How to Identify and Deal with Your Inner Saboteurs
Written by Marcus Narsaiya, Registered Clinical Counsellor (RCC), Vancouver B.C.
What is a Saboteur?
A Saboteur may appear as a negative, thought or intention, a limiting belief, or a condescending doubt that makes us question our capacity, potential, self-worth, and ultimately limits us from reaching our full potential. All saboteurs come from a need to avoid past pains, however, when they operate unchecked, they become rigid and constricting. Further, Saboteurs are passed from parent to child unconsciously if they are not worked through and disarmed, meaning there is intergenerational transmission. Humans have always had a way of working against their self-interests.
Historically Sigmund Freud (An Austrian Neurologist, born in 1856) had coined the term “Death Drive”, a turning away from life or denial of one’s life force (1922), but today we use the term Saboteurs.
All Saboteurs stem from the “Judge and his accomplices” (Chamine, 2012). The" “Judge” is considered the master saboteur, orchestrating their actions with “9 accomplices”. The Judge resides within our psyche and whispers fears into our heads via his accomplices, trapping us into patterns of failure and creating letdowns.
Here are the Judge’s 9 accomplices:
The Stickler – strives for perfection and cannot settle for less, sabotaging learning and growth
Hypervigilant – relies on anxiety instead of establishing trust or pursuing relaxation, sabotaging safety
Hyper-Achiever – pursues fresh external validation instead of feeling pride, sabotaging self-worth
Pleaser – sacrifices personal needs and comforts for others where unnecessary, sabotaging personal caretaking
Victim – accepts pity as alleviation for distress, sabotaging resilience
Hyper-Rational - places logic as superior instead of equal to emotion, sabotaging the validation of our emotional needs
Control – an inability to delegate trust sabotages healthy dependency and collaboration
Restless – seeking stimulation and excitement instead of contentment sabotages happiness
Avoider – denying discomfort and unease traps one in procrastination, sabotaging the present with the past
Identifying our inner Saboteur requires reflection and insight. Journalling and tracking our thoughts allows us to identify negative themes and patterns where they might otherwise go unnoticed. Once we identify our Saboteurs, we can work with them therapeutically by reconciling with the pain that motivates them and diminishing their control over us.
Working with Our Saboteurs
Understanding our Saboteurs entails understanding where they came from, and what protective functions they’ve served. Often, our Saboteurs come from experiences of disempowerment, or disempowerment experienced by proxy from a disempowered parent or relative. Once we come to understand our Saboteurs, we can thank them for their protective concern, but choose to grow past our historically imposed limitations using our inner Sage emotional reasoning skills
Here are the 5 Sage skills that help to deal with our saboteurs:
Empathy – for personal adversity, we exercise self-compassion
Exploration – embracing uncertainty, we remain open-minded to new perspectives
Innovation – employing creativity we challenge adversity with novel approaches
Navigation – with authenticity we turn to our values as an inner compass
Activation – taking a step towards the life you wish to have, we start by executing a single task towards your goal, right now
Reconciling with our Saboteurs and fostering new relationships that allow us to step into our unlimited potential is a gradual process of letting go and working through that doesn’t happen overnight – but it starts with a single compassionate self-thought and is followed up with belief in your better-self. Your therapist can be your greatest ally in helping you overcome your Saboteurs and keep track of your progress and successes, but it starts with a decision not to let Saboteurs stop you from achieving what is important
Book a free consult today with Boundless Heart Counselling Group or bring your negative beliefs to your existing therapist. Let’s start navigating your path to your future successes today by discussing your Saboteurs and how you’d like to overcome them.
Suggested Further Reading:
Wiest, B. (2020). The Mountain is You: Transforming Self-Sabotage Into Self-Mastery. Unabridged Thought Catalog Books.
References:
Chamine, S. (2012). Positive intelligence: Why only 20% of teams and individuals achieve their true potential and how you can achieve yours. Greenleaf Book Group Press.
Freud, S., & Jones, E. (Ed.). (1922). Beyond the pleasure principle. (C. J. M. Hubback, Trans.). The International Psycho-Analytical Press.
