The Day I Failed: A Candid Look at Self-Sabotage in Everyday Life

SHOW TRANSCRIPT:

Jen Cudmore (00:57)
Hey, welcome everybody. Thanks for joining me on Into the Depths podcast. So if you haven’t already, make sure you go grab those two free resources that I had created for renewing the mind and developing awareness around self-sabotage. I want to make sure that everybody gets a chance to go through those and begin to just develop some insight into themselves on how they can. ⁓

renew the mind, get rid of negative thought habits and begin to recognize self-sabotage so you can eliminate that. ⁓ the links are in the show notes, by the way, or you can always go to the website, intotheDepsPodcast.com. So today I wanna talk about what self-sabotage actually looks like. I have talked a lot about negative mindsets and so that’s one way that self-sabotage shows up is just all the different.

thought habits that we have that can really mess with our success and our happiness. so today I want to actually tell a story, a recent story actually, where I did not quite show up as my best self and definitely had a bunch of self-sabotage going on. And so I thought a personal example from my recent experience in my life might be really helpful for some of you to begin to develop understanding of, this is what it could look like. And here’s how it might be showing up.

for you. So I’ve mentioned before, we need to recognize blind spots, those things that are hindering us. And so if we ask the question, what do you want in life? What do people want? Typically people will say, well, I want happiness or success or love. And typically those things are going to look just a little bit different for each person. But essentially what we are after as a human race, I would say is that like,

We just want to have a good life, right? We want to enjoy life. So our goal is ⁓ happiness, success, love, ⁓ a good life. And what that looks like for people who are Christians, such as me, followers of Jesus, the Bible talks about abundant life, which is similar, but it’s God’s way of doing it. There’s a Bible verse, John 10, 10, where Jesus says that he came so that we can have life and we can live it to the full.

There’s a verse in Jeremiah 29, 11 that talks about how God wants us all to prosper. So we are meant to have goodness in our life. And how do we get that? A lot of times we think that it is external obstacles that is keeping us from reaching that good life, that abundant life. But what we’ve talked about on the podcast in the last several episodes is how

there’s actually a lot of internal obstacles that get in the way of us getting the life that we want, having that better life, having those dreams and goals that really inspire us and bring us joy and fulfillment. So self-sabotage is really subtle when we’re talking about what’s going on inside of us. And so we tend to be blind to our negative habits, our…

you know, patterns that don’t serve us that actually get in the way of and hinder our happiness and our success, hinder us from getting that good life. And so we want to develop awareness around that so that we can understand how we can stop doing those and start doing healthy habits and creating healthy patterns so that we can get to the life that we want. So let me show you what I mean. ⁓ The other day I attended a meeting with a group that I am a part of and I

I was actually looking forward to going, but there were several things that sort of created a situation where I did not end up enjoying the meeting quite as much as I could have. And pretty much all of that was inside of me. There was just a bunch of little things that sort of snowballed into it being a not so great experience. And so after I got home from it and I was kind of reflecting with the Lord on what just happened, like why?

Did I not enjoy this? And why am I coming away with all of these negative thoughts and negative feelings when this should have been an experience that I really enjoyed? So let me break down a few things for you and then we’ll go forward. So to start it off, I didn’t recognize the warning signs. should have, if I had better awareness that morning, I would have noticed right away that I wasn’t in a good head space.

I had left the house later than I wanted to. I’m a punctual person and so I tend to be a little bit early everywhere that I go. That just makes me feel, ⁓ I don’t know, what does it make me feel? Great question. I just prefer that. I prefer to be a little bit early when I show up. And so I wasn’t quite as early as I had wanted to be. I hadn’t slept very well the night before.

And I tried to take a walk in the mornings because it’s really good for your mood and your brain and all those things. And I hadn’t taken a walk that morning. I don’t remember why I didn’t. And ⁓ I had ended up skipping breakfast, which I don’t usually do ⁓ because I believe that for me, a little bit of breakfast makes me a better person. And so I tend to try to eat something small, like a little protein or something.

And I had an upset stomach that day and I did not eat anything, which all these things by themselves are not necessarily a big deal. But when you put them all together, it made me show up where I wasn’t. I don’t know that I would say I was in a bad mood, but I certainly wasn’t in a good mood and I certainly wasn’t ready to just like dive in and enjoy myself. So.

