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  • We've all done it.

  • We are so close to achieving a goal, and then...

  • Excuse me, where do you think you're going?

  • There they are. Getting in our own way.

  • Over there.

  • You're not.

  • Can you just-

  • No! Just turn around!

  • But I like-

  • *Hiss*

  • *Hiss*

  • Okay.

  • There are many ways that self-sabotaging can manifest itself, some of the more obvious ones being procrastination,

  • okay, let's do a video...

  • Write a vi-de-o...

  • I'll just look at Instagram for some

  • inspiration

  • *wailing*

  • OH my god, how she do dat?

  • Ewwww...

  • My god, UGH.

  • Yeah, video.

  • Okay.

  • Yeah, okay.

  • Okay, I got it. Yeah.

  • Yeah, okay.

  • Okay,

  • just write it, I'll write it, its gonna be great.

  • self-medicating with alcohol and drugs,

  • There's so beautiful, please don't tell me Jerome gon' die

  • Or my personal favorite

  • comfort eating.

  • "Hi I have your post mates order? Four pies, right?" and of course there are more subtle ways that self-sabotaging can exist like having

  • aspirations that you never moved toward or having such a fear of abandonment that you cut ties once anything gets too

  • emotional or too serious or even just practicing alienating behavior that pushes people away

  • There are many reasons why we engage in self-destructive behavior, and for me after my sister died

  • I felt like I didn't deserve to have a good life when she was sitting in an urn in my parents living room, and so

  • subconsciously, I would make all these very small choices that over time led to me having a miserable miserable life.

  • I would choose partners poorly

  • I would have substance abuse problems

  • And I would run away from anything that made me happy

  • It took years of therapy to realize that I was even doing this and even years longer to actually

  • Stop doing it

  • But once we realized that the underlying cause of my self-sabotage behavior was feelings of unworthiness

  • And guilt we were actually able to work

  • Towards stopping that my therapist and I worked to create a dialogue that I could have with myself each time

  • I noticed that I was being destructive, so I would have to ask myself. "Why am I doing this?"

  • 00:02:38,700 --> 00:02:39,200 well

  • "I think I'm doing this because it makes me really happy and that makes me scared because I don't think I deserve to be happy"

  • "Why don't you deserve to be happy?" "Because I feel really guilty that my sister's never gonna have any emotions again."

  • "But is it your fault that she's never gonna have any emotions again?" "Technically, no.

  • I mean suicide was totally her decision if it were up to me

  • I would have said 'please don't do that'" and I would have to have this very logical Q&A with myself until it would

  • Emotionally resonate with me that it was all coming from an illogical place of fear if you engage in

  • self-sabotaging behavior

  • I really urge you to figure out why you're doing it and when

  • Because the more you actually notice it the easier it is to stop you just requires you

  • Challenging this negative thought process again and again and again because on some level you'll intellectually understand it

  • But it takes a while for it to actually sink in but before you know it years and years of hard work later

  • you'll eventually stop - yay!

  • I'm Anna Akana.

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  • boom-boom-boom

We've all done it.

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