Perhaps the self is the one we understand the least. How do you see yourself clearly, when you are so invested in yourself and your survival? It is far easier to see others from the outside, then look at ourselves from the inside.
And if that is so – then how do you know whether the action you are taking (or not taking) is an act of self-sabotage or self-care?
Self-sabotage
The problem with self-sabotage is that half the time, we aren’t even aware that we are doing it – destroying the dreams in our hearts, the things that matter to us most deeply. We are most convincing too, enrolling others in so they can agree with us.
What is not well-known is that the key to self-sabotage is that we get something out of it.
This may seem hard to believe – but if we take the time to step back and review, it can be remarkably clear. If you are self-sacrificing, it can seem that you are doing for others – but you get a sense of pride, superiority and an escape mechanism to avoid putting your heart out into the world.
Hurting yourself, being victimised and helpless, making out your dream was not true for you, making things hard until you have no energy left, moving on to the next shiny thing, being right no matter what, making shoddy deals, avoiding being controlled, trying to force and control, burning yourself out – whatever your self-sabotage strategy, it can seem like the truth.
But our biggest mistake is to use thoughts, feelings and sensations as a method of decision-making.
Our thoughts, feelings and sensations flux based on the conditions that we find ourselves in – and our reactions are only based on the definitions we place on those conditions, rather than reality. And those definitions were not created in the present, but long ago, usually back in childhood. It’s a pretty slippery slope down an abyss our own making.
Self-care
The irony is that once you realise and take energy out of self-sabotage – then self-care is evident and obvious. It is what remains.
It is natural- when the compelling drive to self-sabotage is removed.
People spend all their energy invested in looking like they self-care – performing the motions and as long as they continue to do those motions, then they are self-caring.
But self-care is not a chore or a task. Self-care is a choice of being present to yourself & your body needs.
Self-care is making your heart and the things that truly matter to you most important of all.
The strategy of your egoic ID and its logic is that you must first get all these others things done first before you can have your heart. Your ID says, ‘don’t trust your heart – it’s not safe, you are not ready’. The irony is that all action is done to avoid your heart in order to eventually have your heart when it is finally safe, perfect, enough, worthy, etc.
The logic is very beguiling, it makes sense right?
But it actually doesn’t. It’s upside down logic.
Apart from the superficial understanding of what self-care is, is a deeper understanding that the ultimate self-damage is to destroy the things that are important to you. Deliberately.
Try as you might, you cannot understand what your heart really loves and wants for you – if you are orientated from a place of needing safety and survival. Whatever your survival preoccupation is, it will make that far more compelling and take away the real, deep, awe-inspiring joy waiting for you otherwise.
If you instead take on the understanding that your heart will not lead you astray – that it will in fact, help you create the things you deeply love and desire – you can then take on self-responsibility and move into a place of vulnerability. Because it is only from that vulnerability that you can truly receive the things you love.
The rest is empty noise.
Self-responsibility
Self-responsibility is a powerful way of being that takes the energy out of self-sabotage and victimhood and back into self-care.
It is knowing your stories that you tell yourself.
It is knowing your stance in life that leads you to sabotage the things you love.
It is knowing the experience and feeling of surviving, the thing you do to avoid wounding at all cost – the thing you make more important than your heart.
I tuned in to receive intuitive wisdom regarding my I-Body Scan modality (aka medical intuition), recently. I was curious if there was somewhere my heart wanted to take it – perhaps improve it, evolve it. I didn’t know.
What I received was a vision of taking it and my services into hospitals. Let me tell you, though, that the last thing I want to do is take it to places where it’s the medical system’s playing field. The last thing I want to do is put my modality which is mostly evolved, but still undergoing transformation yearly – fresh and vulnerable in this world, into a sceptical minefield.
But if I was coming from a place of self-responsibility and truth – then I would actually be honest with myself that this is where I secretly desire it to also be used. Not as a competitor to steal patients away, but as an aid – to help in diagnosis that is taking too long, or where they have too many tests to undertake, or where things just aren’t working.
Ironically – I also know my stance in life from a self-sabotage (or egoic patterning) perspective. I like to get out of the things I’m involved in so that I don’t have to be in the world and I can feel free again. See here if you would like to know yours.
I am also keenly aware that this new tune-in was no different to the one when I first create and received the I-Body Scan.
I had received intuitive guidance to offer sessions to my people I know and give it a go. The response was unnerving. I remember hiding myself in the toilet room (to escape my family) and just sitting there in fear and anger. At intuition, at my soul – ‘You want me to be up against the likes of Carolyn Myss and Louise Hays? F--- you.’
After I had my internal rant, then I proceeded to do the sessions – letting the modality evolve and take form. I was surprised by confirmations in the feedback. I was also surprised that the overall story for each person clicked and made sense in a wholistic point of view.
I was most greatly surprised that this is a way that anyone who has imagination, the ability to apply context and courage to be in the not-knowing, can use for themselves and others. It incorporates all aspects of health and rejects no other modality, in fact – it complements but isn’t dependent on one.
It is a way to self-care for your health – because it hones in on the truth, rather than the process.
And so… coming back to my recent tune-in and realisation regarding offering the I-Body Scan into hospitals. It’s not something that might happen overnight, in fact, I may spend another 6 months resisting it. Perhaps I'll try and fail? I do not feel at all confident that it will be accepted or that I won’t be treated like an idiot, but I know and trust that my heart has taken me down very interesting and fruitful paths in the past. They weren’t easy, but they were very interesting.
So – I pose a question to you…. Are you willing to be open to receive what your heart really wants? Are you will to self-care, to give yourself real joy – the things that really matter to you? And what holds you back?
Remember, in the vulnerability to: 1. See the truth and know your own self-sabotage and 2. do what you heart really wants for you – this is what it really takes to create and receive a magical life.