I wish that I would have paid attention to that because I could have taken care of all of that and gotten into a better headspace before I even walked in the door. But then I walked through the door and we were this new, we were meeting at a different church. We had never been to this space before. And ⁓ nobody said hello to me when I walked in the door, which was odd because a lot of times there’s someone by the door that’s sort of greeting people and welcoming them. And I thought, okay, well, that’s a little disappointing, but whatever.

And the room was already pretty crowded. And so there was only a couple of open seats. And so the reason that I like to get there early is I can claim a spot that’s more comfortable for me and I can spread out a little bit. But in this case, I wasn’t able to do that. I had to take the available chair. wasn’t, it was pretty tight and squished ⁓ in between the two people where I was. And so I just don’t really enjoy that kind of a tight environment.

So that started, you know, sort of shifting my mood just a little bit. I okay, this is not what I anticipated when I first walked in the door. You know, I would have wanted a little bit of a different welcome, if you will. And then, so during the meeting, I had, because I had missed a couple of meetings, I was determined that I was going to participate in the discussion, which I tend to do, but sometimes I’m quieter than other times. I don’t know, you guys probably have

have times where you’re more vocal or more quiet ⁓ as well. And so I made sure that I was doing some talking, but then I started to worry. It was like I had this little niggling thing in the back of my mind that was like, hey, you’re talking too much. They don’t want to hear you. Like you’re not giving other people the opportunity to speak. And so I started to second guess myself that, my goodness, I like, I’m not answering every question that comes up. I’m not.

jumping in on every topic. So am I talking too much or am I not? So then there was kind of that in the back of my mind. And ⁓ later on, there were some side conversations that came up and that can be really distracting. I don’t like it when that happens. There were people that were not staying on topic and that bothers me too. There was one person who has a little bit of a thick accent and so I have to really concentrate when she speaks.

And I had a difficult time understanding some of what she said. And I don’t like that when that happens. That bothers me too, because I feel like I should be better at ⁓ hearing and understanding. I don’t know. And so was like all of these little things just started to compound. And I just could feel myself getting tense and uptight. And just thought, OK, I’m not, ⁓ this is not what I wanted when I came here. I wanted a…

At that moment, I didn’t really know what I wanted. I just wanted to enjoy myself to that. I didn’t have a specific idea. So then towards the end of the meeting, the person next to me struck up a conversation and I was like, well, shoot, how do I, like, I don’t want to be a distraction in the middle of the meeting, but then I didn’t know how to shut down the conversation and be like, we’re not supposed to be talking right now. So I ended up just quietly conversing with her. And so then I felt a little bit bad about that. that anyway.

So was like all these little things that began to happen during the meeting where it just wasn’t necessarily what I would have wanted to see in a meeting. And then afterwards, I had somebody make a comment to me somewhere along the lines of about me not wanting to be there. And I thought, my goodness, I must have been like so grouchy or like what did I do to make this person think that I didn’t want to come to the meeting that I

made myself come that I drug myself that I was miserable. And so then I was like, oh my goodness, what, you know, how am I, how am I showing up? That’s giving you a bad impression of who I am. I mean, that’s not what I want to do. I don’t want to go to a meeting and have people think, well, wow, she really doesn’t want to be there. She’s such a grouch. Right. And so then I’m thinking, well, I did this to myself. So what did I do that was, you know, out of place? And so anyhow, then that started getting my mind spun off in that direction.

I began to worry about people being upset with me and my goodness. So then by the end of the meeting, was just sort of ⁓ ready. I was done. I was ready to get out of there. I was kind of done with people. I don’t consider myself an introvert, but definitely after a few hours ⁓ in the presence of people, I do need some time away. I think I’m more of a balance between introvert, extrovert, but.

In this case, I was very ready to leave and I didn’t like that. I don’t like to be that way where I’m like, I’m done with this. Let me get out of here. And there was one person that I needed to talk to and I didn’t get a chance to and so I had texted her later, but then she didn’t answer me for like, I don’t know, it like a day or something. And so then I started to get worried. And usually it doesn’t bother me when somebody doesn’t return a text message because I’ve learned to be much more ⁓

graceful in that sort of area because there’s lots of reasons that people don’t get around to answering you right away. And I do the same thing. I don’t always answer people right away. But in this case, it was tapping into some insecurity based on all the other things that were happening. was like, my goodness, now this girl is mad at me. you guys, it’s just like, this is what can happen to us. Like we blow things out of proportion. we make, like I said before in the other episode, we make up stories in our head about what happened instead of just

drilling down and looking objectively at the facts. And so that’s what I did. I got home and I was like, okay, Lord, ⁓ I did not enjoy this meeting. It could have been better. I know that I wasn’t my best self. I walked away feeling almost like this was a waste of time, a waste of energy. Why do I even bother attending these meetings? Because things like this always happen. So what I was feeling was a lot of shame and condemnation around.

