Latest / Change Your Life with Dr. Amen Kaur / I'll eliminate your self-sabotage forever (the five-beat loop and how to break it)

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I'll eliminate your self-sabotage forever (the five-beat loop and how to break it) · Change Your Life with Dr. Amen Kaur

• 0:00
  Have you ever got so close to the thing that you want?
• 0:03
  You can almost feel it.
• 0:05
  That promotion, that business, that conversation that you mean to have, maybe you've even had a taster and then something pulls you back.
• 0:14
  You might go quiet, you might put it off, you might even do more research.
• 0:18
  Or there's just something that's happened and you feel like you want to retreat and you tell yourself, I'll do it next month.
• 0:25
  There's so many videos out there.
• 0:28
  There's so much information out there with quick fixes for things like this, you know, self sabotage.
• 0:35
  But when we really dig deep, we don't really find a real fix, like a deep fix.
• 0:43
  In the next few minutes, I'm going to show you two things.
• 0:46
  First, the exact cycle of self sabotage, how does it run, and step by step so you can see it in real time when it's happening to you next.
• 0:57
  And second, how you can break it, you can take back control.
• 1:01
  And the first thing isn't what you expect.
• 1:04
  It doesn't start with a behavior.
• 1:06
  It's not that you're bad or something.
• 1:09
  Normally it starts with a lower level vibrational frequency of an emotion such as shame or guilt.
• 1:18
  And I'll show you why.
• 1:19
  And here's a promise.
• 1:22
  After this, you'll never be confused by your own self sabotage again.
• 1:27
  And I'm going to show you what you do instead every single time.
• 1:32
  So you move away from self sabotage and into something that will make you feel better within yourself.
• 1:40
  Now, if this is you, and I think most of us, self sabotage, first and foremost, you're not alone.
• 1:48
  Most people will have something in their life that they're self sabotaging themselves against.
• 1:53
  So there's nothing wrong with you.
• 1:54
  I know that it can be very frustrating.
• 1:57
  And maybe you've called yourself lazy or weak or your own worst enemy.
• 2:01
  You're not.
• 2:02
  And by the end of this, I think you'll see the reason for this and you'll have a lot more compassion for yourself.
• 2:09
  I've spent more than 20 years in business helping thousands of people get unstuck.
• 2:15
  Before that I was a research scientist.
• 2:17
  And I don't just look at symptoms.
• 2:20
  I want to know the cause.
• 2:21
  And that's what we're going to do today.
• 2:24
  So let's start.
• 2:26
  Here's the question we need to start with first.
• 2:29
  Why would you stop yourself from getting something you want?
• 2:33
  I mean, it sounds ridiculous, right?
• 2:35
  You might be wanting something like more income.
• 2:39
  Then why would you ever not want it on purpose?
• 2:44
  Early in life, you were handed a map, a Map of how the world works, what is safe, what's allowed, what you're allowed to be.
• 2:56
  And you didn't choose what was on that map.
• 2:59
  Imagine it like a city.
• 3:01
  That's your city, that's where you live, and that's was drawn by the people and the places you grew up in, the society, the culture.
• 3:12
  And your brain built it into your wiring.
• 3:16
  It's everything you experienced at a young age.
• 3:19
  And that map has boundaries, it has edges.
• 3:23
  Imagine it like a state.
• 3:25
  That's your state that you live in, and that's it.
• 3:29
  And self sabotage is what happens when you walk up to one of the other states and say, hey, or the boundary and say, hey, I want to go over there, I want to see what that's like, because that
• 3:43
  looks good.
• 3:45
  And now what you're finding is that boundary.
• 3:48
  That map is working against you.
• 3:52
  The old map is doing its job.
• 3:54
  It's almost like a territory saying, this is yours and that's all you can have, which is where you keep yourself inside, because it's something you already know.
• 4:05
  So whatever you've been saying to yourself about this, I'd like you to just for a moment, for this podcast episode, just put it down, stop it and just let it be.
• 4:18
  Just for the next few moments, let's put it aside.
• 4:21
  No more judgment towards ourself, no more feeling bad about what we have or haven't achieved.
• 4:28
  You can pick that all up at the end if you still want to, and I hope you don't.
• 4:34
  Right, so let's look at the loop.
