Talking to a lady last week who can’t control what she eats at night (she eats chip almost every night…..even though she declares that wants to stop eating them), which indicates that past trauma is in play within the psyche. During the day, we are filled with third party distractions and obligations, which are also very painful in many cases……and that’s why people love high glycemic carbs, coffees or candies etc to help them sedate to that particular pain. The pain of rushes through our lives, often disconnected from what’s really important. The pain we often tranquilize is tied to a directionless, meaningless and repetitive existence. Although harsh, that’s often the truth most people are avoiding on some level. The great thing about facing such truth is also understanding that everyone has unique gifts and talents, which can make them extremely satisfied and happy, if they can muster the courage to let those talents shine through.
Often when we come home from our busy body lives, our world slows down and the quick pace gives way. That’s when our “stored trauma” tries to come to the surface, so we can deal with it and allow it to leave our system……in an emotional eruption equal to what we’ve been storing all these years. The more we ignore the signals from our bodies and the more we drive those negative emotions back down into the abyss, the more pressure that builds for them to explode outwards when we slow down or when we’re free of sedation. The healthier we are, the more we’re able to clear our negative emotions, as they rise upwards and outwards each day. Although this process of dealing with our pain feels less “fun” than avoiding the pain, it makes us healthier and happier in the long run. A person who deals with reality, manifests an easier life, as the years pass. A person who avoids reality, manifests a life that’s harder as they age. If we falsely believe that our pain is a goblin and not a guardian, then we keep telling our pain to go away with the usual suspects………coffee, sugar, alcohol, junk food, nicotine, prescription, drugs, over the counter pain killers, narcotics etc. This of course not only drives the pain deeper inside of us, trapping it in the darkest part of our psyche, the drugs and chemicals we use to make us forget our pain………..only brings more pain. Sedating to our pain and trying to pretend it doesn’t exist (thus causing us even more pain) is one foundation of self sabotage.
Most people want no part of their negative emotions of course because our society has taught everyone that “happy” is the only way to live and that any negative emotions indicate a short circuit or mental imbalance. It’s a one season world here in North America, cotton candy skies and gum drop houses for everyone. Anything negative is bad. Focus on the good, keep smiling and be one more smiling depressive in the drone bot army. Your value in society is determined by your smiling acceptance of everything….including the irrational, illogical and unrealistic. Keep doing what doesn’t make you happy, only because everyone else is doing it. Being different will attract attack, ridicule and unwanted attention. Suffer in silence, don’t rock the boat, keep your head down, keep your nose to the grind stone, medicate, sedate, consume, smile, repeat. More coffee, more sugar, more wine, more stuff, more junk food, more shopping, more screen time, more looks based efforts to perfect the outer shell, more of everything, more of anything and more disconnection from self……as we tell ourselves that our negative emotions are never to be felt, trusted or processed. Divide ourselves from ourselves and everything will be great.
That’s the message radiating out to the public on a daily basis from our inverted and perverse society, producing a large army of heavily addicted and bewildered self sabotuers. Work a job you don’t enjoy, in order to buy things you don’t need, forget about your unique talents………and if all that doesn’t make you happy, there’s something wrong with you. All this explosive truth rises up because the body is designed to remind us of the truth when we sit down and be with ourselves unsedated, undistracted and untranquilized. Some people don’t like that sort of message, so they kill the messenger, which is their own bodies and their own emotions. That’s where the self sabotage comes in, to take the body’s emotions off line and to shut the nervous system down…….to go numb to reality, so we stay stuck in our stuckness and trapped in our daily routine that isn’t allowing us to live our true vocation. Oddly enough our negative emotions are our wisest teachers and carry important messages for us, so we can build a better life for ourselves in the future. As those “negative” emotions bubble up, we’re taught to drive them down with sedative pain killers like alcohol, sugar, ice cream, junk food, distraction, fake feel good emotions from the TV and other highly charged screen media that injects fake happiness directly into our brains etc. If your life doesn’t produce good time emotions, you can indeed eat them or watch them later that night on the tube. Never to worry right? Just tune out, go numb, have another drink, order in again, roll another joint, start sandwiching the addictions one on top of the other…….to knock your emotions back into the stone age where they belong. Don’t like that part of yourself that cries out in the middle of the night? Just murder that part of yourself and let the good times roll, right? What could possibly go wrong with pretending everything’s OK, when it’s not……….and using destructive chemical addictions to facilitate that pretending cycle? Look around, there’s lots going wrong but it doesn’t have to be this way. Self sabotage can be worked through but you need to be healthy to start the journey.
