Self sabotage
How to stop self saboting
We can all engage in behaviour that is self-destructive - when we do we don't always realise it. Do you feel stuck in patterns that undermine your relationships, career, or happiness? Maybe you:
✔ Want love but push partners away.
✔ Fear conflict so you avoid tough conversations.
✔ Struggle with emotional eating to numb anxiety.
✔ Stay in a toxic relationship and keep justifying
Self-sabotage is sneaky—it disguises itself as “logic,” “perfectionism,” "hard work" or “protecting yourself.” If you’re feeling stuck in cycles of panic, emotional eating, relationship conflict, or self-doubt, it’s time to break free.
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Self sabotage meaning:
Why do we undermine ourselves
Self-sabotage happens when you unconsciously block your own success, happiness, or healing due to fear, past trauma, or limiting beliefs. It can show up in many ways:
🏷️ Relationship Conflict: Pushing love away, testing your partner, or avoiding commitment.
🏷️ Emotional Eating: You turn to food as a coping mechanism instead of addressing deeper stressors.
🏷️ Divorce & Breakups: You stay in toxic relationships or avoid the painful steps of moving on.
🏷️ Panic Attacks: Overthinking, procrastinating, or avoiding decisions to “stay safe.”
🏷️ Narcissistic Trauma: You struggle to set boundaries, doubt yourself, or keep falling into abusive relationship cycles.
Recognizing the pattern is the first step toward breaking free.
Six common self sabotage strategies
✔ Perfectionism: “If it’s not perfect, I won’t even try.” Leads to procrastination, stress, and never feeling “ready.”
✔ Overcommitment: Saying yes to everything, then feeling overwhelmed and exhausted.
✔ Procrastination: Delaying decisions or avoiding progress out of fear of failure—or success.
✔ People-Pleasing: Prioritizing others’ needs while neglecting your own.
✔ Self-Medicating: Using food, alcohol, work or distractions to numb pain or anxiety.
✔Avoidance: Running from conflict, difficult emotions, or big decisions.
Which one sounds familiar?
Am I self-sabotaging
my relationship?
How do we know if we are self sabotaging and undermining ourselves? That is really good question. As when we are in a sabotage cycle, we can overlook our own self destructive behaviour. If your relationship feel like it's stuck in a toxic loop, self-sabotage may be at play:
🚩 Make excuses for why your relationship isn’t working?
🚩 Avoid difficult conversations to “keep the peace”?
🚩 Push your partner away, then feel abandoned?
🚩 Test their love by starting arguments or withholding affection?
🚩 Stay in a dead-end relationship out of guilt or fear?
Self-sabotage keeps you in unhealthy cycles instead of creating the love you deserve.
🏷️ Divorce Anxiety – Struggling with guilt, fear, or panic about leaving?
🏷️ Conflict Response – What's your conflict response conditioning?
🏷️ Narcissistic Trauma – Stuck in a cycle of manipulation and self-doubt?
Types of self-sabotaging relationships
A self-sabotaging relationship is one where one or both partners unconsciously undermine the relationship. This does not necessarily mean that the relationship breaks down, but they create conflict, instability, hostility, frustration or distance — when the couple both want love and connection.
These are four common self-sabotage relationship patterns:
🔹 One partner must save/fixes the other from difficulties
🔹 Rescuer must accept fixing whatever the terms
🔹 Fixer needs to earn love - be strong and indispensable
🔹 Both have issues with abandonment
🔹 One tests the other's commitment with emotional games
🔹 One threatens to leave without meaning it
🔹 Constantly seek reassurance then not being contactable
🔹 Flirting or cheating on someone else but not meaning it
🔹 Fast and furious relationship - extreme passion that fades
🔹 Love bombing, rushing milestones, future faking
🔹 Both partners lose interest when thrill of chase is over
🔹 Rely on initial chemistry lasting. No effort to build intimacy
🔹Using the excuse 'We have been together for years'
🔹 Both crave emotional distance
🔹 Excuse 'I don't want to hurt them excuse'
🔹 Resentment, avoidance and passive aggression
How CBT rewires self- sabotage cycles
Breaking free requires more than willpower—it requires rewiring your mind at both the conscious and subconscious levels.
✔ CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) – Helps you recognize and break destructive thought patterns.
✔ Hypnotherapy – Reprograms deep-rooted beliefs, making change feel natural and effortless.
✔ Identify self-defeating thought patterns – Recognizing where you hold yourself back.
✔ Challenge limiting beliefs – Replacing “I’ll fail anyway” with empowering truths.
✔ Recognize self-sabotage triggers – What sets you off? Conflict? Rejection? Uncertainty?
✔ Shift your response – Moving from avoidance and procrastination to action and confidence.
🛠 Your First Challenge: 'Spot the Self-Sabotage Cycle
For one week, track your excuses. Write down every time you:
🔹 Delay a decision.
🔹 Say “I can’t,” “I won’t,” or “I don’t deserve this.”
🔹 Justify your actions instead of changing them.
🔹 Take the moral high ground to avoid responsibility.
These are likely to be hidden self-sabotage cycles that keep you stuck.
🏷️ CBT Therapy | 🏷️ Hypnotherapy
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