Break Free From Self-Sabotage: Transforming Your Flaws Into Gifts

Coach Alex Ray: 0:25

Hello, my unicorns, welcome back. It's just you and me today, and I'm really excited about having this little chit chat with you. We're going to talk about your flaws and how those flaws, those things that you're ashamed of, particularly self sabotage, is our focus for today how those things are actually gifts and I hope you don't even believe me right now, because I promise you by the end of the episode you're going to understand what I'm talking about and having this flip around, from these things being your curses, these things being things that you're ashamed of and stuck in that you haven't been able to break, you're going to get exactly what you need today in order to break negative patterns and also appreciate, respect and love yourself with these things you think are flaws. Before we go into it, we are rocking and rolling now with episodes every week, and so I just wanted to give you all that update. I know a couple of like a couple months ago, I guess. Yeah, back in. Oh my gosh, when was that August? Yeah, I gave you all the update that I was back at the podcast but was going to only be doing an episode every other week, and I would wanted to clarify I am back at it every week and the structure is now going to be switching between solo and guest episodes, and I picked that structure based on your feedback in the Instagram channel. So thank you so much to every single one of you who responded to that poll in there. This feels really good and delightful to me. It's got not too much pressure and too much content for me to keep up on. And hey, there might be weeks in here where I don't get to an episode, a solo episode, and in the spirit of everything that we're doing here, I'm going to be okay with that and I'll do my best to let you know if that's the case.

Coach Alex Ray: 2:36

Instagram, as you know, is the main channel to find anything out. But yeah, that's the deal. We're going to switch off every other episode. One will be a guest someone from the LGBTQIA plus community every now and then, someone who does not identify as queer but whose input I think is really going to be extremely useful for you, and I am happy to announce that I am booked out for the rest of the year. All the guest episodes are scheduled and booked, so, girl, get ready. I know all the guests for the rest of the year and I'm fucking thrilled for y'all to be able to hear them. So it's going to be just absolutely amazing. I'm so excited.

Coach Alex Ray: 3:19

So let's see, was there any other? Oh, I know what I was going to ask you as well. Please keep giving your input in the Instagram channel. If you are not in there yet, you can go down to the show notes and join the Instagram channel. That's where you can have input on the podcast. You can ask questions and you can nominate guests, and I really want your all help with that.

Coach Alex Ray: 3:44

Honestly, I want to know which queer celebrity guests you want me to bring on the podcast and I will do my absolute best to bring them on. I also would love your help in getting them to come on the podcast. Like next year, I would love to have Trichsine Tell on the podcast. Who's with me? Huh, that would be so much fun. So I would love for you, if you have a guest nomination, tell me in the Instagram channel or through an Instagram direct message and feel free to go and tell those people. Hey, I want to hear from you on the queer confidence podcast and tag me in it so that they can see and, hopefully, come on in. We're gonna.

Coach Alex Ray: 4:31

We're no longer playing small little league here Y'all. I don't know, I don't know sports metaphors. Why am I even trying little league? It took me so I stumbled did you hear how much I stumbled over my words for that? Anyway, we're not doing that anymore. I'm excited to be bringing in some real big guests and Promoting guests who I think, whether they have a even a small audience or no audience at all, have valuable, incredible input for you. So here we go, on the up and up y'all. We are Going. Okay, let's get into it, shall we? I can you tell I'm a little, a little, hyped up.

Coach Alex Ray: 5:15

The main thing I want you to be able to walk away from today's episode with is seeing how self sabotage is Trying to get your needs met, and when you know what need you're trying to get met, then we can also find how to actually Use the gift that you're trying to use or the need that you're trying to get met. We can figure out how to get that need met in a way that you are proud of, and the needs that you're trying to get met, you're gonna see, are actually versions of your own personal superpowers. So real quick, let's define self sabotage. Self sabotage refers to the unconscious or Deliberate actions, thoughts or behaviors that hinder your own progress. Success while being, or personal growth involves acting against your own best interests or goals, often due to underlying psychological, emotional or behavioral patterns. In summary, all it's behaving in a way you aren't proud of in the long run. It's not simple, so let's look at four common ways that I've seen this show up for me in my own life and in my client's lives.

Coach Alex Ray: 6:32

The first one I call addicted to shit. All right, addicted to shit is when you find yourself over and over in abusive relationships or situations that you know aren't good for you, and, no matter how many times you've Become conscious of this, you don't feel like you have any power to change this pattern for yourself. Staying in a relationship where you're you are being psychologically, physically or emotionally abused would be this concept of what I'm talking about with being addicted to shit. So what I want to point out, though, for you and this is what we're gonna do with all four of these is that there's some need you're trying to get met. If you're doing any of these things that seem like self sabotage, there is a need, an unmet need, that you are trying to fulfill.