• 4:35
  A lot of the time we find ourselves in this loop, we need to understand the loop.
• 4:40
  The loop has five beats.
• 4:42
  One, you want more.
• 4:44
  You'll want a bigger role, a business of your own, a life that fits you.
• 4:49
  You're your own boss, you live life to your own desires.
• 4:53
  And you're trying to do something maybe where you're making a difference in the world.
• 4:59
  That's the only reason this ever starts, is you're reaching past the edge of what you've been taught you can have, or what's been given to you.
• 5:09
  Two, as you try and approach it, as you try and want it, and you give your attention to it, something triggers you a hard question in a meeting and maybe a message comes into your inbox that takes you
• 5:23
  by surprise.
• 5:23
  Or your car breaks down when you're earning more money.
• 5:28
  Then three, your body reacts before your mind does.
• 5:33
  It's never about our mindset.
• 5:36
  Most of the time.
• 5:37
  You might find your chest tightens.
• 5:39
  You might not be able to Think straight.
• 5:42
  Or you feel that sinking feeling you've ever felt that sinking feeling I know I have.
• 5:48
  Whereas that fear, that doubt, whatever it is for you, your nervous system has pretty much hit the edge of the map that was given to you.
• 5:58
  And basically that is your body sounding the alarm saying, hey, it's not safe over there.
• 6:05
  Why the hell would you want to go over there?
• 6:07
  Even though it looks better?
• 6:09
  4 you escape.
• 6:12
  This is the thing people don't realize, and this is the thing that we call self sabotage.
• 6:18
  The thing that you do to.
• 6:21
  Maybe you want to write a book, for instance, and instead of writing a book, you start scrolling and you might even tell yourself, oh, I'm getting data, I'm getting information.
• 6:30
  Maybe you're staying up late because you're thinking, oh, this is the only time I get to myself to scroll.
• 6:37
  Or maybe you've given up alcohol and then you find yourself going back to it.
• 6:42
  Or oh, this is one that I do is I will go for chocolate or something sweet, I've given it up.
• 6:49
  And then I will find myself having this battle with something sugary.
• 6:55
  And that's my self sabotage.
• 6:58
  It might be that part of your self sabotage is more research, more courses, more going quiet, more reading, but actually not doing the thing that you need to do to move forward.
• 7:11
  And here's the beat that nobody really talks about.
• 7:15
  It works that self sabotage is working.
• 7:19
  You get a sense of relief in that moment.
• 7:22
  The alarm goes off.
• 7:23
  Basically, that's all we're doing, it's effective.
• 7:26
  And then you jump back in the map and say, oh, I'm safe again.
• 7:31
  Your body feels safe again.
• 7:33
  That is why the pattern is so sticky.
• 7:36
  It's not weakness, it's the kindest thing your body knew how to do for you in that moment.
• 7:43
  It's looking after you the only way it knows how.
• 7:47
  The next thing, though, in the loop is the part that I think we find the hardest to deal with.
• 7:53
  Normally, when we think about what we haven't done, we feel a sense of shame or we feel guilt when we're looking at the gap between where we are and where we know we're capable of what I should be
• 8:08
  doing or what I should have done.
• 8:10
  And that shame then becomes the next trigger because we need a trigger to start it.
• 8:17
  And it goes just round and round and round and round.
• 8:20
  And hence why it can feel like it's just like a spiral going downwards.
• 8:27
  So which one is your escape?
• 8:30
  Just really think about it and become aware of it.
• 8:33
  If you are not aware of it now, just start to think, okay, what is it that gives me relief, that is self sabotaging.
• 8:42
  I regret it afterwards because that is so good to become aware of.
• 8:48
  Because then it will help you in the next stages.
• 8:53
  Look, let me run you through it with an example.
• 8:56
  Years ago, I was working in a company focusing on business development.
• 9:00
  And I knew my market better than anyone in the building.
• 9:03
  The company, they really liked to challenge each other because it was like, yeah, we want to win, we want to develop, we want to grow.
• 9:11
  And that's how everyone did grow.
• 9:14
  They became on their A game.
• 9:16
  So I'd be in the boardroom sometimes.
• 9:19
  This was when I was a manager and mostly that were men.
• 9:24
  Sometimes it was all men.
