Self-Sabotage & Fearing our own Potential | Ep. 7

Life has a way of inviting us into our highest potential... if we are open to listening to that call. I've found in my work with leaders that sometimes our biggest fear is something we wouldn't expect. We fear our own potential.

Along my journey, whenever my next big self-growth opportunity was standing in front of me, I had to face this fear. For many years I played small and hit behind tasks, so that I wouldn't have to be fully seen in my potential.

Why? I feared that once I stepped into that potential, I could never turn back. I was afraid I might have to leave people I love behind, and let go of any behaviors that weren't a match to the best version of myself. I was comfortable with those habits though, even if they didn't serve me. I clung to their familiarity through self-sabotaging, ensuring that I stayed at the level I was at.

Growth can be scary, especially when it involves putting ourselves out there in bigger ways. But at some point, it becomes more painful to STAY small, than taking the risk to move forward. It also does a disservice to the world and others to hold back the gifts that our world so desperately needs. I've come to see self-growth as a self-responsibility that I have to any company, team, or family that I may grow.

Tune into episode 7 to explore these themes with me. If you can relate and resonate with my journey, please be sure to "Like" this episode and Subscribe to my channel. I release a new episode every Monday.

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Hey conscious leaders, welcome back to another episode of the self. Oh, I almost said self love interesting the new self. Hopefully that new self is full of love. But we are on the new self podcast, a podcast intended to transform how we do life plus work. And transmuting, how we do those things take so much it takes so much. So today I'm wanting to I'm wanting to dive right in, I'm wanting to dive right into a pattern that is very much present with me right now. And that is the pattern of self sabotage. Kind of a, yeah, kind of a deep place to start. But I find that one of the greatest fears that I have had over the years and that I've seen among the, among the small business owners and executives that I have worked with over the years, is the is the fear of our own potential. as wild as that sounds, the fear of our own potential, the fear of stepping into a more aligned version of ourselves. And I'll, you know, I'll start by speaking, you know, speaking from from my own journey here, where I thought for a really long time, that moving into my highest potential meant that I had to leave behind the life that I was living, to leave behind my comforts, and maybe even people that I loved and had become accustomed to having in my life, I thought that, that stepping into my my light meant leaving them behind. And that not not conforming, or having views or expressions that are different, then, you know, then those around me would somehow exclude me, it would prevent me from belonging anymore. And so not only would I leave them behind somehow by stepping into a new version of myself, but that I would actually be potentially ostracized or moved away from, you know, if there was if there was any substantial amount of judgment for who I was becoming, who was really afraid of that. And that is, that's really valid. One thing that, that our lead fac faculty in the Harvard executive ed program that I'm a part of one thing that she says lead Sharpe is her name, she's one of my all time favorite humans on the planet. And she shares you know, just how valid the fear of not belonging is. Because if you think back to our early iterations of being human living, living in tribes, and what it would mean back then to be ostracized from our communities, it meant death, I meant death. So our fear of not belonging is a mechanism for survival that exists in our reptilian brain and it is it There's wisdom in that there really, really is. I don't discount that. To belong in our communities is to be safe, to have our basic needs, met, through community and through belonging, we are very social creatures, there is a deep need to be loved, to be accepted. To be appreciated, to be seen, these are all so human and these needs are valid. So to do anything that kind of goes against the grain and potentially puts us at risk from having these basic relational or community based needs met, isn't is incredibly scary. That's a big risk. That's a big risk. And I was comfortable, I was comfortable in the phase of business that I was in the phase of life, the the level of leadership that I had been operating in, I knew how to do that. I knew how to live as that version of self I had gotten quite good at that and quite attached to my my creature comforts that existed in that version of self Whether it was watching TV at night after, after a long day of running a company and running a team and pouring myself a glass of wine, I was comfortable in my, in my routine, I was comfortable in that version. And there was this, this inner drumbeat, really that that started coming online, I think sometimes sometimes language can show up in our lives and be be a bit of a lighthouse guiding us towards something. And for me at that time, the phrase that I couldn't ignore, I couldn't unhear it was simply the phrase stepping into my potential, stepping into my power. That phrase that language was calling me, I was starting to get really curious about what that meant. And I was beginning to see all the ways that I was actually holding myself back from becoming an expanded version of myself. When we fear something, we we come up with incredibly intelligent strategies for ensuring that the fear isn't realized all of these parts within us whether it's our inner critic, these inner children that, you know, that fear, judgment or being laughed at, or, you know, not, not having peers around us who want to play with us on the playground, being rejected. These fears are so valid, and these parts who are so intelligent, who know us so well, because they are us, they show up with these, with these strategies with these coping mechanisms and the strategies for, for keeping us safe. And I can appreciate that I can love all of those parts for that. The voice of my inner critic, the one in me, who tells me that I'm not good enough that I like who am who am I to, to start this podcast and to share who am i i believe that that voice is just trying to keep me safe from the pain, the pain and potential suffering