sabotage and self-sabotage

[write]

I am really struggling to work today. My piece is almost completed, my lunch date cancelled which filled me with relief for more time, my new friend I asked you to pray for wrote and sounded so changed it was humbling to see all your prayer working...

yet ex has deleted another file I need....my friends are still going on about the party I cannot attend this weekend...and the beautiful sunshine is calling out to me.

Suddenly my confidence evaporates in angst and I can hear my mother's voice telling me it's pointless to be hopeful.

This is as close as I have ever come to feeling the emotional processes involved in the process of self-sabotage...it's almost like a voice telling me not to proceed, things will only get harder...

I don't quite get it but I'm going to proceed anyway, see what happens.

The fear is almost palpable though- you are going too far....

I think I may have internalised some of my mother's despising me and resenting me, I feel like I am not 'for myself' today, if that makes sense???

~W

[write]

okay- got it down.

Despite the sabotage and self-sabotage.

And just before I sat down to work it- which took a fraction of the time i was projecting by the way- I felt physically sick and told myself 'this is my higher needs conflicting' which is a phrase from the book on self-sabotage.

I need to be approved and belong...I need to sing my song ( literally...)

So much is coming together for me this week, this is my next step I can feel it.
Getting over the hurdle of what will others think if I am successful is massive for me.

Thanks for letting me work on it here!

Love
~W

[Iphi]

Write I go through the same experiences as you are describing - every single day.  I am so used to it.  It is my box that I live in.  It's been that way for years.  Being here and reading you and everyone - this is the most education I have ever yet received about becoming aware of the box, and maybe one day getting out of it.  I really feel you on this and believe in your progress to ongoing success.  I feel physically sick about it all the time too - like nauseous and cold sweat.  Never spoke about it before with anyone - it was just my reality and had to be stoic about it and not mention it (Negative voices: selfish! Nobody cares! Unimportant!)

Can you write more when convenient about what you mean regarding higher needs conflicting and 'the book on self-sabotage?'  Do you mean if there was a book that would be in such a book? Or is there a book you are thinking of?  Because if there is - I'd better buy it too.

Getting over the hurdle of what will others think if I am successful is massive for me.

Ever so true for me as well!  Speaking of the other topic on envy - I am terrified to be an object of it, or of judgment on my unworthiness etc. 

[write]

The book is 'What's your sabotage' by Alyce Cornyn-Selby;
the other I am reading is on fear of success- I'll have to check the proper title and details for that.

I do feel physically sick, almost retching today. My work is here in a neat pile with the notes to go off to be overnighted to the performer.

I haven't even told most people about these things I am doing- why bother, they aren't usually pleased for me and since one success tends to lead to another as my sister once said 'havent you don enough?!'

But I haven't, there's still tons left in me yet.

I've never published a book, smaller things but not a book in a bookstore with my name on it...I can imagine how the people around me will react to that, and I'll have to front it all out, pretend I don't mind sarcasm disguising resentment, being blanked or ignored like my family do whenever I write something.

That silence was palpable as a child, being so proud, and trying again and again to get attention and affection and the more I tried the less I got.

This is the last step for me in overcoming the limitations of my childhood- to just be and not be afraid I'll die.

The early neglect from my mother I can't fully remember. I know she was depressed, I know she was pregnant again 9 months later. I know she didn't hold me or pick me up when I cried, and she was trying to feed me on a schedule like a lot of mothers then. I am not smiling on any pictures until I'm a bit older and then only for people outside the family, I was terrified of my mother and her cruelty.

But I know all of this I am feeling as my career takes off and life takes on its own momentum- I am wanting to halt it so that I don't get neglected or destroyed....and they are my baby fears which I don't need to keep now.

As for friendships- well I guess I will find some of them will fail the envy test. People who like and love me when I am poor and sick might not feel the same if I am doing well. I already got quite a lot of negativity when I lost weight and have been subtly self-saboting losing any more as I adjust to the reactions of others about that.

this is the most education I have ever yet received about becoming aware of the box, and maybe one day getting out of it. 

yes Iphi, it's all pretty unspoken, we're trying to embrace success without any recognition of the emotional cost to our interdependencies!

I'm actually physically shaking in a way I overcame a long time ago performing publically...and I know that a couple of people I care aboutare going to have a hard time if my work suddenly starts getting completed and published.

