Episode 360: How To Overcome Self-Sabotage
By Sahara Rose

[00:12]
Namaste. It’s Sahara Rose and welcome back to The Highest Self Podcast, a place where we discuss what makes You, Your Soul’s Highest Evolvement.
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[00:20] Advertisement
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[02:18] End of Advertisement
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[02:19]
I am really excited to talk about the conversation we’re going to be having today because it’s a topic that came up in my recent Discover Your Dharma Virtual Q&A workshop, which will be available for you now, when you join my 21-Day Dharma Discovery Journey. But, in this Q&A workshop, a question that came up and continuously comes up is How Do We Overcome Self-Sabotage?

[02:46]
So, I wanted to share a little download of this on today’s Episode, and more about it is in my book “Discover Your Dharma”.

[02:54]
So, first of all, what is self-sabotage? It sounds like something you would not want to do to yourself. I remember when I first heard the term self-sabotage, I was like “Why would someone do that?” I didn’t fully even understand what it meant, I thought is it someone who hates themself and wants to torment themselves, why would anyone do that? I’m trying to live my best life.

[03:16]
So, I think a lot of us, we feel like “Oh, I wouldn’t self-sabotage because I want to be successful”, however, we all self-sabotage to some levels and some degrees, and as we become more aware of it, we can catch these patterns and no longer give into them, but when it is in the unconscious, we continually make decisions that sabotage our growth.

[03:42]
So, the term sabotage, I feel like this is really an intense term to give it. It’s just I feel like what people call it in the psychology, self-help space, but to sabotage something is essentially to prevent it from happening. And truthfully, the only person who could ever sabotage you is yourself. We are the only people who are capable of preventing ourselves from getting somewhere and no externality or your outside person can withhold us unless we are withholding ourselves.

[04:14]
So, when we self-sabotage, which we all do to some degree, we make choices that are not in alignment with our highest good. They keep us playing small, they minimize our growth. I actually did this really funny TikTok reel just yesterday and I don’t know if you guys heard that funny satire song “Hello, is this available; stop contacting me”, anyways, it’s this funny little reel thing that went viral, and in it I pretended to be someone who is asking their highest self for guidance of how do I find my soul’s purpose; how do I live my Dharma; how do I express my fullest potential? And then our highest self showing us all that we are capable of and then we’re overwhelmed by it, distract ourselves, get on our phones, minimize ourselves, and this is exactly what self-sabotage is. It is saying you want to grow and be successful, and I mean, if you’re listening to this Podcast, of course you want to actualize your highest self, but what are the things that are keeping us from doing it? And some of these things you may not even be aware of. So, that is essentially what self-sabotage is.

[05:24]
Now, when I was really tapping into why people do this, why I have done this, I really came down to two main reasons. The first reason is this sentiment of “Well I’m going to fuck this up anyways, so I might as well not try it”. So, let’s say you really want to write a book and you could see this book on the shelves of the bookstores, you could see people’s lives being transformed by it, you could see your story helping so many people, you really want this book to happen and you’re manifesting and you’re putting on your vision board and you’re praying for it and you’re tapping on and you’re doing all the things but the book is still not happening – why? Well, because every single time you sit down and start writing, you start judging yourself and say “I’m not even a good writer, no one’s going to read this. This is going to be too much work, this is not going to work out. I’m not good enough, I don’t want to fail an expectation so I’m going to stop doing this now because I don’t want to waste my effort and even if I tried, it’s going to fail”.
So, this is such a common thing that we all do. I think, all humans, to some degree, have a fear of overworking. We have this fear of not wanting to “waste efforts” or put energy towards something that’s not going to work out, but the thing is, living your Dharma is that. You’re going to have to put energy towards something that has not yet happened. You do not have proof over it. So, it may seem like you’re wasting efforts but how is your book ever going to get off the ground if you don’t put energy towards it? And of course you don’t have the book deal or anything figured out or you might not be the world’s best writer right now, but the only way that you can become all of those things is to continually try, try, try.

[07:12]
So, I think of our school system, we have kind of trained ourselves to do the bare minimum – how do I just get by; how do I just cram in the information so I can get it on the test and move on? So, we have this fear of putting in energy, putting in effort, and then also, some of us continue this in the workspace of pretending to look like you’re working so your boss doesn’t fire you or again, doing the least but not going above and beyond. And I see this happening so much and when you ask these people why, they say “Oh, well, this isn’t in alignment with my Dharma”, essentially, in other words “I really don’t know if I want to be doing this. I’m not paid enough to be doing this” but the only way they can get those things is by putting in the effort.
So, if this is you, you are someone who maybe considers yourself “lazy” or a procrastinator or you don’t want to try something that’s not going to work, which brings us into perfectionism (which is the next topic I’m going to dive into), then catch yourself on this. You’re never going to become the best anything, your best self, if you don’t put in effort. So, instead of being so afraid of expending more energy, create more energy. You know, there are so many ways that you can create energy – what are the things that energize you? Do more of those things – dance, sing, meditate, walk outside, and now use that energy towards taking action on your highest self.

