The Mental Health Message | By: Dr. Porsha Dodson
You know that phenomenon where we find ourselves engulfed in a good thing and start to experience nervousness or fear about whether this “good thing” is too good to be true. What follows is usually some sort of experiment where we test out that “good thing” to see if it really is exactly what we hope it is. This my friends is called self-sabotage.
We never imagined that we could be so deserving and worthy of good things at times, so we challenge all notions of something new and sometimes we are exactly right.. the new thing is just that.. new but not better. Other times when we challenge that “good thing” we ruin the opportunity right in front of us with our own behavior only to feel terrible about losing that good new thing. Sometimes we don’t acknowledge that it was our own behavior that ruined our chances at love, a new job or a new life. So, we blame others. We buy stock in the belief that some things are just too good to be true or that we aren’t deserving of good things.
As a clinician, I notice this exact thing happens in therapy! Therapy feels great at first. You find yourself sharing and connecting with another person and seeing life in a new way. Those feelings of trust and vulnerability can feel like too much of a good thing and we can find ourselves finding every excuse to avoid the path ahead. The healing path.
What first can feel great can be triggering and remind of relationships that haven’t planned or situations where we felt unseen and, in an effort to protect we may run. We will say to ourselves I’m better now, after 4 sessions, I don’t need therapy after all. This is also a form of self-sabotage. We need consistency in our lives and, in order to see it through we must push past the limits of our past and challenge ourselves. You do deserve all good things and in order to live in your fullness, you have to accept and stay present in the good times and in the more challenging times. The growth is hidden in between those spaces.
Be well.
Opmerkingen