YOUR SABOTEURS: FRIEND OR FOE?
Have you ever felt
frustrated by your tendency to procrastinate?
overwhelmed by negative thoughts that keep you in an anxiety loop?
paralyzed with self-doubt?
like no matter how busy you are, you never seem to feel like you are getting enough done?
like the whole world is against you and nothing is fair?
exhausted from the care and assistance you give to others that they just don’t seem to notice or reciprocate?
If you can relate to feeling any or all of these from time to time, then I have good news. First, you are human and everyone feels this way at times. Second, your recognition of these feelings has just begun a life-changing healing process. Beneath every self-doubt and self-criticism is a natural, human protection mechanism to fear of loss and pain. You are now beginning to recognize a crucial element in your journey to fulfillment, and it is called your saboteurs.
I have talked about saboteurs in previous posts, but I want to take a deeper look at what they are, where they come from, and how you can transform your relationship with them.
WHAT ARE SABOTEURS AND WHERE DO THEY COME FROM?
A saboteur is the inner critical voice in your head that keeps you stuck anytime you try to achieve new growth in your life. The term Saboteur comes from the Co-Active Coach Training framework developed by Karen and Henry Kimsey-House, and is the dissonant internal voice of fear. A saboteur’s only goal is to keep you safe from any potential risk, even if it's overcautious and prevents you from taking the very risks that would lead to a more fulfilling life.
Let’s start at the beginning and look at your childhood. As a child you were not in control over much of your environment and you were highly dependent on the adults in your life to survive. Whenever you were hurt, (regardless of whether the pain was perceived or real, emotional or physical), you learned to cope by creating defense mechanisms and strategies to avoid feeling that pain again. These protective mechanisms became your internal critical voice that is so ingrained in how you operate in life, that as an adult you barely notice it is operating at all. The wide range of judgement that your saboteurs use to keep you from taking risks can essentially be summed up in one of two categories: “you are not enough” or “you are too much.”
As a coach, I am trained to listen for dissonance in my client’s voice. Any time I hear a client tell me they are making a choice that is not aligned with their values, then I know I am listening to the voice of a saboteur. Without mindful awareness of when our saboteurs have been triggered by fear, we are caught in the trance of believing their small, scared perspective of what is possible for us. Any time we challenge ourselves to grow and try something new, our saboteurs will inevitably get loud, providing a litany of reasons why whatever we are wanting to do will never work.
THE MANY SIDES OF YOU
There are many different parts within your psyche. In addition to your saboteurs, the general characters involved in your psychic cast are your inner leader, your allies, and your inner child. I’ll discuss more about your other inner psychic characters in another post, but it’s important to be aware that they exist and know that you always have a choice of which voice you want to listen to.
Saboteurs come in many shapes and sizes and are personalized to you and how your fear-responses developed throughout your life. I love referencing the website created by a fellow Co-Active Coach, Shirzad Chamine, that has a quiz and descriptions of 10 different types of saboteurs that he has identified. Although this is not an exhaustive list of saboteur profiles, it is a great starting place to begin learning about and gaining awareness of how you might be sabotaging yourself.
Some of the common ways you might respond to fear that I’ve mentioned in previous posts are people-pleasing and being a hard-worker, which are built on the belief that you can earn safety and acceptance by proving your worth to others. Other saboteur responses include: controlling or perfecting - belief that you can eliminate the chances of feeling out of control and overwhelmed; avoiding or being a victim - belief that you don’t have to take responsibility or face any potential consequences; being hyper-vigilant or hyper-rational - belief that you can create a buffer between yourself and any feelings of pain or loss; and the biggest one of all, being judgmental - belief that constant self-criticism will motivate you to do better and be better.
HOW TO TRANSFORM YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR SABOTEURS
Unlike Shirzad Chamine, I do not subscribe to the belief that your saboteurs must be “conquered.” They are not your enemy, they are only scared, misunderstood parts of you that are leftover from childhood. All parts of your psyche are valid and worthy of your compassion and understanding. In fact, believing that there is anything wrong or bad about your saboteurs is exactly what gives them so much power! Once you become aware of their presence and learn to respond to them in a healthy way, their pull on you will dissipate.
Author Jennifer Louden refers to the instantaneous process of how our saboteurs respond to protect us from any perceived risk as our “emotional immune system.” In her book, Why Bother, she explains, “You’re incredibly skilled at self-protection, at managing your emotional immune system, the purpose of which is the same as your physical immune system: reject what threatens, no matter the cost.” Your saboteurs’ overcautious reaction to perceived pain and loss is like having an allergy, it is just a natural protective mechanism. Unlike physical allergies, however, you do have a choice in whether you want to allow your saboteurs free rein of your life choices.
Approach your saboteurs the way you would approach a fearful child, with love and concern. They are only trying to keep you safe, so next time you notice one of them just say, “Thank you for keeping me safe all these years. I can take things from here, you can go relax now.”