Coach Alex Ray: 7:31

For me, I have a history of being in some toxic, god awful relationships, and I had never had a relationship last more than six months until my current boyfriend and gosh. We met almost a year and a half ago and are going strong, and this is the key difference that I'm about to tell you. So the thing that I was trying to get in all my past dramatic relationships were thrills. And I discovered this because I was in a coaching session and the coach said to me when I was saying, hey, I keep finding myself in these dramatic relationships and I want to know how to get out of this pattern, what the hell is going on? And she said to me well, you like the drama. And I got so pissed off y'all. I was like excuse me, what are you talking about? I don't like the drama, but I also recognize that I'm having a very strong reaction to this right now, so I think there might be something to what you're saying. I Was like stop it, fuck you, but keep going, tell me more. What do you? Why do you think that? And as we talked about it, she was able to point out to me like oh, what I'm enjoying about dramatic, tumultuous Relationships is the thrill that I get out of it so thrill.

Coach Alex Ray: 9:09

I can use tons of other things to get thrills right. I could go watch thriller movies, which I happen to love. I could go do like scary haunted house things, which I love. I could ride roller coasters or skydive all things that I love. I could play sports, which y'all know I'm not really all that into. I do really love soccer, though. That really does it for me. I could go I don't know. There are a million other things Like oh, crossfit for me for a while was a way of getting a thrill through that kind of adrenaline rush of achieving, achieving, achieving. I don't really compete or do anything in CrossFit anymore, but that is a way that I could use this energy, this thrill need that I have in a way that's much more positive to me. Or positive to me, yeah, yeah, that's a good word for it, but y'all know what I mean.

Coach Alex Ray: 10:12

All right, the second common way that I see myself or clients self-sabotaging is the fuck it mentality. I'm gonna use another example for my own life for this one. So the fuck it mentality is engaging in risky behavior despite knowing the potential negative consequences of it. For me, this was sex without protection and not taking prep for a while. No slut shaming here. I am all about all of you having as much and whatever kind of delicious, amazing, authentic and consensual sex you want, but what I'm talking about here is pushing it to this, this space, where you're like I know that there is a risk here of either catching something that could be long-term or life-threatening. Like I wasn't even going and getting tested regularly when I first started having sex, so, and I knew the risks right, I was aware, but I also kind of just wanted to close my eyes and ignore it. Um, so that will go into another one of conflict of one and Slater, but for now, the fuck it mentality is what we're focusing on.

Coach Alex Ray: 11:38

Uh, I also have had hookups where, okay, maybe all the like STIs and everything were were taken care of through protective measures, but maybe I was going into scenarios that I didn't really feel comfortable or safe in. I didn't really know the person all that well to the level that I would actually feel comfortable with, um, hooking up with them. Like I was intentionally kind of putting myself in these scenarios where I was risky and for me, again, that was that thrill energy that I was seeking. I was looking to get excited based on the potential for risk here and again. I'll circle back. At the end we're going to talk about how to use that thrill differently, but I just want you to start seeing some patterns here. Hopefully you're starting to think for yourself through these scenarios of, hey, what fuck it mentality do you have?

Coach Alex Ray: 12:45

What are some things in your life where you kind of intentionally, knowing the risks, behave in a risky way that could risk you, um, ending up with a life that you don't actually really want, like this could be in a job context, too. You could be going to work late intentionally in order to risk having your supervisor or manager contact you about like hey, you need to start showing up at work on time. What is it that you kind of get out of that? Okay, all right.

Coach Alex Ray: 13:22

The next one, number three procrastination or avoidance. Deliberately delaying, which is different than ADHD delaying. Okay, y'all, we work with, um, some fucked up brain chemicals here and it's different and that's a topic for another day. But anyway, procrastination or avoidance. What we're talking about here in regards to self sabotage is when you're deliberately delaying or avoiding challenging or uncomfortable things that are essential for the direction you want to go in life, which results in missed opportunities or increased stress is almost like you're trying to prove.

Coach Alex Ray: 14:00

See, I'm not good enough, and I knew someone during the pandemic who said that they wanted to start teaching online classes and they came to me for some coaching uh, help in this and I talked with them about how they could set up online teaching. They could. They could work with people remotely, since everything in person was shut down. But instead of doing any of the steps that we talked about in our coaching session that would have moved them forward on that project, they just kept complaining that no one had money, no one could afford this. This won't work, and what I think that might have been is, again, what they were doing was avoiding actually just getting started on this project, and what I think that may have been was about power dynamics and perhaps wanting to be supportive of others who were financially hurting, like they were, and maybe this is actually we're starting. I hope you're starting to see the pattern here.