The lady I was talking to (who eats chips most nights) was offended because I hinted that she had to have unresolved issues (trauma), which needed to be dealt with because again our society has spun a very clever spider web to trap the public, making the population believe that negative emotions are bad because life’s a one season world here in North America……only happy. If you aren’t happy, you get happy. That’s how North Americans roll. Put that fake smile on your face and be happy for all the stuff you have, which doesn’t make you happy. That only makes sense if you don’ think about it. Everyone should be delighted when natural negative emotions seek them out because to sort through those will lay down a foundation of success for the future, as we learn to stop repeating the same mistakes over and over again.
Dealing with pain, helps us grow, evolve and ascend into the best versions of ourselves. Avoiding this growth or right of passage, traps us in a permanent childhood, which only compounds our disease, dysfunction and dis-empowerment. Living an adult life, inside a child psyche, is the equivalent to allowing a child to drive a large bus down a busy city street. Bad things happen. So the lady I was talking to (who eats chips almost every night) said aggressively to me, “so you’re saying I have issues?“, which means in human language, “don’t come any closer, my negative emotions are just under the surface and I really don’t want to explore them right now……or ever, that’s why I eat chips and sedate at night……..because I IGNORE THINGS!. How dare you interfere with my ignoring!” She then added, “so you’re saying I don’t eat chips because I love chips?” And I said, “if you love foods that kill you, foods that make you overweight and foods that make you LESS on all levels……….don’t you think loving something like that is an issue all on its’ own? Wouldn’t loving your worst life qualify as an issue? And beyond that obvious flaw in the logic, I think you’re distracting yourself and sedating yourself to some long over due internal work that really needs to be done here emotionally. You need to embrace this transformation and right of passage for yourself, to help you move from child to adult. You need to stop eating chips and allow your pain to rise up, to eventually leave your system.”
And of course after that sort of truth was spoken, all hell broke loose because the ego will do anything possible to avoid looking in the mirror and growing. It was my job as a self sabotage coach to bump her down the road and she will one day process what I said, thus helping her move down the path a couple more miles. Sometimes as a coach, you simply move the client along, knowing that real healing is years away but also knowing you need to put your foot in their back and give them a big push. Unfortunately many people want to be lied to. I can’t do that and it’s not productive to lie to people anyway, regardless of situation. The ego is great at getting us to a certain point in our life but then it becomes stuck in patterns that no longer serve our continued evolution. This lady is stuck and unless she can thank her ego for its’ past service and release those dysfunctional coping mechanisms, she will stay stuck and die a very premature and painful death. A death that’s quite common in North America unfortunately because everyone is traumatized to the nth degree, most people are highly sedated and the vast majority don’t want to undergo the natural progression of moving from child to adult……..which will always involve shining a light into our own darkness. If you want to have a “meet and greet” with your own repressed pain, simply get healthy and it will rise to the surface all on its’ own. It is rises up, feel the pain and bathe in it. Listen to the message. Then change, evolve and transform into a better version of yourself. May you find the courage and bravery sometime in your life to make this happen.
Hi you asked for comments about this and self sabotage, I was a sexual assault victim, before that I was a victim of social programming. I eat a very restrictive diet, it’s unhealthy for body and mind. I know this, I also know it’s a trauma based issue, the bottom line is I didn’t feel I deserved to eat food any food, when I did I would eat things and sit there wondering why I was eating things I didn’t enjoy, I didn’t like the taste in my mouth. Then punishment in the gym not eating for the rest of the day. For my children and husband I scratch cook as much real food as I can I buy organic local where its available, I am now taking back control one day at a time, sometimes it’s one hour at a time, I try to eat more than once a day, most days it’s a running battle. I deserve to be who I am. The self sabotage sneaks in other ways but from your article I believe your understanding of the this is on the money.