• 9:26
  There was no woman in the boardroom.
• 9:29
  And a director would say something to me and I know that this isn't going to work or this isn't quite right and I just couldn't speak.
• 9:41
  I just found I seized almost.
• 9:44
  My voice was quiet.
• 9:46
  I'd go small.
• 9:47
  I didn't want to say anything to them because they are a director and who am I in comparison?
• 9:56
  And the thing was, because I wasn't confident, no one could be confident in me in terms of what I was saying and my skill set and my expertise.
• 10:06
  Even though I was getting the results, I really was pants in that in the meetings in those days.
• 10:14
  So nobody could really be sure of me.
• 10:16
  They couldn't really be like, yeah, we want this person to come and help our area in this country or that country.
• 10:24
  So, okay, so now let's look at what was my trigger.
• 10:28
  Being asked to stand up and disagree.
• 10:31
  My body locked and the escape was to just go quiet and let it pass.
• 10:38
  And the relief was once the meeting was over, nothing had been said, nothing had been risked.
• 10:44
  And then the shame.
• 10:47
  Walking out, I knew, and my boss had put his neck out for me in that room, told everyone that, yeah, I can do this.
• 10:56
  And I sat there and I was really not very good.
• 11:00
  I didn't speak and it was.
• 11:02
  I could see it on his face, like, what is wrong with you?
• 11:06
  It's almost like he was embarrassed for me.
• 11:11
  What they didn't realize and where I grew up, you didn't challenge the men in the room.
• 11:18
  That was the rule.
• 11:19
  And it was scary.
• 11:21
  So decades later, I'm in a room full of senior men and my body is still following this decade old rule that is not relevant anymore.
• 11:32
  Nobody in that boardroom was going to ever hurt me in any way, shape or form.
• 11:38
  But my nervous system had been trained where there's a big group of Men, you just don't do that.
• 11:45
  And I look back at that woman in that boardroom now and I don't feel embarrassed for her.
• 11:51
  I get it.
• 11:52
  I understand she wasn't failing.
• 11:54
  It was just she was out of her depth.
• 11:57
  She was in a totally different map, a different state, if you like.
• 12:02
  She just didn't know how to handle that.
• 12:05
  So it took me to do a lot of inner work, to see I need to work through this.
• 12:13
  And I was lucky enough that my manager then allowed me to go back into that boardroom later and present again to the directors from across the business, different countries.
• 12:24
  But this time I knew I had something important to say.
• 12:29
  And this time it wasn't so much what I was doing.
• 12:32
  For me, it was more.
• 12:33
  I wanted to be a voice for my team.
• 12:37
  They came back with questions and I held my ground.
• 12:40
  And honestly, I could see, you could see the nods.
• 12:44
  They were really impressed.
• 12:45
  That same room, but I had a different body.
• 12:49
  Next time I turned up, I was in a different map.
• 12:53
  Not because I knew more, because honestly, I already knew as much as I needed to.
• 12:58
  I always knew the same amount.
• 13:00
  But I needed to do that inner work to be able to stand in that new arena or that new area and survive it.
• 13:11
  So if you're sitting there thinking, that's nice for you, but I'm sure it's not going to work for me.
• 13:17
  This works for anyone, even if you don't believe a word of it yet.
• 13:22
  So here, let's look at the method.
• 13:25
  Here's how you break that old pattern.
• 13:28
  We have to work backwards.
• 13:31
  Let's go three steps backwards and stay with me because the third one is the step almost everyone skips.
• 13:38
  Step one.
• 13:39
  We need to start with the shame.
• 13:41
  Lots of people don't want to start with the shame.
• 13:43
  Shame is such a horrible emotion.
• 13:46
  But shame is also a fuel.
• 13:49
  It can turn one bad night into a cycle.
• 13:52
  If you feel shame about something, it's just going to continue.
• 13:55
  The way to fix shame and the way to stop shame from triggering the next round.
• 14:03
  The only thing that does that, the only thing that dissipates shame, is love.
• 14:10
  Not discipline, not a better plan.
• 14:12
  Not telling yourself of love, loving yourself with compassion, with understanding.
• 14:20
  If there was no shame, instead you're loving and understanding with yourself, there'll be no need to feel triggered to then have to go back into that cycle again.