Coach Alex Ray: 15:14

Maybe that actually could be a gift in other contexts to be supportive of those who don't have the financial means and, like this person, you know they were wanting to start these online teaching classes because they didn't have their main source of income got cut off during the pandemic. Now, this compassion is so amazing and what a great gift. In this context, it was holding them back and causing them to self sabotage. It also could have been something like power dynamics. That's one of the things that I one of my gifts is empowerment, and sometimes that can lead me to put people up on this pedestal of they are empowered and then that means that I have to be disempowered, and so maybe that was what was going on with this person. Honestly, at this point, it doesn't matter.

Coach Alex Ray: 16:11

This is an amazing lesson for you to learn now and just think about hey, have you been in any similar scenarios where you've procrastinated and avoided doing something, and what was it that actually held you back? Also, this is a negative way, of course, of putting things off. You can also have productive procrastination, which I call edging, and there's an entire podcast episode on this, episode 51. I'll link it down in the show notes for you so that you can check out that episode as well. But, of course, today we're talking about self-sabotaging procrastination.

Coach Alex Ray: 16:52

Okay, the last one that I wanted to share with you is conflict avoidance. This is avoiding necessary confrontations or difficult conversations in order to maintain peace or avoid discomfort, even when it's detrimental in the long run. I had a client who was getting used a lot by the guys that he was hooking up with, and it seemed like they were always in control. He was never really getting from the interactions what he wanted to get. It was always, always about the other guys, and as we worked on this, we found that his gift for nurturing was being put to use by doing things for these other guys. His gift of making others feel empowered was also being put to use, but to his own detriment, because he thought that he had to have no power. Okay, so to recap, we've got addicted to shit that fuck it mentality procrastination or avoidance, and conflict avoidance. Now, those are just four main ways that people self-sabotage, and that's all we have time for today. There are many, many others that you and I could explore together if you'd like.

Coach Alex Ray: 18:09

The worst part about these is how they destroy your confidence. Self-sabotage is often rooted in deep-seated beliefs like I'm not enough or I'm too much, I'll hurt other people's feelings, I'll separate myself from others, or if I succeed, then I'll have to keep this up forever, and that is exhausting. So the more that you repeat these behaviors. The more you prove I'm doing air quotes y'all the more you prove that these or other negative self-beliefs are true, like, for example, when you avoid conflict, like I have done a gazillion times, you prove to yourself that you aren't worth standing up for. You reinforce those negative beliefs about yourself and you degrade your self-esteem, your confidence, over time.

Coach Alex Ray: 19:10

So how do we overcome this? I'm happy to tell you I've got four steps for you, four easy steps for you. Easy actually might be the wrong word. Simple, they're not gonna be easy. Rarely is anything that I give to y'all on this podcast easy. It's typically challenging and that is good, and you are capable of doing this, okay. So here's how we work through this.

Coach Alex Ray: 19:35

Step one start with the assumption that any pattern you see in your life is actually you just getting something you need or something you want, okay. Second, ask what is it that you get out of this? Is it power, dynamics, or excitement, or a problem to solve, or feeling seen, or getting privacy, or testing support or supporting someone else? Third, see your strength in this. So for that example where we talked about how I had a client who was seeing that his nurturing was causing him to allow these guys to use him. Direct that gift in a direction that you like. For example, you could direct it towards your friends or your own inner child. If you start meeting that need in a positive way, in a way that you are proud of, you're going to automatically not need to get your needs met through these self-sabotaging behaviors. So that's leading us to step four.

Coach Alex Ray: 20:46

Decide on purpose how to use this gift in a way that you're proud of. When you get your needs met in another way, you'll naturally let go of your self-destructive behaviors. So to review again step one assume any pattern that you're seeing in your life is actually just you getting something that you want subconsciously. Two ask yourself what is it that I get out of this? Three see your strength in it.

Coach Alex Ray: 21:17

Four decide on purpose how to use this gift in a way that you are proud of. Every single one of your self-sabotaging moments, all the things that you think are your deepest flaws. They are your strengths, my friend. They're just working in a direction that you are not proud of, and you can change that by just simply following those four steps to discover what the underlying gift is that you're using and changing how you're using it. If this is something that you want help doing, come work with me. I do this with all my clients, and it's so much easier when you have an outside perspective, so I would love to work with you one-on-one. That's it for today's podcast, and I will see you next Tuesday. Bye, bye.