Healing Self Sabotage: Five Core Principles and Techniques

Overview of Healing Self Sabotage Principles

• Speaker Introduction: JP Sears discusses the "Ask the Faculty" series, continuing the exploration of healing self-sabotage.
• Personal Anecdote/Humor: Sears mentions wearing the same clothes and not showering since the previous month's session, jokingly identifying this as part of his own "sabotage" and questioning why he remains single. He encourages the audience to share ideas on "cracking that code."
• Context: The discussion follows previous coverage of the first two principles:
  • Principle Number One: Sabotage is always a symptom.
  • Principle Number Two: Humans possess conflicting ego parts; resolving sabotage requires acknowledging this internal conflict.

Principle Number Three: Healing Techniques for Bringing Resolve

• Structure of Healing Techniques: Healing consists of two primary parts:
  • Discovery: Facilitating an expanded awareness of root issues beneath symptoms. This includes recognizing conflicted ego parts (e.g., an ego part burdened by shame creates "deflector pain" to avoid the original shame).
  • Resolve: The active process of potentiating healing once awareness is established.
• The Role of the Observer: Discovery involves moving from living in the "first person" to the "third person" (the role of the observer). This allows one to "rise above the forest" to see the dynamics within it. Awareness alone can sometimes be sufficient for healing.
• Logistics vs. Emotion: Self-sabotage cannot be resolved through logic or "in our head." While there may be many logical reasons to stop a behavior, sabotage is typically an emotionally driven problem.
• Connecting to the Heart: Resolve requires connecting to and feeling emotions.
  • This involves opening up to known emotions and those previously hidden.
  • The speaker cites the maxim: "You can't heal what you can't feel."
  • This requires "heartfelt work" to address wounds and root issues.
• The Onslaught of Emotion: As individuals begin internal work, they may experience a suffocating "onslaught of emotions." Sears suggests these are long-standing emotions to which the person is finally becoming sensitive. Healing often feels worse before it feels better.
• The Three Virtues for Healing Ego Parts: To heal the parts of the ego currently seeking needs through sabotage (attention, shame, etc.), one must replace those negative patterns with:
  • Acknowledgment of the part of self.
  • Expressing valuing to the part of self.
  • Expressing a sense of protecting the part of self.

Principle Number Four: Transcending Altered States

• Definition of an Altered State: Essentially "not being present with ourself." It is a state used to avoid feeling, awareness, or memory.
• Altered States as Survival Strategies: They serve as a defense mechanism when reality is too overwhelming. By entering an altered state, one avoids perceiving or thinking about a threat.
• The Cost of Avoidance: As long as one remains in an altered state to avoid something, they remain "stuck" with that issue; it is carried along rather than healed.
• Perception of Threat: An altered state is triggered when one perceives a threat (which is in the "eye of the beholder").
• Relationship between Sabotage and Altered States: Sabotage patterns are often symptoms of being in an altered state. For example, a person with unbearable shame may disconnect from it and create relationship dysfunction. The dysfunction acts as a distraction (deflector pain) from the deeper shame.
• The Core Threats: Two fundamental human experiences trigger moved states:
  • Overwhelmed: Associated with the vibration of Fear.
  • Abandoned: Associated with the vibration of Shame.
• The Tuning Fork Metaphor: A part of the self stuck in an altered state due to shame vibrates like a tuning fork at the frequency of shame, attracting shaming experiences in the external world (e.g., in relationships). This is "acceptable collateral damage" to the ego to avoid a greater original fear.
• Coming Out of the State: The quickest way to transcend an altered state and regain entry to the self is to realize that one is currently in an altered state.
• Incongruence: An altered state is marked by a lack of congruence between thinking, feeling, believing, and actions. For example, wanting to be healthy (thinking/feeling) but acting in ways that undermine health indicates a part of the self is in an altered state driving the behavior.

Principle Number Five: Resolving Control Issues

• The Ego's Need for Control: While the "spirit self" may not need it, the ego is needy and considers control fundamental. Control creates a sense of safety, predictability, and survival.
• Fear as a Lack of Control: Fear is defined as the absence of a sense of control.
• Sabotage as a Control Drama: Sabotaging behaviors are rarely one-time occurrences; they are repeating patterns (ripples). The ego becomes "addicted" to these patterns because they provide a sense of control. For example, consistently making one's body large (weight gain) can be a way for a part of the ego to feel it has control over something.
• Dominance of the Most Afraid Part: The most afraid part of the ego is typically the most dominant and controls the majority of the life experience to regain a sense of safety. Other parts of the self may feel "out of control," but the dominant, fearful part remains gratified by the sabotage-based control.
• Compliance and Defiance: Control dramas often manifest through these two lenses:
  • Compliance: Adhering to the value systems of others (e.g., family) through sabotage.
  • Defiance: Using sabotage as a way to rebel against others (e.g., a $50$ year old acting from the perspective of a defiant $2$ year old control freak).

Archetypes of Control and Chaos

• Organized Chaos: Sabotage represents "controlled chaos" where the subsurface ego feels powerful by creating predictable, repeatable dysfunction.
• The Five Primary Archetypes: Sears identifies five blueprints people use to sabotage their lives:
  1. Punisher
  2. Rescuer
  3. Victim
  4. Saboteur
  5. Prostitute

Conclusion and Resources

• Universal Nature of Sabotage: Everyone sabotages themselves at some level; the differentiator is awareness versus insensitivity to the behavior.
• Summary of the Five Principles:
  1. Sabotage is a symptom.
  2. Recognition of conflicting ego parts.
  3. Understanding healing techniques (Discovery and Resolve).
  4. Transcending altered states.
  5. Resolving control issues.
• Further Education: JP Sears offers classes titled "Beyond Self Sabotage" in person and via teleclass. Information can be found at $holistichealthandfitness.com$.