I really need this though for the practicality of my life- I have to earn more money!
Maybe that's why we focus so much on the money- it does feel better to say that than 'I have to put all my ideas out there and let the world know what's going on inside me...'
 

I'm laughing- what am I so terrified of, except as Hops reminded me 'the ectoplasmic elephants in the corners of the rooms....'

~W

[Bella_French]

I totally relate write; I am `wired' badly. I feel anxiety when I should feel elation, and there is so much reistance within me that I do not undersand. I feel the most anxious of all when everything is done, the house is tidy, everything is in its place. Why would that be? I don't know why but my sisters tell me they feel the same way. Our mother was super clean to the point of madness, and so why are we all slobs?

How did it feel to work through the resistance? Do you feel better?

X Bella

[Hopalong]

Oh Write I think it is absolutely WONDERFUL that you are fulfilling your promise, using your gifts, stretching your abilities, taking the risk of creativity, embracing your potential!!!!!!!!!

Anybody who DOESN'T see it that way, imo, is hobbled by something. Something that has absolutely nothing to do with you.

I so hope your composition is performed beautifully, and I know you sing like Jenny Lind.

ENJOY this. You have worked for it, you are doing what you were put on earth to do. Take joy!

This is stepping into the spotlight for the purpose for which a spotlight was designed.

You're not "being an N" by being a performer. You're using your gifts. Not wasting them.

lots of love,
Hops

[axa]

Write,

It is wonderful to read about your process.  I self sabotage all the time.  I have the voices "whats the point........ it won't work anyway, blah blah blah.  I find them so hard to counter but do struggle with them.  I feel like I am afraid to hope because it carries within it disappointment, for me.  Working on doing my best and not giving up is such hard work but I am ploughing along also.

Gotta go and do my best on a piece of work now.

xxxxxxxxx

axa

[write]

what is the most interesting for me right now is the synchronicity life has for me, how everything the more it's in place, the more it's in place...

Carl Jung wrote a book called Synchronicity A Causal Principle, it's on my shelf, think I'll look at it tonight a bit!

But if I hadn't picked up the books on self-sabotage and fear of success this last few days would have been a nightmare- my friends accusing me of not caring about them? People being angry because I can't do what they demand. All my abandonment/ fear of anger or rejection/ anxiety etc issues all arriving together with- show the world your stuff!

You are so right Axa:

Gotta go and do my best on a piece of work now.

That phrase 'just do it' I always think should say 'just do it anyway'...

But there comes a time when faking it til you make it needs to become making it ( if that makes sense! )

Ex is being difficult again too, last night he said I need to feed son from now on. Of course I had earmarked the evening for something else but I just switched plans and son and I had a lovely time. I suspect that he will end up living with me again if his dad starts being difficult for him. Or maybe I'm being unfair and ex is simply trying to deal with his weight gain and I know son's food fads are a problem when trying to eat healthily...but what it feels like is 'I'm having a problem, here- it ought to affect everyone around me too!!!' Anyway I just called him to see if that really is the arrangement now, that I feed son every day, and he told me irritatedly 'we're having steak tonight!' It really is like dealing with the crazy aspects of a mental illness...

Hops I don't know if I sing like Jenny Lind but there was a road in a town my friend lived in called Jenny Lind, I looked it up a few years ago to know who she was!

you are doing what you were put on earth to do.

yes, I think I am. Finally...
 

Our mother was super clean to the point of madness, and so why are we all slobs?

to take back control, so her voice isn't telling you what to do in your heads, to assert yourself, because tidiness equalled unpleasantness in your earlier life....

How did it feel to work through the resistance? Do you feel better?

I feel strong. I'm sad a little if our writing group folds because some of the friendships are getting strained, but to be honest the party was a tension in that anyway- for example the invites were given out at a meeting where one person present didn't get one. Not my way of behaving, exclude no one and especially for no other reason than being cliquish...

I'll survive.

Thanks for all your comments and encouragement!

Love
~Write

[Leah]

Dear ((( Write )))

We are each born with a knack to do something,
a talent, a gift, uniquely, simply, the way we do it,
as an unique person, that's what make it so authentic!

Enjoy your given talents, with a sense of worth and belonging,
with inner peace and harmony.

Which will radiate outwards to others, as yet another gift!

Love and very good wish, to you, in all you do, now and in the future.

Leah x