Self-Sabotage Isn’t a Flaw. It’s a Clue.
You’re not lazy.
You’re not broken.
And you’re not “just bad at relationships.”
That thing you keep doing- the ghosting, the procrastinating, the picking fights right when things start feeling good? The way you shut down as soon as someone says they actually see you? That’s not you being a hot mess. That’s a younger part of you trying to protect the hell out of you.
It’s not dysfunction.
It’s protection dressed in panic.
And yeah, it can be a little loud. A little messy. A little inconvenient when you're trying to have a healthy relationship or build a life that doesn’t implode every six months. But that self-sabotage? It’s never random. It’s patterned. It's intelligent. It’s your nervous system throwing up a flare, whispering (or screaming): “This feels familiar. And last time, it hurt.”
Carl Jung said it best:
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
Translation? Your inner saboteur isn’t some chaotic gremlin hell-bent on ruining your life. It’s a part of you—often a very young part—working overtime to make sure you don’t get blindsided again. To make sure you’re not loved and then abandoned. Seen and then shamed. Safe and then suddenly not.
So how do you stop the cycle?
Not by shaming that part. Not by wrestling it into silence.
But by turning toward it. With curiosity. With compassion. With the kind of tenderness you wish someone had offered you when that wound was made.
You say,
“I see you.”
“I know you’re scared.”
“I know you’re trying to help me.”
“And I’m okay now. We’re okay now. We don’t need to do that anymore.”
Healing isn’t about becoming a better version of yourself so you can finally be “enough.”
It’s about realizing you were never the problem.
Your reactions made sense. They kept you alive. They got you through.
But you don’t have to keep surviving the same way.
You get to choose differently now.
Not by force, but by invitation.
Not by denying the parts of you that sabotage, but by folding them in, letting them soften, and showing them that it’s safe to do something new.
This is what we do in the therapy room.
We don’t beat down your defenses- we get to know them.
We give them a voice, not a muzzle.
And from there? That’s where the magic starts.
Want help decoding your sabotage patterns and finally doing life, love, and healing differently?
Come find me. I work with people who are done repeating the same story.
Let’s write a new one together.