazing week where everything flows beautifully and suddenly you pick a fight with your husband or create some drama that's your upper limit at work.
This is when the self-sabotage, this is when your perfectionism. Might show this is when you might be avoiding your negative emotions, right? This is when you might like just develop and build some chaos in your life. This is when you might go and clinging to an old more safer dream, and this is when you might see that you start to judge others.
And I hope that each of bringing up those five ways to you gave you a little bit more insight to yourself. And you might not be like, oh yeah, I do all five of those things, but do you do one of them, two of them? So if any of [00:33:00] those resonated with you, here's what I want you to do. I want you, whatever, revelation you had from those that you might be self-sabotaging, can you commit to working on that? Maybe you notice you've been judging other moms and you wanna practice more compassion. Maybe you realize your perfectionism is keeping you from starting something you really wanna do, right?
Can you like take some gentle action on that this week? And begin to be a little consistent as you practice some new patterns around it. And I definitely don't want you to recognize self-sabotage and then start beating yourself up mentally, right? Listen, everything I offer here, it's about loving yourself in these situations when we show up as the human beings that we are, right?
I just want you to stop accepting less than what you [00:34:00] deserve. You were created for more than just surviving motherhood and surviving these days, right? We were meant to enjoy and thrive and feel like abundant and full of life, and have joy in these days that we've been given as gifts on here on earth.
So I hope that if you noticed that you are somebody who self-sabotage yourself when you are in your goals and dreams that you can get serious about breaking these patterns so that you can create a more peaceful and purposeful life that you want. As always, I'm here to talk about it with you personally with your own life circumstances and situations.
And again, feel free to schedule a complimentary, [00:35:00] Peaceful Mom Strategy Call, and you can always find out more about that in the show notes or going to danielle tal.com. I, we are gonna look at your specific situation and create a plan for yourself to move forward. All right, everybody. This one was again, awareness and for you to learn more about yourself, to know thyself, and just know that whenever something comes into your awareness that you are more you just hadn't seen before, that is the most beautiful first start to changing it.
I hope that it brought you more peace of mind to know. One, that if you're self-sabotaging, you're not alone. And that, two, it's very human of us to get into these patterns. But then also I hope that you, it brings you [00:36:00] peace and hope that change is so available that you don't have to take self-sabotaging tendencies forward with you in your life anymore.
All right everyone, thank you so much for being here and I just wanna remind you, you are so worthy of the life you dream of. And if nobody has told you lately, I wanna tell you, you are doing an amazing job, mama. Okay. Until I see you next week, may peace be with you always. Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode of The Peaceful Mind Podcast.
If you found value in today's episode, I'd be so grateful if you could subscribe and leave a review. It not only supports the podcast, but ensures you don't miss out on future episodes packed with insights and tools to create peace of mind in your busy mom life. And if you're of the Catholic faith, like me or any Christian mom seeking to feel better in any area [00:37:00] of your life and to show up more calm, connected, and confident, I can help become an empowered mom who knows how to bring about the changes you desire, no matter the circumstances.
Whether you need one-on-one guidance to get there, prefer a group coaching program with like-minded women, or a self-study course I've got you covered. Explore my private one-on-one packages. Join my Busy to Balanced group life coaching program or delve into my signature course Divine Time. To find out which path is right for you, let's meet and see what's the best fit.
Schedule a free call with me at daniellethienel.com or send me a direct message on Facebook or Instagram @daniellethienelcoaching. And also don't forget to get your copy of my book, the Cyclone Mom Method, How To Call On Your God-Given Power To Remain Calm, In Control, and Confident As A Busy Mom. Dive into the digital and [00:38:00] bonus audio version when you go to book.daniellethienel.com/new-book.
You'll find all the details in the show notes too. Until next time, peace be with you always.