the fact that I must have been more grouchy than I realized, I should have behaved better, I should have tried to be more friendly, I missed some opportunities to build relationships and grow, ⁓ and even just build new relationships with some people I didn’t know very well because I wasn’t responding well. ⁓ And then I was upset some of the…

at some of the other attendees for not behaving in the way that I thought they should. ⁓ you guys, this is getting a little embarrassing talking about this, but this is real life. This is what we do. ⁓ you know, there were people I thought, well, that person wasn’t being friendly enough towards me or this person ignored me and I can’t believe they would do that. Like, I don’t deserve that. And so I had all of this mess going on inside me. And ⁓ I will say this is the kind of ⁓ environment

where Satan loves to jump in and mess with us. Like he will mess with us so bad and get us all stirred up and all confused and all upset if we let him. And so that is one thing that had happened is he kept chirping in my ear like all these lies about the situation. ⁓ so that didn’t help at all either. So, you know, by the end of that day, I was pretty miserable. I, let me get back to my notes. Where was I?

⁓ I was just talking about how I realized that I wasn’t in a good headspace and I let that enemy take advantage of me. I let Satan ⁓ feed me a bunch of lies and misinterpreting the facts of what happened in the meeting. I latched onto it and I ran with it. ⁓ It’s disappointing when we do that, but this is normal. This happens to us all the time. Now here I am. It’s the end of the day. I’m ruminating. I can’t turn my brain off. I’m obsessed with all the things that happened.

what I could have done differently, who’s upset with me. And I really made myself miserable for about 24 hours. And even though I was trying to pray through it, it did take me a little bit of time because there was a lot of emotion attached to it. And I don’t know, there were probably some other factors. So this was a very big mess that I had to untangle because I allowed all these different things to sabotage me when I could have

nipped all this in the bud in the very beginning before I even entered the meeting if I would have been in a better head space. ⁓ so let me break that down a little bit more specific of what I mean. So as I was praying through it and writing in my journal and just talking to God about how in the world, where did I mess up and then how can I make this right? And so ⁓ here’s the areas that I came up with where I could have been much better prepared. So the first one being we have a tendency to show up

with hidden agendas and wrong expectations. There’s a lot of motives behind ⁓ how we show up that we don’t recognize and they come from different places. And so I’m not gonna get into that right now, but in this case, I went into that meeting fully expecting to receive instead of give. And that is not.

who I am. That is not who I like to be. That’s not how I like to show up. And so I was really disappointed when I recognized that I was expecting other people to ⁓ really ⁓ what’s the right word, give me attention instead of me giving them attention, I guess is one way to put it. And specifically one area being where I expected like there were some people in the meeting that knew that my father had died about a month.

ago and I expected them to check on me. I expected them to just, you know, give their condolences or whatever, just at least mention, Hey, I’m sorry that you and your family are going through this tough time. And that didn’t happen. And I was really kind of surprised. thought, wow, you know, all of these people I thought would be more compassionate. Like I can’t believe that nobody wanted to talk to me about this. And so that was a wrong expectation of assuming or thinking that they owed me.

because of that situation that I’m experiencing, ⁓ they owed me that compassion. And that was a wrong expectation. It’s not their job. It’s not everyone else’s job to make me feel better when I’m working through grief and sorrow. ⁓ So that was sort of a yucky thing that came up. ⁓ Another thing that I noticed was that ⁓ I had a…

similar opinion in that it’s everyone else’s job to make me feel welcome. And, you know, I didn’t have to get offended that nobody said hello to me when I walked in, but I chose to get offended by that. And that’s not a right attitude either. My expectation that they owed it to me, that somebody should have said hi to me when I walked in. Well, maybe there is some truth behind that, but that’s not ⁓ my job.

my opinion isn’t the only one. And there was probably legit reasons why nobody had said hello to me when I walked through the door. And so I came in with that expectation of thinking that people, it was their job to make me feel welcome when I could have walked in and said, okay, it’s not about me. I’m going to make everybody else feel welcome. So that’s what I

That’s more of what I tend to do, what I try to do. And so it’s really disappointing when I see myself fall into that little selfishness about making it all about me. But I didn’t notice it at the moment. And that’s how this tends to work. ⁓ The other thing that I realized is that I had expectations about what the meeting was supposed to look like. What does a good meeting look like? And so I will say, as someone who’s been in management for, I don’t know, like eight years,

I know how to run a meeting and I have a certain way that I like meetings to be run. And I was not in charge of this meeting and I did not get to decide the agenda and how things moved and what we talked about. And so I recognized that I had come into this meeting with these assumptions around here’s what everything needs to look like. And when it didn’t happen that way, I started to get upset. I mean, it’s silly when you say some of these things out loud.