that could arise from, from the judgment from you know, from people not liking this podcast or not resonating with me or my messages. But I hit a point in my life where it became more painful to stay small than the perceived potential pain, of judgment. And even of potentially losing loved ones or relationships. Because ultimately, if standing in my light and standing in my truth isn't a match, then we are not a match. And that's okay. Each one of us has such a unique expression. Not all people are going to resonate with all other people. So we find our resonance in our relationships and we move towards that resonance. So the pain of staying small of staying in my box, like my very comfortable box, right, like we live in comfortable boxes. Whether that is an apartment that's decorated just right has all the things for our creature comforts. Whether that box is an office that has all of our all of our needs, my you know, got my light ring and my microphone and my laptop that I love. I'm broadcasting from a box, right here in this moment. We live inside of boxes. Not all boxes are boxes that we can see because our constructs of our identity. Some are constructs of our reality and what we believe to be true. I lived inside the box of an identity for a very long time. And I do identity that was rooted in professionalism and perfectionism and identity that was almost entirely based on who I was at work. Who my professional self was. And the version of me that was moving through these these professional achievements and experiences, I was outsourcing my worth, to those external validations those external sources of self worth being mirrored back to me in this very specific way, at a time when my self worth was almost entirely coming from my career and from how others perceive me how others perceived my perfect professional self, really, because I wasn't yet being all of myself at work. That was, that was scary, too. So I wore the mask, or the mask of professionalism, and that protected me. That helped me fake it till I made it. Right. We hear that phrase a lot, a lot. It's so normalized, fake it till you make it. It's there. I mean, I was faking it till I made it. And wearing that mask meant that I didn't have to say, I don't know, I don't know how to do this. I don't, I don't know what the answer is. I'm going through a breakup, or a death or a period of deep insecurity and really questioning who I am. And what this job even means to me, if I'm even in the right place. What were all the things sitting underneath that mask that I didn't say that I didn't show up in, that I reserved for conversations with, with personal acquaintances and friends over the years with, you know, with a glass of wine and just venting it all out, renting it all out. But not showing up in in that that authenticity with my boss, or with you know, any anyone who may have felt directly threatened by me being in my truth, because it could have impacted them. They could have rocked the boat could have made us all feel less secure, less safe in our sense of purpose and our sense of I mean, even even the security that we get inside of our, our business practices, our team practices or operations, we get, we get used to that we get comfortable with that. And when we're being invited into our back end into another stage of of growth, whether that is within our own leadership and within our own creative potential, moving towards those edges, or whether it's moving towards the edges of how we grow our companies moving into a new phase of, of growth and potential. Those edges are scary. We can be we can be standing right at that the edge of that cliff and looking off and being like I mean, I don't I don't have a plane built yet. But am I going to make the jump? Am I going to leap? Am I going to take that leap of faith and trust myself enough to build the plane? To build my wings as I, as I fall? As I move through the ambiguity of all of this unknown? Can I trust myself enough? Because the reality is we never know. Nothing is actually secure. A lot of security is an illusion that we've bought into. We could lose our entire savings overnight. Depending on the cards that life has in store for us. We can lose a loved one, we can lose our family like nothing, nothing is secure. Not really. We get to form a sense of safety and trust within as we've talked about in previous episodes. I think that that that level of of trust and security is real. Perhaps perhaps the only real security we have is our self trust, trusting our ability to be able to handle anything and when we do that enough times when we show up for ourselves consistently, regardless of what the circumstances. And we get to experience ourselves moving through that with grace and love. The self trust only builds especially when we show up in integrity and in alignment with our values. So we learn that over time, it takes it takes iterations or reps for that to get truly built in a way that is integrated and embodied in a way that that is baked into or embedded into our memory cells. our very DNA as leaders, as business owners, the DNA of of us as leaders, but also the, the genetic coding of the cultures that we create on our teams, and in our companies. It's the power of integration. It's the power of embodiment, is actually getting, you know, getting these lessons so integrated, that they are woven into the fabric of, of our DNA. too, we become. And I think just like in epigenetics, where different environmental circumstances can turn on and off genes, like certain genetic triggers can turn a gene on that wasn't previously on. We're learning so much about epigenetics. And I think the context or the environment that we're in as business owners, or that we're we're in within our lives, they invite us to turn on and off certain genes to step into our potential self growth, in the same way that that business growth isn't. isn't linear, it's like it's not simple enough to be linear and, and truly predictable. I think I think growth is more cyclical than that. I think regenerative growth is more sustainable than the exponential overnight success that we that we chase. But I also think that when it comes to when it comes to our leadership, DNA, and turning on certain genes, I think that I think that that can happen in an instant, I think that we can become a more expanded version of ourselves in an instant. I think it's often a choice. I think that our, our bodies, our emotional bodies, our physical bodies are our environment, as a leader, as well as all of the