[08:35]
So, the second thing that I wanted to get to was – I feel like the deeper reason why so many of us are self-sabotaging is because we have this fear of the enormity of our souls. And I actually write about this extensively in “Discover Your Dharma”, my new book.
But I noticed in myself that when I was writing “Discover Your Dharma” which is, by far, my life’s work to this date, I really poured my full self into it for almost 2 years. And I would notice that I would be in this writing flow and it was coming through me and coming through me and then suddenly I’d be like “I need to eat a snack. I need to check my phone. I need to go to the bathroom”, something would come up that would take me away from writing, which didn’t make sense. I was in a writing flow but it felt like heat or pressure, like all of this heat moving through me and all this energy moving through me that my energy body almost couldn’t handle it at the time. So it would try to take me away from the experience because that was what was safe and familiar.
So now, what I realized what was happening, and I share in the book more, is that living your Dharma is going to require you to be in a higher frequency that you have ever been in, in your entire life, since you were a child.

[10:00]
So, that feels very unfamiliar to our ego; it is more extensive than we have ever been before and it’s unknown territory. Now, our ego, our lower brain, our survival brain, it wants to stay in the comfort of known territory. So, when your soul is expanding, when you are streamed into the cosmic source of information that we all have access to channel through us and you are expanding and you are coming up with ideas that you could’ve never. It feels like such a huge pool of information that you’re sitting in that your ego is like “Oh my God, I can’t handle this, let me get myself out of it by saying she needs a snack, saying she needs to lie down, saying she needs to check her phone; something to distract her and take her out of the enormity of what she’s becoming” because when you sit in that fire, you become a more expansive person.

[10:54]
So, it’s almost like when you are having a difficult conversation with someone and all you want to do is get out of the conversation and run away but if you can just really be there and listen and move through it and say the things that you really have a tough time saying and hear the things that you have a really tough time hearing and you can be in that fire, you’re going to walk away having such a healed relationship and healed sense of self.

[11:24]
So, a lot of times we are self-sabotaging because of this reason; because living our Dharma is going to expand us to unfamiliar territory and it’s too much for our ego to grasp so it pushes it away. So going back to that reel I made of we say, we pray to our guides to show us our highest selves and it shows us everything that we’re capable of, it’s like “You’re here to bring compassion to the world” and we’re like “Oh my God, that means I have to feel all the things”, like “No, let me numb myself with videos and random things online because I can’t handle holding compassion for the world.”

[12:01]
So, when you fully realize your Dharma, you realize how big it is. No one here is born to be ordinary, no one is born here to be normal, there’s no such thing. You were born to be weird – weird essentially means distinct, it means different, it means yourself. So, living your Dharma is going to require you to step into unfamiliar territory. So, catch yourself when your ego is trying to confine you and keep you playing small and make you run around in loops which, 3 years from now you’re going to be “Wait, why didn’t I take action when I knew what to do?”

[12:39]
I want to share with you a story and we’ll end it at this. But I was watching these videos and someone shared that they were getting letters from different people later on in their lives of “What were your biggest regrets of living?” And this guy said “I became a lawyer in my late 20s and I knew within the first month of being a lawyer that I hated doing this. It’s not in alignment with my truth, I did not want to do it. So I told my friends and family, I don’t know I really just don’t want to be a lawyer” and they’re like “Wait, are you kidding? You just spent 8 years trying to become a lawyer, you can’t drop this now, you’ve got to keep it up”, so he was like “Okay, yeah, you’re right, I went to college, I went to law school, I did all these things to become a lawyer so I might just stick it through”. So he did, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, 50 years later and he still regretted it. And he said “I wish I was brave enough to change my career path when I knew that first month of being a lawyer because instead of wasting 8 years, I wasted 50 years.”

[13:48]
So that my friends, is an example of the type of self-sabotage that we unknowingly do. We’re told by society to stick it out, tough it up, no one likes their job, no one likes what they’re doing, that’s what #adulting is all about, and then you’ll catch yourself in your retirement saying “I never got to truly do what I wanted to do”.

[14:11]
So, I’m on a mission to prevent that from happening to as many people as possible. So, if you’ve been waiting for a sign, consider it this.

[14:20]
Now, if you are wanting to take the next step, you feel overwhelmed by all of the potential paths that you could take, you’re needing more clarity, you’re really wanting to take action towards your Dharma, you just don’t know what that thing is right now, then I invite you to join me for my 21-Day Dharma Discovery Journey.
This course literally breaks it down step-by-step over 21 days. Each day, less than 10 minutes, you can do it on your phone. I have journal prompts and little exercises for every single day so it’s really easy to follow along with. By the end of the 21 days, you’re going to have a very clear sense of what your Dharma is and an action plan so you can know where to focus your energy.
So, head over to the show notes to find that link and I’m soul excited to have you inside. You could also find it on my website iamsahararose.com and I am soul excited to have you inside.

[15:13]
If you loved this Episode, I would love to send you a free gift which is the first half of my unreleased book “Eat Right for Your Mind-Body Type“. This is a different book than “Eat Feel Fresh“. My first book ever which is not released anywhere, and I am gifting it exclusively to those who leave a review of my Podcast in the iTunes store. So all you’ve got to do is head over to iTunes where you’re maybe listening to this podcast and leave a review, take a screenshot that you’ve left it and email it over to me at [email protected] and I will send you back the first half of my unreleased book “Eat Right for Your Mind-Body Type“, which goes all into Ayurveda, Doshas, Plant-Based Nutrition, Body Types – all of the things in a really fun and engaging way. So this is my gift to you for free for supporting the Podcast. Every single review I personally read. It really helps the Podcast be listened to by more people so we can raise the vibration of the planet together, and I am soul grateful to have you on this journey.

Thank you so much for listening and I’ll see you on the next Episode. Namaste.

Episode 360: How To Overcome Self-Sabotage
By Sahara Rose