But this is what happens, this is what goes on inside of us that we don’t notice and we don’t recognize why we’re so upset or why we’re feeling negative feelings is because we have hidden motives, hidden agendas, wrong expectations of how something should or should go, how people should or shouldn’t behave. And so those are some examples from this meeting of how I came in with the wrong attitude. And so…

that set me up to not have a good time. Another thing that is really prevalent when it comes to self-sabotage is our insecurities. Those things that are inside of us that ⁓ make us feel inadequate, make us feel inferior, that make us feel fear, you know, afraid. And ⁓ this is a topic I am definitely going to dig into a little bit more later is insecurities and what’s going on inside our hearts and where those insecurities came from.

and what makes us not believe in ourself, what makes us feel like we’re not good enough. So in this situation though, what was happening was ⁓ I walked in, I really needed someone to notice me and I did not feel noticed, I did not feel seen. And that’s a basic human need in and of itself. But what was happening was, I’ve talked about this before, how I’ve had the struggle with this insecurity or this false belief that

this false belief about myself, this false label that I’m invisible, that I’m not important, that nobody cares about me. And so what was happening was there were times where when I felt like I was ignored, I would immediately interpret that as ⁓ I’m invisible, they don’t care about me. And all of this is underlying under the surface. It’s not like I’m saying to myself, wow, they don’t like me, they don’t care about me. That’s not how self-sabotage works.

It’s all ⁓ under the surface or below the surface. so it’s these, it’s like a frequency that we don’t necessarily ⁓ see or hear because we’re focused more on what’s actually happening around us. So this is all internal stuff that we, when it’s a habit, when we do it all the time, when it’s our pattern, we’re not gonna notice it. ⁓ I didn’t, in the moment, I did not recognize this is what was happening.

But that has been ⁓ something that I’ve struggled with for years. I’m so much better. It doesn’t happen to me very often anymore. But because I had all these other things where I wasn’t in the right head space, when that got pricked, ⁓ it really made the situation so much worse. It was my choice to feel unseen. It was my choice to feel invisible and ignored. Because in reality, when I look back and I just focus on the facts,

There were several people that noticed me, that talked to me, that ⁓ struck up conversation with me and I didn’t initiate it, they did. And so ⁓ the truth can get really skewed when we make up stories about the facts as I’ve talked about before. So enough about that one. Insecurities can be a huge, huge self-sabotage. The next one is we tend to carry…

Judgment and pride we can be critical and not necessarily even notice it because again, it’s a habit and ⁓ This one I’m really embarrassed about but but I’m this is this is what happened There was a moment where I saw someone and thought wow that shirt is really stupid I can’t believe that person wore that shirt today. So petty so petty you guys but we do this sometimes ⁓

I remember there was one point where I was thinking someone had said something and I thought to myself, well, God’s already taught me that lesson. And I seriously tuned out. I did not listen to that person in the discussion. And I feel so bad about that. I really ⁓ am sad that I behaved that way. That was so inappropriate of me to think that I’m better than them and I don’t need to hear what they have to say. so there might’ve been more. Those were two examples that came out. And so,

later that afternoon, I had to bow before the Lord and say, God, I am so sorry. And I repent of that bad attitude, that criticism, that judgment of how silly because I didn’t like what someone was wearing. I mean, that is just ridiculous, ridiculous. And that is not who I want to be. That is not showing up as my best self. And I refuse to be that person. I used to do that all the time. And I’m not that’s not who I am anymore.

So I can’t remember the last time I criticized someone’s outfit. that makes me feel a little better because I know I’ve come a long way from where I used to be. But in any case, those were ⁓ some ways that I had sabotaged myself to be able to not enjoy that meeting. Another thing that came up was I did not realize until later that day after I was having a discussion with my husband about something and I…

I got a text message from a friend of mine. In fact, it was Roslyn who has come on the show a lot and she mentioned something about ⁓ Father’s Day, anticipation of Father’s Day. And it totally dawned on me. my goodness. That’s part of the reason I have been in a little bit of a funk today is because I was dreading Father’s Day. know, my dad had only been gone for a month. This was going to be my first Father’s Day without him.

