While it’s not always obvious, sometimes we can be our own worst enemy. We do things like procrastinate, push people away, drink excessively, set unrealistic goals, and break our own boundaries. We don’t do these things because we’re broken or crazy, and we don’t do them because we lack willpower or discipline. Self-sabotage isn’t about being lazy, it’s about you doing your best to cope. Sabotaging yourself, or being in control of certain areas in your life might give you a false sense of control. This might feel safer rather than allowing yourself to be vulnerable to being hurt by something or someone. Give yourself some compassion for trying to cope, and survive, however that has looked like. And remember, who you are and who you have been is not who you will always be. You are always allowed to start new and change old patterns and we’re here to help along the way.
Signs of self-sabotage
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You have too high expectations of yourself
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You are overly self-critical
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You tend to be pessimistic
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You regularly procrastinate
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You are constantly disorganized
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You often have a low self-esteem
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You feel like an imposter
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You don’t honor your boundaries
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You overwork, overcommit, overwork, over-perform, overthink and overdo
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You’re exhausted and experience burnout
3 ways you’re self-sabotaging
Relationships
You may be consciously, or unconsciously sabotaging your romantic relationship, family, friendships, or yourself. This can look like settling in a romantic relationship out of comfort to avoid the fear of starting over. Or this can look like constant self-criticism and self-doubt. You may discourage yourself before you even try something out of fear of failure.
Career
Do you struggle with self-sabotaging your career goals, work, business, or finance? You may be starting more projects than you can finish, saying “yes” when you don’t want to, or ignoring when you need breaks. You may create self-imposed rules that are too hard to follow, or maybe you don’t allow yourself good things unless you “earn” them. Financial self-sabotage can look like overspending or avoiding your financial situation.
Health
Neglecting one’s health is the most common way we self-sabotage. This means neglecting your mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health. This neglect can look like not asking for help when you need it, emotional eating, and staying up late when you need to wake up early. Self-sabotaging your health can also look like past-due doctor visits, not taking your medications, and ignoring your body.
How to stop self-sabotaging
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notice what’s happening
The first step in changing any habit is self-awareness, so get curious about your self-sabotage. Think about any areas you tend to self-sabotage in and any triggers you can identify. What does your self-sabotage look like? How does it typically start? Can you identify the pattern? When we get better at noticing when we start self-sabotaging, we also get better at knowing when to intervene. The next time you sense yourself starting to self-sabotage, try to pause and get familiar with what is happening in your mind and body first.
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Challenge your thoughts and feelings
After you’ve become familiar with your self-sabotage pattern, you will be more equipped to challenge your thoughts and feelings when it starts to happen again. A good way to be prepared for this is to come up with three to five self-awareness questions for when you feel yourself starting to self-sabotage. Typically, it starts in the mind. Before we act, we tend to think negatively of ourselves. What are you telling yourself? You can create your questions from there. Challenge those thoughts and feelings, and know that they are not always true. The insight you gain may tell you what you need to work through. You may uncover deeper issues, memories, and any root or core problems. Don’t ignore what comes up for you. If what is coming up is hard to process, or you would like support from a mental health professional, we encourage you to seek out help.
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reinforce a new pattern
Reminder: You are always allowed to start new. After you have identified your pattern and challenged your thoughts and feelings, it’s time to choose a new pattern. This part is exciting! Think about who you want to be and start speaking to their potential. Visualize how you see yourself free of self-sabotage and the shame attached. Be intentional here. One way to do this is by using affirmations to help ease negative self-talk and strengthen confidence. Creating a new pattern is difficult, choosing this pattern every time is even more so. Acknowledge the strength it takes to choose confidence, growth, and healing.
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stay compassionate
If you do go through your pattern again, which you most likely will because it may be deeply engrained, you can use this opportunity to process through the steps that happened. Remember that changing this pattern and any self-sabotaging behavior takes time. Whether it’s addiction, overeating, or procrastinating, it will take time to create, reinforce, and maintain a new path. Eventually, you will find that going to this new path becomes easier and easier. Keep being curious, keep challenging old thoughts and beliefs, and keep reinforcing new and healthier ways of being. You’ve got this.
Related: FREE Relationship check-up mini-course.
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Stress is a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or very demanding circumstances. It is the body’s physical response to a real or perceived threat, demand, or danger.
Everyone experiences stress at different levels. Even when the same stressors are present, our experiences can be different. Certain groups experience higher levels of stress, for example, communities of color, LGBTQIA+, women, and parents.
Stress isn’t always harmful. For example, think about the motivation you feel to study for your next exam, or the urge to make a to-do list on a Sunday. These are positive ways that stress can help you focus and complete tasks. But when stress is frequent and intense, it can affect your overall health, resulting in a reduced quality of life.
This is why we want to help you get to the root cause of your stress, understand the ays it manifests for you, and learn preventative tools for coping with stress. Because you deserve a healthy, happy life.
Has a trip to the grocery store ever sent you home in a panic? Was it the fluorescent lights buzzing? The sticky feeling of your sneakers on the floor? Maybe it was the squeaky wheel on your grocery cart or the strong smell of fresh paint? Maybe it was the awkward small talk with an old friend you saw or the interaction you had with the cashier. Or, maybe, it was all of it.
If you’ve ever experienced being overwhelmed like this, you might be a highly sensitive person and you aren’t alone. Nearly 20% of people are highly sensitive and face the same common issues. And while highly sensitive people might experience similar challenges, let me be clear that sensitivity is in no way a character flaw.
