- If you notice in yourself that there's a part of you
that at times might self-sabotage relationships, maybe
'cause you feel yourself get anxious
or you feel like your mind spins
and it considers all these possibilities.
Or maybe you get triggered and you explode
and then later you regret it
and you think, ah, what am I doing today?
I wanna share with you a rarely discussed reason why we
self-sabotage and share with you a psychological tool
that you can use to overcome it.
Because when we're in a new great relationship
and our heart is opening
and we're expanding, it's really common actually that
for all of us to go through patterns of wanting
to maybe push back, pull back, or sabotage the relationship.
The difference is those who can overcome
that self-sabotage know how to use this particular tool.
So what does self-sabotage look like?
Well, let me give you an example.
One of my clients recently was, is very self-aware.
And she said, Matt, I know that I self-sabotage.
How can I manage this?
I'm dating this guy, things are going really well.
He went away for the weekend and my mind is just spinning.
He was late when he was gonna text me back.
He's back in town now. He wants to connect.
I'm feeling this energy of wanting
to like kind of push him away.
That's classic self-sabotage.
You know, no relationship is perfect.
So maybe he breaks an agreement or is kind of late to call
or text and the mind thinks, well,
he might be off with somebody else.
And you get jealous inside.
And so you begin, you don't communicate it,
but you push him away, you punish him.
So he feels that you've pulled back.
So he pulls back and the two of you argue.
And then in the beginning of the relationship,
because there isn't a strong enough connection,
the thing kind of dissolves away
and disintegrates that self-sabotage.
So let me give you another example.
Maybe you're gonna meet your boyfriend for dinner
and they had to stay late at work.
And so they're a few minutes late to dinner,
maybe 15, 20 minutes late.
And for whatever reason, that just triggers you.
And so you want to be nice,
but you just feel angry at your boyfriend.
And so you kind of stay quiet all night.
You're a little bit cold throughout dinner.
And then when they bring it up, you explode on them
and you lay into them and you say, you always stay out late.
We work, it's always a priority over us.
And like you say, things that you regret,
they say things they regret and it creates distance
and a wedge in that relationship.
So what can you do if you're finally in a great relationship
to make sure that a self-sabotage pattern doesn't get the
best of this relationship?
Well, one of my mentors, his name is Dr. Gay Hendricks,
he is a PhD from Stanford.
He came up with this beautiful psychological principle
called the upper limit problem.
Just like a thermostat, imagine a thermostat in your home
and how you set that thermostat to a certain temperature.
If the temperature in that room gets too hot,
the thermostat registers that it kicks in,
air conditioning brings the temperature back
into the range that you set.
Temperature of the room gets too cold, thermostat senses, it
kicks on the heater, brings it back up
to the temperature that you set it.
Well, you and I have a thermostatic setting for the amount
of love that we allow and experience in our lives.
This thermostatic setting lives in our subconscious mind.
Every one of us has a thermostatic setting for the amount
of love, positive energy, joy, happiness that we feel.
And here's what's wild. If whatever your normal is,
if you exceed that
because you're in a new amazing relationship,
and so you're experiencing more intimacy,
you're experiencing more joy, more love, your amount
of positive energy goes up your thermostat
because it hasn't been recalibrated yet, we'll go off
and say, whoop, whoop, whoop,
we've got more love than we're used to.
And it will kick in the air conditioner, so to speak.
You're self-sabotage to bring
that love right back down into normal.
So step number one, how do you spot it?
You implement a principle called notice
what you're noticing.
And so you become aware of
what you're noticing as it's happening.
You become aware of the thoughts that you're thinking,
are they aligned with what you want
of the feelings that you're having?
And here's what you notice. Notice when you have a thought
that rejects love
or when you have a thought that whatever your pattern is,
if it's jealousy, if your mind is spinning, notice it
and think to yourself, oh,
was I experiencing higher levels of love?
Right before this, my mom shared a story with me
that is a perfect illustration of this,
and she was talking about noticing what she was noticing
because she got remarried,
she'd been married 15 years, great guy.
And when she first got married, she's so happy.
She was on cloud nine
and one day she's walking through the bedroom
and there's a sock on the floor.
And she thought to herself, oh,
well Joe is usually such a clean guy.
It's one of the things I love about him.
And now there's this sock on the floor.
We've been only married a few weeks,
maybe this is a new pattern.
You know, what if, what if this is actually,
he's relaxing now
and he's gonna completely change who he is.
And maybe this relationship isn't what I thought.
It wasn't like all these, like it all happens real fast.
You know, you've experienced this. It's all just kind
of thunders away in your mind.
And the fear generates. And she went, wait a minute.
Oh, what was I feeling right before this?
And she goes, right before this, she was thinking,
I've never been so happy in my life in this relationship.
And she hit an upper limit
and was trying to dial her down by interpreting that sock
as a larger pattern that might destroy
the relationship and all this stuff.
So she picked up the sock through the laundry
and recalibrated, I'll show you
that technique in just a moment.
Another example of this, when my wife
and I were dating long distance, there was a moment
where I was gonna move down to California
to give this relationship a shot.
See if we were, how, what it takes to actually get married.
We're talking about that. And I finally made the decision
and we made it together.
And I'm gonna move down there
instead of her moving to Oregon.
And the next week I'm talking about where I'm gonna live
and the plans that we're gonna make.
And, and she says this to the, on the phone, she goes,
you know, Matt, I know you're moving down here,
but I just want you to know, know,
like I'm not gonna be able to see you all the time.
And I'm going, okay. You know, I'm, I work full time.
Like it's all good. I'm, and she goes,
and I might not be able to talk
to you on the phone like as much as you want.
And so I asked her, I said, what, what's going on?
I don't wanna move down there
and see you less than I'm seeing you now in Oregon.
Like, check in. What? What are you feeling right now?
And she checked in and she goes, you know what?
I'm actually feeling fear.
And the fear is that if you move down here,
you might propose before I'm ready.
And so I reassured her in that moment.
I said, look, I don't know if we're meant to be together.
I'm not ready to propose either we're on the same page.
Let's just explore it and see how this goes.
So what was happening, we were both at an upper limit
and she was expressing that upper limit that, oh,
we're about to have more time than she was used to.
More connection, more love, more intimacy, all of that.
And her body was reacting with fear.
And so we both had to recalibrate ourselves to allow
that relationship to be in our lives.
So how do you do that? First step is
to notice when you're in it
and to think, oh, am I anticipating?
Was I either just having more love in my life
or am I anticipating more love?
And so that's triggering this thermostat.
If that's the case, then what you wanna do in that moment
is take a nice deep breath in and close your eyes
and open your arms wide.
You imagine that your heart is like this funnel
that's allowing positive energy from
spirit into your heart space.
You wanna open your heart wide, open your arms
and kind of move your shoulders back and forth.
And this creates room, energetic space.
And you take a deep breath in and you expand your heart
and you say to yourself, I am expanding in love
and positive energy and joy in this moment right now.
I'm expanding the love and positive energy
and joy in my life right now.
And you say that three times
and that begins to reset the amount of love
and positive energy and joy you allow into your life.
And what's beautiful is you do that.
You'll just keep climbing higher and higher and higher.
And there's no limit to the amount of love and joy
and positive energy that you can experience.
The only limit is the upper limit
that we place on ourselves.
If you notice that pattern of self-sabotage, notice it.
Lean into it. Expand your own energy first.
And if there's a conversation that needs to happen in
that relationship, have that conversation.
But know this, you are in a hundred percent control
of the amount of positive energy, joy,
and love that you both attract, create and experience.
So I appreciate you. I hope this serves you.
Thanks for watching. I'll see you soon.