Ran into an old friend who contacted me to counsel her on self sabotage last month. She was on her second marriage, leaving her first husband for someone taller, younger and more handsome. I know her first husband……a much more mature, hard working, ethical and responsible man compared to the second husband. She finally admitted that she wasn’t “too happy” and was starting to realize that she needed to change “her” somewhere in the equation, in order to find an increase in happiness. She was also getting older and knew that life could be better…. if she reached out to someone who always tells the truth. I noticed as well that she had breast implants, had on the latest fashions of the day and I know she spends 2 hours per day getting ready before she shows herself to the world etc etc. It takes a lot of courage to ask a self sabotage coach what the problems are and wait for the answer……..but she asked anyway. “What do you think the problem is Jay?” and I said…………..

“The primary issue is that you rely on everything external to you, from your shiny new husband to your brand new shoes, to say to the world………”look what I have”, as opposed to, “look who I am”. You dropped a better man for a lesser man because your self worth comes from outside of yourself (what you have) as opposed to your self worth coming from inside of yourself (what and who you are). People who know what they are, have no need to decorate anything with the external, although everyone likes to decorate at times. I told her that she keeps using stuff to validate her worth in a society of shallow and self centered living, trying to fit in with the dysfunctional masses who also compete with each other, based on the superficial projections of the material.

Our purchased stuff stops the viewer on the outside and sometimes stuff is nice to have……but what happens when we use “stuff” to make sure people never look into who we are? And why don’t we want them to look past our things? The more we decorate the outside, the more the inside rots from a lack of maintenance. I told her that instead of walking down the road screaming, “look at me, I have the right husband, the right purse, the right car, the right sized diamonds and the right shoes” it would be better to walk down the road and say “judge me on my actions and who I am, nothing else”. If you feel naked without your stuff, stop decorating the outside and start tending the inner garden. Without your stuff…….what are you? Who are you? I told her that if she didn’t work on this issue, she would die with all the right shoes in her closest and none of the right dharma in her heart. She thanked me for telling her the truth and went home to ponder the pain that the truth inflicted. Pain is a guardian, never a goblin. Sometimes it’s about facing the pain naked, as opposed to buying something else to cover it up.