• 14:31
  So when you catch yourself in escape scrolling, hiding whatever is yours, please don't get upset with yourself.
• 14:39
  Instead, double down on being more compassionate and more loving towards yourself.
• 14:46
  Say it now if you can, I'll say it with you.
• 14:49
  I love and accept myself.
• 14:51
  And I get why I felt that way, why that happened to me, why I'm feeling this way right now.
• 14:59
  Of course I did that.
• 15:01
  I self sabotaged because something hit me at edge and I got scared because this is the unknown.
• 15:10
  So should we beat ourselves or should we love ourselves and coax ourselves to say, hey, it's safe, it's okay, you can venture out of the old plan.
• 15:23
  If you can feel what happens in your body when you say I love and accept myself and I understand why this is happening.
• 15:32
  You can almost feel your body softening.
• 15:35
  It's not letting yourself off the hook.
• 15:38
  It's breaking the loop of self sabotage.
• 15:43
  And it's not just me saying it.
• 15:45
  Kristin Neff's work on self compassion and Paul Gilbert's on shame shows the same thing.
• 15:52
  Compassion lowers the threat response, Criticism raises it.
• 15:57
  I just don't understand why we are so critical towards each other or towards themselves.
• 16:03
  Because it actually is of no benefit to our system.
• 16:08
  You can't shame your way out of a cycle that runs on shame or beat yourself out of it because it runs on shame.
• 16:16
  You're just giving more power to it.
• 16:18
  You're giving it more fuel.
• 16:20
  The only way through is love.
• 16:24
  Love for yourself, compassion.
• 16:26
  If you practiced pure love and compassion towards yourself for the next 30 days, no matter what situation you're in, really being kind, that, yeah, it's been hard.
• 16:39
  I've been trying my hardest and I really don't want to be sabotaging myself.
• 16:45
  Can you imagine how much further you'll get?
• 16:48
  You can only love your way out of this.
• 16:52
  That's not soft, it's science.
• 16:56
  Step two, go back to the trigger and listen.
• 17:00
  Get quiet.
• 17:01
  Sit with the moment right before the escape and be gentle here.
• 17:06
  You're not interrogating yourself.
• 17:08
  I need to analyze it.
• 17:10
  We need to just listen like you would listen to a good friend.
• 17:14
  Because ultimately the most important person that you have in your life is you.
• 17:20
  And we want to listen to ourself more than anything.
• 17:23
  And then just feel.
• 17:24
  What was that feeling?
• 17:26
  Where is it in my body?
• 17:28
  And then you might even have a thought or maybe an image.
• 17:32
  And sometimes it's just like a tightness or a knowing.
• 17:37
  There's no real words, but it's just a knowing that you know, let's do it now.
• 17:43
  If there's something that you want to do, but you can sense a sense of self sabotage, is this somewhere in your body?
• 17:52
  You can feel that contraction.
• 17:55
  Don't Change it.
• 17:55
  Just let your hand rest on there for a moment.
• 18:00
  Maybe it's on your chest, on your neck.
• 18:03
  And just say, tell your body.
• 18:05
  Almost like, I'm here.
• 18:07
  Like you would give your best friend a hug if they're going through a bad time.
• 18:12
  And your nervous system has been waiting a long time to hear from you.
• 18:17
  And maybe even there's a part of you inside that has been waiting for you to just come along and just be there for that part and love it.
• 18:27
  You're not here trying to fix anything.
• 18:29
  You're just looking.
• 18:31
  Okay, where am I feeling the edge.
• 18:34
  I'm trying to walk out of these rules and conditions.
• 18:38
  And who told me I can and can't have this because somewhere along the line, someone was limiting you.
• 18:46
  And that has been placed in your map, in your brain map.
• 18:51
  In my case, the rule was don't challenge men in the room.
• 18:56
  Don't even walk into the room where there's all the men sitting.
• 19:01
  Maybe yours will be different.
• 19:03
  You just want to name it.
• 19:04
  And the moment it has a name, it stops being fate and starts being a map that was given to you.
• 19:12
  And, hey, one thing we know is, is a map can be redrawn because we know there is more than one place than just one state.
• 19:23
  Okay, now we look at step three.
• 19:26
  This is the most important part.
• 19:29
  And a lot of people skip this.
