Self Love Is The Ultimate Cure For Self Sabotage
SHOW NOTES
Self-sabotage is a tricky beast, and I haven't met a single person, at any level of success, who hasn't dealt with it. In this episode I break down how self-love is actually the antidote, walking through the specific mindsets that quietly dismantle self-sabotage.
You'll learn why you're allowed to prioritize your own needs (and the fruit-basket truth about what happens when you keep putting yourself last), why your fears are valid even when they aren't true, and why you're allowed to make mistakes and to not know things yet, illustrated by watching my own babies fail their way toward walking.
I also get into why your wins genuinely serve everyone, so there's no need to downplay them, and finally, the most powerful reframe of all: what if the friend quietly sabotaging your friendships, your marriage, and your career was actually your own subconscious? The good news is that once you can see it coming, it stops running the show.
Warmly,
Linda
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Meet Your Host!
Linda Sanderville, LCSW, RYT-200 is the founder of Satya Counseling & Yoga LLC. She specializes in concierge therapy for female founders and public figures, helping high-profile women navigate public scandal, executive burnout, and the values that will define the second half of life. Based in Albuquerque and serving clients virtually in DC, Maryland, Virginia, and beyond, Linda combines clinical expertise with somatic wisdom to help leaders reclaim their truth.
Read below for full transcript.
[00:00] Intro & Self-Sabotage Is a Tricky Beast
Hi, I'm Linda, an emotion coach and hypnotherapist who also loves a good sunrise yoga class, listening to the belly laughs of my baby boys, and hunting down the best vegan donuts. This podcast is for ambitious and high-performing women who want to feel fulfilled in all areas of their life. I'm here to give you practical tips and mindset shifts that will help you put your self-love skills into action. Welcome.
Self-sabotage is such a tricky beast. And that's why I talk about it so often. I don't know a person, I haven't met a person yet, who hasn't dealt with the effects of self-sabotage in one way or another, no matter how competent they are today or how accomplished they may be. I've talked with folks from all walks of life, all levels of success, who continue to have to deal with that tricky beast of self-sabotage.
So I wanted to come and talk a little more about how self-love actually ties into the antidote for self-sabotage. It's really pretty cool.
[01:13] You're Allowed to Prioritize Your Own Needs
So the first thing that I've seen over time is that when it comes to self-love being the answer for self-sabotage, there's a different sort of mentality that you have when you recognize that you're allowed to own your own needs. You're allowed to own your needs and also to prioritize them.
This can be incredibly difficult to do for those who are taking care of other family members, whether that's kids, parents, or those who are in the helping professions. This is something that I've had to work through myself, obviously, as a therapist in my first line of work. But when you're constantly taking care of others, it can be really tricky, and you can have a hard time putting yourself first, right?
What I want you to own is that it's all right to do that. It's all right to prioritize your needs. And that when you give yourself the time to reflect, to observe yourself, you can also discover your solutions much more easily. That actually saves time, and it saves grief, right?
So rather than putting yourself at the bottom of the list, which can be very natural, very automatic, you can be doing that before you even realize that you're doing it, until of course your problems start to grow and fester and cause more pain. You can address those problems in real time so that you're not creating more suffering for yourself. And then you can get the relief you deserve, and that frees you up for other things.
I've been using lots of grocery examples lately, but I think about just when I put a bunch of fruit in the fruit basket in the kitchen. You know, it's always those ones that are underneath, that just sort of roll to the bottom, that end up getting all smushed and old, and they've just been there for a long time. You cut them up, they have no flavor left. Those are the ones that get forgotten.
So if you keep putting yourself last, you're going to get forgotten. Your problems are going to grow old and fester, and it's going to cause you more pain. I don't want that for you. It doesn't have to look like that in order for you to still be able to be there for other folks. In fact, when you prioritize your needs and deal with them in a proactive way, you're able to show up in a way that's much more helpful for those that you do love. Let's keep that in mind. So self-love says that you're allowed to prioritize your own needs.
[03:40] Your Fears Are Valid, Even If They're Not True
Self-love also acknowledges that our fears are valid, even if they're not true. So when we own that our fears are valid, what that allows is it keeps us from shooting ourselves in the foot by being really harsh, being very demanding or belittling ourselves when it comes to our fears, saying things like, why can't you just figure it out? Why can't you just work through that? You know better. You always let this happen. Whatever those thoughts are that go through our head.
