Why We Self-Sabotage

"Without conscious awareness of it, many of us carry invisible baggage from our past in the form of unconscious beliefs that masquerade as wisdom but actually hold us back from living a full life. These limiting schemas, usually formed in childhood before we had the cognitive tools to examine them critically, continue to shape our adult lives in ways we rarely recognize. They sound reasonable, even virtuous, yet they systematically undermine our capacity for authentic living."

"This belief typically emerges from childhood experiences in which emotional expression was met with guilt-inducing dismissal. Perhaps you were told to "think of those who have less" when you expressed hurt, or were reminded of how 'privileged' you were whenever you were upset about something. The underlying message was that your pain needed justification. Instead of receiving empathy, you were taught to intellectualize your feelings, to step outside your own experience and view emotions through a lens of rational analysis."

"The absurdity of this hidden belief becomes clear when examined closely. Suffering is not a zero-sum game. Why can gratitude and pain not co-exist? There is space in the world for everyone's struggles to be witnessed. When you suppress legitimate difficulties under the misguided belief that pain must meet some arbitrary threshold to matter, you deny yourself basic human needs for expression and support."

Many people carry invisible baggage from the past in the form of unconscious beliefs formed in childhood that masquerade as wisdom yet limit adult functioning. These schemas often originate before cognitive tools existed to examine them, causing reasonable-sounding rules to undermine authentic living. One common belief is that because others suffer more, personal pain should not be expressed, a message learned when emotional expression was dismissed or guilt-inducing. Such suppression treats suffering as zero-sum, denying the coexistence of gratitude and pain and preventing legitimate needs for expression and support. Withholding from relationships to avoid disappointment can produce isolation and depression, requiring acceptance of paradox to move forward.

Read at Psychology Today