• 19:31
  You can read every book out there.
• 19:33
  You can do every course and understand the whole childhood and do all this therapy.
• 19:38
  And I found I was doing so much therapy and nothing was changing in my life.
• 19:43
  All this talking, but not really getting anywhere.
• 19:46
  Because the old map wasn't built on just me analyzing myself.
• 19:51
  I'm an overthinker.
• 19:52
  It was lovely analyzing myself.
• 19:55
  What was handed to you as a child was built on experience.
• 19:59
  So the new one has to be built on experience.
• 20:05
  So we need to take one step past that edge.
• 20:09
  A small step, not massive.
• 20:11
  Speak up, send that email, book that call, do that small thing and notice, hey, you know what?
• 20:17
  I'm still alive.
• 20:20
  Nothing's happened to me.
• 20:22
  And if it doesn't go perfectly, that's fine, too.
• 20:25
  You're not trying to get it right.
• 20:27
  You just want to show your body that you're safe to do it.
• 20:33
  Nothing's going to happen to you.
• 20:35
  And every time you do that, you're going to build your confidence and your map will start to move a little where you will start to believe, hey, it's possible for me to do this.
• 20:46
  I know I can do it.
• 20:48
  And here's a trick.
• 20:49
  I stumbled into and if you don't do it for yourself yet, do it for someone else, someone that you love.
• 20:56
  I couldn't find my voice for me in that boardroom, people, but I found it for my team as soon as I felt passion for my team.
• 21:06
  And when I took that thought of, I want my team to have a voice in front of these directors, everything changed.
• 21:16
  Because the body doesn't mind why you crossed the edge.
• 21:21
  It just learns you did.
• 21:23
  And what we've got to do is do whatever it takes to get that experience so our brain can incorporate it.
• 21:32
  And the brain has neural pathways.
• 21:34
  So even though we're using this analogy of a map, it really is that in our brain.
• 21:41
  So now, before you go, I want you to take you one level deeper, because the nervous system isn't the.
• 21:48
  The beginning of the story.
• 21:50
  And this is the part that has really made it stick for me.
• 21:53
  We've been pointed down this route for so many centuries.
• 21:58
  Everything I've described is your body trying to keep you safe using the map it was given.
• 22:04
  And then we look at spiritual traditions and spiritual texts, and they've been pointing down this road for a long time as well.
• 22:11
  Two thousand years ago, before anyone even had a brain scanner, they could tell us they knew what we needed to do to go beyond those emotional blocks that we have or the nervous system blocks that we have to
• 22:26
  go beyond these maps that were given to us.
• 22:30
  The Bhagavad Gita says it plainly, lift yourself by your own self and don't let yourself sink.
• 22:42
  The self is the friend of the self, and the self is the enemy of the self.
• 22:50
  Okay?
• 22:52
  It's the same self, friend, or enemy, depending on which map is running.
• 23:00
  And then in the New Testament, in the first letter of John, there is no fear in love.
• 23:08
  Perfect love casts out fear, remember?
• 23:14
  What do we do when we feel shame?
• 23:17
  We bring love to it.
• 23:19
  Perfect love casts out fear so we can get to that next level.
• 23:26
  Now, you read that knowing what we know about our body.
• 23:31
  Yeah.
• 23:31
  Fear is the alarm on the edge.
• 23:34
  Love is a soothing system that turns it off.
• 23:39
  They can't be running at once.
• 23:40
  It's either love or fear.
• 23:43
  And that's not poetry.
• 23:45
  That's what the heart rate data also shows.
• 23:48
  So here's the deeper layer.
• 23:50
  The fear at the edge does feel real.
• 23:53
  Okay?
• 23:54
  We do feel these feelings.
• 23:56
  I'm not dismissing that.
• 23:58
  But it isn't the truth about you.
• 24:01
  It's that you were given old information about your limitations.
• 24:07
  That fear was conditioned into you.
• 24:11
  And when you can stand at the edge and you put your trust in something bigger than that alarm.
• 24:20
  Maybe you put your trust in God, the universe, the Creator.
• 24:25
  The alarm loses its authority and instead you regain your agency.
• 24:33
  You're not fighting the map anymore.
• 24:37
  You're stepping out of the map.
• 24:38
  Then that's what I mean when I say let's work backwards.