Being a highly sensitive person is not a diagnosis, and we discourage the use of it as a negative label for yourself and others. The list we are sharing today is intended to help highly sensitive people feel validated and understand why they may feel a certain way. This list can also be a helpful tool for friends and family of highly sensitive people.
Being sensitive has a negative connotation for a lot of people, especially if they have been accused of or labeled with it in the past. We hope we can help reframe the way people see sensitivity.
In our last blog about ADHD, we discussed what ADHD is, how it typically manifests in women, information on diagnoses, and resources. Today we’re digging in deeper and sharing real, meaningful ways you can combat the symptoms of ADHD. From time management to emotional regulation and sorting paper chaos, these research-based strategies will provide you with straightforward approaches to ease stress and overwhelm so you can live a better, more satisfying life. Before we get started, let us remind you that you don’t need to do all the strategies mentioned to be productive and successful. Find what techniques resonate with you and leave the rest. Honor your humanness. It’s important to be gentle with yourself on your mental health journey.
PRACTICAL TOOLS AND INTERVENTIONS FOR ADHD MENTIONED:
You keep losing your phone, locking your keys in the car, you’re constantly late and feel emotionally overwhelmed. You feel you can never pay attention, you start a lot of projects which you never end up finishing, and you are constantly feeling burnt out. Maybe someone in your life has told you “you might have ADHD” or maybe you’ve been hearing more about the signs and symptoms on Instagram or TikTok and something resonates in you. Whatever the reason, educating yourself is the first step in getting treatment for the symptoms that may be wreaking havoc in your life.
Today we will be talking all about ADHD and women, why it goes unnoticed, common symptoms, if a diagnosis matters, and resources to help you gain control of your life.
July is BIPOC Mental Health Month. We recognize the many layers of barriers that prevent people of color from receiving the support they need. We believe that all people deserve access to health care, especially in a world where Black, Indigenous, and people of color are systemically discriminated against. In an effort to continue advocating for the Black community and other underrepresented communities, we put together this brief guide on BIPOC Mental Health Month.
Anxiety is a feeling of worry, nervousness, dread, and uneasiness typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome. Social anxiety is a feeling of worry or nervousness focused mainly on social interactions. To better understand social anxiety, let’s start by learning the main components that anxiety is created and sustained by:
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Physiological
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Rapid heart rate
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Sweaty palms
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A lack of appetite
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Cognitive
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Anxious thoughts
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Predictions
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Judgments
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Behavioral
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Avoiding certain people, places, or situations
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Difficulty saying “no” and honoring boundaries
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Tendency to snap at others with little warning
Most people with anxiety experience all 3 parts together. If your professor emails you and asks to speak after class tomorrow, you might experience your heart drop, and your hands begin to sweat (Physiological). Then you might notice yourself starting to worry, and creating scenarios about what they will tell you (Cognitive). Then you might put it off by skipping your next class and finally struggling to make eye contact once you’re there (Behavioral).
When we struggle with anxiety all three components happen almost automatically. That’s why to challenge social anxiety, we must also challenge the three components. The following daily hacks utilize these components.
To witness someone who you care about suffering or struggling can be difficult. It can feel heartbreaking to know that that person could benefit from professional help and yet not see them take that step. Approaching a loved one with the, “Hey, I think you need to talk to someone.” can be a challenging task, but one that we think we can help you navigate.
While it’s not always obvious, sometimes we can be our own worst enemy. We do things like procrastinate, push people away, drink excessively, set unrealistic goals, and break our own boundaries. We don’t do these things because we’re broken or crazy, and we don’t do them because we lack willpower or discipline. Self-sabotage isn’t about being lazy, it’s about you doing your best to cope. Sabotaging yourself, or being in control of certain areas in your life might give you a false sense of control. This might feel safer rather than allowing yourself to be vulnerable to being hurt by something or someone. Give yourself some compassion for trying to cope, and survive, however that has looked like. And remember, who you are and who you have been is not who you will always be. You are always allowed to start new and change old patterns and we’re here to help along the way.
Like any journey, the journey to mental health and wellness might include detours, starts and stops, long pauses, and unexpected factors at play. Choosing to return to therapy is BIG and your dedication to your mental health doesn’t go unnoticed. Whether you haven’t spoken to your therapist in months and are feeling anxious about making the call, you’ve “finished” therapy and are considering returning, or you ghosted your therapist and feel awkward about reaching out again, this is for you. Here are 5 tips for going BACK to therapy.
Being a parent is much more than just providing clothing, a roof over your head, and food on the table. For children to develop into healthy adults, they need to feel safe and supported to grow, be known, and express themselves.
Most emotionally immature parents have no awareness of how they’ve affected their children. To be clear, we aren’t placing blame on these parents, we are seeking to understand why they are the way they are. The goal here is to help you gain new insights about your parent(s) in order to increase your own self-awareness and emotional freedom.
Nov 17, 2021
Nov 17, 2021
Stress is a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or very demanding circumstances. It is the body’s physical response to a real or perceived threat, demand, or danger.
Everyone experiences stress at different levels. Even when the same stressors are present, our experiences can be different. Certain groups experience higher levels of stress, for example, communities of color, LGBTQIA+, women, and parents.
Stress isn’t always harmful. For example, think about the motivation you feel to study for your next exam, or the urge to make a to-do list on a Sunday. These are positive ways that stress can help you focus and complete tasks. But when stress is frequent and intense, it can affect your overall health, resulting in a reduced quality of life.
This is why we want to help you get to the root cause of your stress, understand the ays it manifests for you, and learn preventative tools for coping with stress. Because you deserve a healthy, happy life.
Nov 17, 2021