So when we're able to own what makes us feel afraid, however illogical that may be, then we can make those necessary allowances and account for our emotions, because our emotions matter, even if they're based on ideas that may be kind of faulty. The truth is that our fears, real or not real, they signal something that matters to us. And that is important. That in and of itself is important.
It might mean that you're at the beginning of something, right? You're encountering something new, so you feel more afraid, a little more anxious, and that's totally normal. It's totally normal to feel like, I don't quite know what I'm doing. You know, is everyone going to even like this? Am I going to fail? Yeah, we have those kinds of fears when we're just starting out on something.
Me starting this YouTube channel, it's not like this has been around for that long. I'm speaking and things like that, presenting. But this is a different kind of format, right? So in order to start it, I had to give myself allowances and just say, hey, I have to start somewhere. I'm going to just start by starting, start by taking action. And it became so easy for me to do, because it's like, well, I give myself permission to mess up, and I give myself permission to learn as I go along the way.
So you may feel afraid because you have a fear of being at the beginning of something. You may have a need for encouragement. And it just may signal something that you value. So if you were someone who fears abandonment or fears being alone, like, I'm not in a relationship right now, feeling really afraid of the long term and what that means, other people might be like, oh, you're great, you're so beautiful, you got this, you'll be fine. And you might feel like your fears are being invalidated, right?
But the important thing is not so much, hey, don't think that way because you're so great, it's going to all work out. The important thing is that, oh, wow, you value connection. You don't have that level of connection that you desire right now. You wish that you were more tied into a friend group, at work or wherever you tend to hang out, your places, your communities. It's showing that you value friendships, you value intimacy.
And when you don't have enough of that in your life, it can create a lot of fears and insecurities that come up, because it's signaling something that's important to you. And that is important. And we can make room for that. You don't have to judge it or push it away. Self-love allows for that, right?
[07:03] You're Allowed to Make Mistakes
So along with that idea, self-love also says that you are allowed to make mistakes. You get to, again, you get to have a beginning, the part where you don't know everything yet. You get to be in that stage where you haven't mastered everything yet. And that's okay, right? Because your practice from the beginning is how you get to that point where you achieve that level of excellence that you and I both know that you're capable of.
I always love this analogy of a baby learning how to walk. You're watching my two babies also learn how to walk. When we see babies start to stand up and then fall over, or walk a little bit and fall down, we're never like, wow, that baby, they got to get it together. We don't sit there criticizing them and be like, oh, that's like a two out of ten, baby, try again, right? We're celebrating. We're like, yeah, we make the funniest faces. We're just so excited to see them failing their way towards success.
So what if you gave that to yourself? What if you expected that from other people, that they would give that to you too? That's what self-love can look like. You can be in a place where you actually give that kind of celebration, that excitement, that feeling towards success to yourself. Maybe you feel like, man, I just keep my house so messy, like I really struggle with this. Well, fail your way towards success. It's okay. Yay, you did it, right? You're allowed to make mistakes, and self-love reminds us of that.
[08:39] It's Okay If You Don't Know Yet
Something else that self-love reminds us of is that it's okay if we don't know yet. It's okay if we don't have all the answers yet. Owning what you don't know, owning what I don't know, that enables us to learn and to come into new insights and clarity, rather than just staying at this level of shallow understanding. If I want to pretend like I have it all together and know it all, well, I'm just going to stay right here. Like, there's no growth happening with that. If you feel like you have to pretend to know it all, the same thing is going to be true for you.
Just think about, I don't know if this has ever happened to you, but when you go to the party or the work event and you find yourself standing next to, somehow, the person there who just knows it all, they just know that they know everything, any topic at all. They not only have an opinion, they have what they think is absolutely the right opinion to have, the only opinion to have.
Think about the last time someone that you're like, that's interesting, one of your colleagues at work, got promoted from your level. They were on your level and they got promoted to something else, and you're like, that's that person. And now suddenly that person is the expert at everything, including your job. That's so unpleasant to interact with. When we can't own that we don't know something yet, we are very unpleasant to be around.
On the other hand, people who are able to own that are like, I don't know anything about that, or, you know, I'm just learning, I think this is my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong. There's something about that invitation that makes us feel much more comfortable with that person, and it actually makes them look much more secure, right? The person who's like, I know everything, they actually come off kind of like their ego is very fragile.
But the person who says, well, I don't, right? They seem much more confident and grounded. Self-love gets us to that place where we can be comfortable with what we don't know, while also taking steps to learn and grow and expand as people.