I can’t even remember what she said. All I remember is the fact that she even brought it up, and I was able to recognize what was going on inside of me and how that grief and that dread was making me show up that day as not my best self. And so I wish that I would have known that in the morning, because I could have told myself, OK, some of this might.

might hit wrong and I’m going to go in with a good attitude, prepared for that so that it won’t bother me as much so that I won’t be offended and hurt like I chose to be. So like I was kind of saying, this type of situation, this whole, all these things that I’ve described to you, this used to be how I would show up at every meeting that I went to, at every event that I went to. This was who I would show up as and it’s…

Looking back, I just cringe because I carried all of this baggage that skewed my perspectives, that made me emotional when I didn’t need to be. And there’s just so many things, so many little things that we do. And when you do them all together, really creates a mess. I remember other things like I would be insecure about my appearance. And so I would obsess over my wardrobe, what I was going to wear to the meeting or how I was going to do my hair.

second guess every little thing that I said, I shouldn’t have said it this way. I should have said it that way. And, I mean, there’s just so many things like that, that I, where I used to be and, it, it, it made me miserable all the time. And of course I had no idea I was doing it to myself. I did not recognize that as self-sabotage. So I definitely I’m determined to not be that person anymore. I’m going to show up differently. ⁓ and so,

After the meeting, I’m sorry, one more step of being of self-sabotage is after the meeting, all the shame and condemnation that was coming on me because I felt like I should have behaved better. I should have done this differently and that differently and all of that. ⁓ All the things that I did wrong, how nobody was gonna like me, and then just fear. We tend to look for evidence to support our fears and insecurities.

and our offense, things that we choose to be mad about. We tend to look for evidence to prove. And so what I was doing was looking for evidence that I was ⁓ not a good friend, that I was a failure, that I had made this meeting a terrible meeting, not just for me, but for others. And so… ⁓

I had all this stuff going on inside of me. So yeah, it took me a good day to really talk through it all with the Lord and be able to let it go. The thing is, when you mess up, this is what’s so amazing about having God on your side, is all you have to do is ask Him to help you redeem it. So what I did was I said, okay, well first of all, I repented of the sin of judgment and criticism, which definitely needed to be taken care of. But then,

I was like, okay, Lord, do I need to make restitution? Do I need to apologize to anybody? what are some things that I may need to do to sort of like what actually went wrong and not just how I feel went wrong? Is there anything that I need to do? And so I ended up reaching out to three different ladies and I did, my goal was to speak life into them and not make it about me, but really in each different scenario sort of.

love on them and show them that I appreciated what they had to say and how they came to the meeting. And anyhow, so I felt so much better after that. Not only was I able to get a lot of that off my chest and process it with God, but then, ⁓ you know, find ways to ⁓ work through those lives, labels and limitations that had come up and then deal with some of the heart issues and take that before the Lord. So,

Thankfully, I feel like it resolved itself really well and I’m in a much better space and I definitely intend to show up better next time I go to one of those meetings. But I wanted, as I was sitting through that thinking to myself, how can I talk to people about self-sabotage and getting free of lives, getting free of lies, labels and limitations? But yet here I am behaving in all those ways, behaving like the person that I used to be instead of the

the person that I know God meant me to be. And so I thought, you know, this would be a great example of real life of how even when we have learned all the things and even when we are practicing a different way of living, we can still mess up and we can still show up as not our best self. And all we do is ⁓ we choose to bounce back from it. We choose to grow from it. And so hopefully my experience of ⁓ not being my best self in this situation.

was inspiring to help you to recognize those things and to begin to show it better in your own way. So as we go about this week, let’s explore the depths of these final thoughts. How are you showing up in day-to-day interactions? Can you identify where self-sabotage is sneaking into your life in some of the ways that I discussed today? Where do you have hidden motivations or hidden agendas? Where might you have some wrong expectations about

specific situations or specific people. Where is pride and judgment keeping you from enjoying life? Or where is shame and condemnation, your insecurities, keeping you from enjoying life? And what types of situations prick your insecurities? Where do you need to begin dealing with those so that you can get free of self-sabotage? So those are some questions to ponder as you go about your week. Thanks for joining me.

If you have been enjoying the podcast, please continue to share with your friends. this episode or one of the other episodes that really ⁓ meant something to you. And I hope you guys have a great week. Bye everybody.