Hello friends,

This week’s letter is designed to help you overcome self-sabotage.

You know, that pattern of self-defeating behavior that holds you back from reaching your full potential?

Yeah… that stuff.

Understanding Self-Sabotage

There are many reasons why we may self-sabotage, from fear of failure to deep-seated beliefs about unworthiness.

It's a complex interplay of our thoughts, emotions, and past experiences.

Lets take a closer look at my definition:

“The manifestation of an unconscious expectation designed to protect you from confronting your internal shame of imperfection.”

Spot the manifestations

• Procrastination, especially on important tasks.

• Setting unrealistic goals or avoiding setting goals altogether.

• Engaging in self-destructive behaviors like overeating, substance abuse, or excessive spending.

• Pushing away opportunities or relationships when they become too close or intimate.

These behaviors are broad in their manifestations but niche in their root.

They all stem from the same mental map.

Unconscious Expectation

Mental maps are cognitive representations of our experiences, beliefs, and identities.

They are internal blueprints that we ultimately end up fulfilling. We act out what we believe.

Very often the map is unconscious so its hard to recognize how it impacts us.

Mental Maps

• pattern of thinking and being oriented around a certain set of beliefs.

• the foundation of our self-concept answering questions like "Who am I?" and "What do I stand for?"

Your mental maps evolve over time based off experiences, but there is one mental map that cannot be avoided.

The mental map of shame.

Confronting shame

Shame is a primary author of many of our mental maps because (I would argue) shame is a mechanism that is nature built.

It’s a feature not a bug.

Attached to our shame is a fear of, what I call, exposure. The deep fear of being exposed or being “found out.”

Stop The Cycle

In the context of self-sabotage, it's not about judging the behavior as good or bad.

It’s about understanding the behavior as a function that fulfills a purpose.

That purpose is protection. It protects you from exposure.

Guilt vs. Shame

Your self-sabotage behaviors are designed to protect you from your shame.

It’s easier to feel guilty over not doing something or doing something poorly than it is to address the deeper mental map of our worthiness.

Staying on a hamster wheel of self-sabotaging behaviors keeps you on the surface level of negative feeling without having to address the deep rooted mental map.

Solution

Confront your shame and the purpose of your self-sabotage behaviors becomes clear.

• sit in stillness

• embrace ugly emotions

• share your experience with another

This is how you begin to break free.

Finally develop the courage to go inward and explore deep rooted shame helps provide the self-esteem to build outward.

Best,

Brian Maierhofer

P.S.

I have a few slots available for 1v1 work, feel free to schedule a call here if you’re looking for support.

Hit the waitlist for my new Somatic Psychology 201 course here and you’ll get it for $99.

Launching May 15th.