• 24:43
  Let's deal with the shame first, because that's the most powerful thing we can do.
• 24:48
  And the scriptures are pointing us to that direction as well as science.
• 24:53
  Then the trigger, then the new experience.
• 24:56
  And underneath all of that, the knowing that you were never the problem in the first place.
• 25:04
  It was never anything about you.
• 25:06
  So that's shame.
• 25:07
  It doesn't belong to you anyway.
• 25:10
  So you were handed a map with edges.
• 25:14
  Self sabotage is what happens when we're at the edge.
• 25:18
  It's normal.
• 25:19
  It's almost like a thermometer.
• 25:21
  It just keeps us in that range of the temperature so we never can get beyond that temperature that we've been set at.
• 25:32
  And it runs in a loop.
• 25:33
  If you want more, you will get triggered and the body will react and we'll find an escape.
• 25:39
  And then we'll get some relief.
• 25:40
  And then we'll feel shame.
• 25:42
  And then the shame starts again.
• 25:44
  You break it backwards.
• 25:46
  Let's meet the shame.
• 25:47
  Let's get.
• 25:48
  Get rid of the shame with compassion so it stops fueling the next round and we go back to the trigger and name the edge.
• 25:56
  And then you give your body one experience that, yes, I have crossed this and I'm still alive.
• 26:03
  Nothing's happened to me.
• 26:04
  Hey, maybe I can venture out of this old map.
• 26:09
  And now the honest version of the title.
• 26:12
  Will the trigger ever fire again?
• 26:15
  Maybe you'll be reaching for something new and your body will remember the old map again because it's comfortable, but you will never be confused by it again.
• 26:27
  And now you know this.
• 26:29
  You can deal with the shame head on.
• 26:33
  You'll know what it is, you'll know where it comes from, and you'll know what to do.
• 26:38
  That's what forever means.
• 26:41
  There's also a line in the Guru Granth Sahib, O my mind, you are the embodiment of the divine light.
• 26:49
  Recognize your origin, not become.
• 26:52
  Recognize.
• 26:54
  You don't need to become anyone new.
• 26:56
  You need to recognize that you can have the whole map, the whole lot.
• 27:02
  If you want to.
• 27:03
  You can go and explore the whole world.
• 27:06
  The worth was never the thing you had to earn.
• 27:09
  At the edge.
• 27:10
  You don't have to prove yourself.
• 27:13
  It's the thing the map made you forget.
• 27:16
  It's the limitations that you will be given.
• 27:19
  So before you go hear this one, I want you to know you're enough.
• 27:24
  Not after the promotion, not once the business is running.
• 27:28
  Not when you're finally stopped doing the thing.
• 27:30
  Now, exactly as you are sitting wherever you're sitting.
• 27:36
  And whatever you did last night, you're loved and you're enough.
• 27:41
  And every time you come back to that, the map that's holding you back gets smaller and the potential for you to explore what you have gets a little bigger.
• 27:56
  And please do tell me and message me, what is your sabotage protecting you from?
• 28:03
  Not what you do.
• 28:04
  What is it guarding?
• 28:06
  Because that is so useful to know as well.
• 28:10
  One more thing.
• 28:11
  You now have the method.
• 28:13
  You don't know yet which part of you is holding the edge.
• 28:16
  There are five systems that could be running this and the one that's running yours changes what you do.
• 28:23
  First, what is it you need to focus on?
• 28:27
  I built a three minute quiz that tells you and it's@amancore.com quiz that's a M E N K a U R dot com quiz and I'll make sure I'll put the link in the description as well.
• 28:43
  And if this episode did something for you, I'd like to ask three small things.
• 28:49
  If you could rate the show whenever you're listening, that'd be amazing.
• 28:53
  And it just takes 10 seconds.
• 28:55
  And it's how new people can find this.
• 28:58
  And if you can share it with one person, the one person that comes to mind while I'm talking about seizing up in the room, send it to them so they can reach their potential.
• 29:07
  And if you've got a minute and I will be so utterly grateful if you could write a few words in the reviews about what shifted for you.
• 29:16
  I read everyone and they matter more to me than you could ever think.
• 29:21
  Thank you so much for being here and I'm sending you so much love.
• 29:25
  Till next time.