Ok. Who took the weekend away and replaced it with monday? I enjoy writing and try to have something for monday morning if for no other reason than it helps to keep me writing. I also have come to realize how much of a gift it is to have others out there in the ether interested in my musings and what started as my own journal is also an inlet for others.

I remember having a thought that monday was quickly approaching but i completely lost track this time. Aptly relevant and the reason for this post.

Sabotage can occur at any time and in any part of life.

But i’m not talking about corporate sabotage or terrorist activities. What i want to talk about is far far worse and more destructive than i could have ever imagined. Why? Because it is deeply personal to each and every one of us.

What is this incredible thing?

It’s the sabotage i do to myself. Self-sabotage. That dastardly, sometimes insidious process of ruining myself.

I use today’s blog as an offering. I knew i wanted to writing something and usually i just brainstorm my current life or pull out a draft and get to work on it over the weekend. This time I didn’t. I’m still not really sure what happened. One moment I was thinking about it, the next i was reading a book or watching some anime. As the weekend was coming to a close i thought about it again but distracted by something else, whoosh, out of the mind the thought went. I hesitate to even think about procrastination. It’s not that i don’t procrastinate, it’s just that i don’t really procrastinate when i’m writing. I really enjoy writing. Initially i was working on a draft, a draft that i have been procrastinating on. I wonder if i didn’t want to work on it so much that i let myself not do it. Hence, self-sabotage.

As i realized that i hadn’t published anything i kept asking myself why i didn’t just switch to something else and work on that. I wonder if it was a ‘self-cry for help’, my new idea of a therapeutic self-sabotage.

I believe i forced myself to have to examine why i haven’t finished that damn entry i’ve been putting off by NOT having something. Then i started mentally tripping thinking that i as my subconscious may have not have let me do something to get my conscious to acknowledge something i was trying not to think about. Yup. Trippy.

Moving on.

Self-sabotage is the topic. And yes, i think procrastination can be an extension of this. Sometimes i can catch myself before the end and finish something before i have to kick myself for missing a deadline, something that i do do. It’s the “if i had just called (personX)” or “if i had just texted/sent that email” type of feeling. You can have plain procrastination without the self-sabotage but you need to pull hard on introspection, honest introspection, to make that call for yourself.

Could breaking up with someone long-term be an example? The cold feet so strong that you’d rather lose what you have instead of having to move forward?

The motivations and expressions of the SS (self-sabotage since i’m tired of writing it) appear to be numerous. In the previous example the motivation might be fear (cold feet) with the expression of 1. doing something stupid and hurtful as the nidus for one of the people in the relationship to call it quits (like picking a stupid fight that is out of proportion to the breakup); 2. just plain calling it quits and running away without ever taking the time to understand the motivation; 3. hopefully not just walking away without even saying goodbye.

I would bet that all of these have been used at some point and many others that i haven’t quickly thought about. It might also be the poke of the subconscious that you don’t think it is working and you want out but don’t want to admit it consciously which isn’t SS but can still be motivated by fear. As i just don’t like the idea of hurting someone else i can see how this could be.

Perhaps (probably) also motivated by fear, the SS can show up at work by not taking a promotion or in a social way by not dressing up. Yes it is superficial to feel good by dressing up. So what?! This is a way to keep telling yourself that you aren’t attractive or wanted when you would otherwise have to deal with interpersonal interactions which scares you. Think of the movies where some frumpy or unattractive person, generally a woman, is given a new life with a better haircut, clothes, makeup, etc. The initial battle is mental with the self-perception of being frumpy/unattractive until they believe.

I see fear as the common motivator as i can’t really think of anything else that would cause someone to self-sabotage. At times i might see and know that i’m sabotaging myself and at others it might be so subtle that i don’t catch it. A struggle to be sure to stay mentally strong.

If you have a thought on another motivator, your own examples or examples of what others have done, feel free to share.

-Santa’s Fallen Angel

p.s. Didn’t mean to be tardy.