I consider myself to be an expert in Conscious Relating, on the basis that I have made every possible mistake in my relationships, and devised all manner of sabotaging programs to escape from them!
There are various self-sabotaging programs we can use in order to protect ourselves, to avoid rejection or to be really honest with ourselves.
Paradoxically, after employing any of these patterns we usually end up hurt, rejected or deceiving of ourselves. We forget very quickly that it is we that have created that reality for ourselves or we never admit it to ourselves in the first place. We end up blaming the other person and positioning ourselves as a victim of the situation we have ultimately created.
The bigger the commitment, the greater the potential to end up in a flight or panic response, creating various stories and scenarios in our mind, that hold us back from fully stepping in and opening up to receiving love.
The more powerful the love that we feel, the greater the fear of losing it. It is this fear which activates the “rescue programs” (read sabotage) that are supposed to protect us from our potential suffering.
If we are afraid of rejection, we do the rejecting. If we are afraid of someone hurting us, we attack. If we are afraid of someone being dishonest, we have started to lie to ourselves.
All those mechanisms are designed to protect us. When we protect ourselves, we build walls around us. We hide inside, we withdraw, we shut down. We pull back behind a protective shield. We not only lock ourselves in, but also we lock in our problems, blockages, diseases, disallowing them to leave our body and to set us free. Michael A. Singer in his book “The Untethered Soul” describes how this action closes our energy centres. We become unreceptive and insensitive. But we want to defend the concepts, not our body. We lock our illnesses inside ourselves and it can only worsen. If we constantly protect ourselves, we can never be free, we will never grow and we can never fully receive.
The only way to heal is to stay open, at all cost. Every program is activated by association with a bad memory from the past. For instance, our partner had a bad day and is very cold with us. We start to associate it with our past relationship where coldness was a signal for a lack of love. We start to panic, we take it personally and make it all about us. Our mind creates a story: He doesn’t love me anymore, it is going to be over, again I am going to suffer. The story activates fear. And fear activates a sabotaging program. I am afraid of rejection so I will reject first. We are only ever afraid of those things that we are capable of doing ourselves. When we become cold to the person who was distant with us because of a bad day at work, we create even more distance.
Another person who does not have any bad attachments or memories of coldness and a lack of affection would simply leave a space for the partner and focus on something else. That person would be confident enough to not take it personally and he/she would wait until it passes. Each of us has different memories and different triggers that activate different fears. There are also different sabotaging programs. And the only way to liberate ourselves from them is to become aware of them, and to take a conscious decision to let go. We can only choose to let go when the program is activated. The more it stays active, the harder it is to let go. With a bit of practice, it gets easier and easier to recognise the stories our mind creates from a place of fear. It is important to prevent these patterns and programs from polluting our relationships.
If we are closed, we are unable to receive. We are unable to receive what other people want to give us but also we can’t receive our own love. If we close, we not only block the connection with the person who activated our program, but with anyone else. In our relationships with other people we start to crave depth, connection and openness. By not opening we constantly hurt and reject ourselves.
What are some of the different types of self-sabotaging programs? Let me tell you about those I have experienced myself and believe me, my creativity doesn’t only shine through my work, it also shines in all my subconscious creations. My mind was very creative with all the techniques I would use to not let people in and to not fully open up.
The first program I have experienced is “to run away”, a flight response. Whenever I am triggered by a situation that connects me to unexpressed, or unreleased energies from the past that might activate a fear of rejection I go to a flight response. Unconsciously I believe that if I reject first I won’t be rejected. I become the very source of rejection not only of the other person but of myself. Our deepest desire is to love and be loved, but paralysed by fear we don’t allow ourselves to either give it or receive it. We run away before love gets too strong. Have you ever experienced being triggered by someone and thinking about jumping on the first plane or train to leave the situation? Well this is exactly how this program works. And the only way to free ourselves from it, is to realise we are in a program and to consciously decide to let go of it.
The fear of rejection was my biggest fear in relationship. This fear didn't only activate the program “to run away” but also other programs that are designed to convince someone to push us away, so we can reaffirm our self-sabotaging beliefs.
Another strategy I have discovered is a program in which I am “looking for problems”. I have looked for small things in a relationship to make big problems out of them. We start to criticise and blame our partners for our unhappiness, frustration, or irritation. We start to communicate that he/she is not making us happy. If there is any frustration, irritation of unhappiness inside of us, it can be only about ourselves. We start to complain more and more, focusing on everything that bothers us. We look for constant conflicts. We do it because we feel insecure and we look for confirmation and reassurance that the other loves us. We are unable though to be honest with ourselves about it so we try to convince ourselves that the relationship is not working. Sure enough, if this is what we believe, then guess what experience this will create for us..
If that technique hasn’t ‘worked’ with our partner we might try “the attack technique”. It is a more violent version of the one above. We literally try to pick a fight. We do it to shake our partner, to feel his emotions, to see if he stills care about us. We try to fight to provoke a reaction. We want someone to fight for us. We are so insecure in our own skin that we will do anything to draw out someone’s feelings. Sadly, it only brings us more separation. Every single time, we feel guilty for initiating the drama.
If our partner is unreactive to these techniques above we might try “numbing”. We start to feel less and less, we desensitise ourselves. We start to doubt our love, and through the numbness we start to lose the physical attraction we once had, we become insensitive. All of that is to dampen our ability to feel too much. To ‘protect ourselves from being hurt’. We close ourselves and start to build walls around ourselves to not let the other person in. We block giving and receiving. When our observes and communicates that we are off, we are ready to ignore it and remain in denial. We literally can’t feel our own closure. We start to believe that the relationship might be over as we don’t feel anything anymore. But it is only a way to escape. Sooner or later when we open up again, those feeling will all come out and we will realise all the lies we were telling to ourselves. Sometimes it might be too late. We and only we are the reasons for our own pain. We always have a choice.
Another self-sabotaging program is the narrative of “it is too good to be true”. We are so attached to what has happened to us in the past that we struggle to believe that our future can be different. Our main mantra in this program is : “Here we go again”. We believe we don’t deserve happiness, we are not worthy or not lovable. Our beliefs are a self-fulfilling prophecy. We create the reality we are so afraid of. No matter how wonderful our partner is, and how much he says he loves us. We won’t believe it. We close ourselves in our dark, pessimistic vision of our future that we are creating from a place of fear.
I realised that I didn’t even know what it means to be open. What does it feel like to be open? Maybe I was simply afraid of the unknown rather than being rejected. I was afraid of how much I could really feel. Maybe this whole time I was stopping myself from receiving the biggest gift from life. Love.
I realise we all are love and if we are not in our natural state. We suffer.
Love is.
Fear is trying to escape, rejecting, harming or denying. Love holds someone in your arms when they try to run away. Love is reassurance in the face of doubts. Love is to be the truth to the self-deception. Love is stand in certainty while the other pushes away. Love is to see through the criticism and the blame for the lies that they are. Love it to realise that anything else is fear. Love is the opening of our heart and the heart of the other.
I have committed to opening my heart and to letting go of all those programs. I am committed both to my partner, and I am committed to Love. I committed to liberating myself from all that was closing me from fully experiencing this world.
Are you open to receiving love?
What are the sabotaging programs that you are aware of? Please share.
Are you ready to let go of them, once and for all?