[10:53] Your Wins Serve the Good of Everyone
Something else that self-love does, that gets in the way of self-sabotage taking over, which is what we definitely want, is we recognize that our wins serve the good of everyone. When we win authentically, from a pure place, that serves the good of everyone. So there's no need to feel guilty or hung up on it. There's no need to downplay or minimize our wins. We don't have to do that, because we know that the authentic good things that we were designed for, uniquely, those things are a blessing to the rest of the world around us.
So, you know, whatever you may think about yourself, self-love says that you are uniquely needed and talented, and you have your own mix of character traits and everything that makes up your special sauce, who you are. Self-love acknowledges that no matter how many other people there are who have similar talents to you, or maybe similar personality traits to you, no one is actually you, and that will always be the case.
So it also sees, self-love sees, that your growth and expansion as a special human being that you are leads to the betterment of everybody else. That's the beauty of interdependence. When we're interdependent, well, we're naturally interdependent. Sometimes we fight against that, we become overly dependent, codependent, or hyper-independent.
But when we recognize that interdependence is really the name of the game, we see how much our wins, the good things that we receive and let into our lives, how that can be good things coming into other people's lives too. We're not taking anything away from anybody. It's not a zero-sum game. I believe all in the win-win.
And the more I learn, the older I get, the more I see that usually the zero-sum game is made up. It's to distract away from the fact that there really is a win-win solution, and that there are certain people who don't really want that solution, so then they create something else. But your wins really can be to the good of everyone. There's no need for that guilt, or to try to keep the good things from coming to you because you feel guilty about that.
[13:13] The Subconscious Is the Friend Sabotaging You
And lastly, self-love helps us to not be controlled by unconscious wounds and desires that are in our subconscious mind and would otherwise be running the show. So when you engage in certain practices, there are all kinds of ways to do this, but certainly like with hypnosis, or other spiritual practices that you may already have in your repertoire, when you join those things with being vulnerable, it allows you to comfortably own and acknowledge your own weaknesses and your own hurts.
There's no longer this overlay of shame that keeps you from dealing with the issues that exist. You don't have to run away from things, because your self-love allows for you to be true and authentic about those hurts that you have, those vulnerabilities that you have. So you can approach yourself with compassion and openness. And that way, you're actually not easily controlled by subconscious desires and fears, because you're so self-aware, and you have an authentic understanding of how you operate and the things that influence you. And so you can see those things coming before they get there. You're very aware.
So what if you found out that your best friend, your day one, someone that you trust with every area of your life, was behind your most persistent struggles? Imagine that you find out that every time you try to build new friendships as an adult, or fix the growing lack of passion in your marriage, that actually your friend was the one who got in the way of those things resolving themselves.
Maybe they went behind your back and sent messages to your new friend saying you were talking about them, or things that you told your friend about them. Maybe they were secretly seducing your partner and getting in the way of your marriage going to the place that it needed to be. Maybe they were keeping you out late after work, or causing you to miss meetings because they were constantly demanding your time, and that cost you that promotion.
What if you found out that all of these things relate back to this friend that you trusted so much? What would you do? You would deal with it, right? They would be out on their behind with a quickness. You would not tolerate that for very long.
So what if this friend was your own subconscious? This is the reason that I created the Self-Love Skills Program, because I've seen this way too much in my practice with therapy clients and just out in the world around me. There are too many times where these things that we don't recognize, that are taking place in the background, are actually affecting everything else and leading to issues in every other area of life, because they were not dealt with on the front end.
So you'll see the link in the description box below for the Self-Love Skills Program, and you can take a look at it there. You can certainly also leave any comments below with any questions that you have about that. But I want that to be a blessing to you, to be a gift to you. And there are some other resources on the site, like a free hypnosis that you can download, to give you a little taste of what some of the elements of the Self-Love Skills Program are like. I hope that this encourages you, and I can't wait to talk to you again in the next video. Take care.
You hung with me to the end, my shero. If you benefited from this episode, please say thanks by leaving a wonderful review. It helps me know what's helping you the most and allows more like-minded women to find and learn from this podcast. We don't want to keep all the good stuff for ourselves. See you next time.
[Editing Note: The Self Love Skills and Relationship courses are not currently available. If you are interested in this content and guidance, all tools mentioned are now exclusively provided through my concierge psychotherapy practice, Satya Counseling & Yoga.]
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