relationships, and the entered the social energies that we surround ourselves, in our relationships, and in our teams. We exist in social contexts as well as social environments. And I think that plays a huge role in what gets activated and deactivated within us. So paying attention to this relationship between our potential and our context, can become really fascinating as leaders, as business owners, and really just like as humans as humans, because again, we talk a lot about business and leadership on this podcast, but this is really about being human stepping into our potential as humans, in deep connection with ourselves in deep connection to nature. But But fears do tend to, to trigger these parts within us, these protector parts, parts work is actually an entire method and body of work that I have found to be incredibly helpful in understanding myself in forming new new relationship to myself to my body to my journey. We can become fragmented when we wear a bunch of masks and that you know, that type of fragmentation can be really painful. But with parts work, I think the the beauty is that if we can, if we can look at these individual parts within us and tend to them internally, in the same way that we would tend a child externally or or a friend, a loved one who is experiencing a lot of self criticism being down on themselves, maybe they're feeling a lot of depression, maybe they're self sabotaging in a relationship or in their own life in their company. So if we can get a little distance by personifying these parts within us, and even, you know, turning up the volume, on the drama, the dialogue, the, the intensity of what that part is feeling, when we turn up the volume and dramatize it, it becomes more like watching a movie. And again, we can get a lot we can get just enough distance from that, that we can begin to glean the the wisdom and the insight from that. Because ultimately, these parts are protectors, they showed up for a reason. If there's a particular part within sometimes you can ask, you know, when when was the first time in my life that this part showed up? When did this part really come online. And often, this can take us back to memories as early as childhood. I mean, maybe even past lives, who knows that we can get transported to the the moment or memory when that part first formed and showed up to protect us to be a shield. When we see these parts, as protectors, we can really love them. We can practice gratitude for them. And we can work with them, we can be in relationship with them. And have and have conversations have these internal conversations with ourselves, especially if there is a protector part that while their intentions when they first showed up, were really good and really amazing and helped us to be safe. Maybe now that protector part is the very part that's holding us back from stepping into our potential. So having a loving conversation, to let that part go to help that part put down the shield, put down the pattern. And say, you know, thank you, thank you. But I've got this, I've got this now. I have enough safety and trust within myself to no longer need this pattern of reactivity, this pattern of of protection or even self sabotage. There are many forms that these parts take. So jumping back to my story for a moment here. I had just stepped down as CIO, Chief Operating Officer at this company that spanned North America. I just said goodbye to my my team. And I was fully stepping into launching a company with my best friend, my co founder I'm sitting there in my home office because at this point COVID had already hit. And I'm I'm feeling the potential within me to for me, it showed up in my low belly. But this oh my gosh, this like creative, sensual, almost energy, that that wanted to be released and expressed. And I kept feeling like I just need to step into my power I need to step into my potential. There's something that's wanting to be birthed in me I can feel it, I can feel it. The earliest stages of gestation were already occurring. More Life was being generated within me and would eventually be ready to be birthed. But I was standing in my own way, a lot of the time by staying in the comfort of my habits and my identities and my my stories, my patterns of who I thought I was. So staying in the habits of over eating as a form of stress relief, drinking alcohol as a form of stress, stress release, or reduction, that self medicating coping mechanism. I stayed in habits of, of overwork that I had taken with me from my traditional career and all the habits of working really hard that I had built there. And I stayed in my identity as a perfectionist. I wanted to build the systems and the the platforms and get them to a place where they were all just right. So that I could fully launch into birthing this thing. And there's, there's a part of that that's rather beautiful, right, the kind of nesting and preparing one's body preparing one's environment for birth. Having a birth plan. Like obviously, there's a really strong analogy of birthing a child, when it comes to birthing a project or a business. A lot of lot of parallels there. But I think staying in that that archetype of perfectionism was certainly holding me back, I could hide behind that. And look around at what I was creating and think, who like, you know, not yet this isn't there yet. I'm not ready to share yet because this is imperfect. So I, you know, I was hiding behind that mask. Avoiding my potential in a lot of ways and, and I was afraid, I was afraid to do like the big bold thing to make the to make the move that was actually going to catapult me into my edge or my growth. Ultimately, I think these things can't be forced, and we have to be ready for them. And maybe I wasn't. But I looking back, I am aware of how much I was hiding and self sabotaging and staying in my existing energy. By staying in my patterns. By staying in my habits. habit patterns create an energetic signature. That's often difficult to name. But if I'm in the habit of eating certain foods and doing certain activities, I'm generating a specific signature or sequence of energy in my day. We are what we eat. We become conduits of the energy that we are cultivating and calling in and moving through us. And we show up in that energy. So things like putting the, the frequency, the energetic frequency, that alcohol contains putting that in my body would immediately bring my vibration down into the the feeling tone or energy of depression. Of being, you know, being lonely or not being enough. There are a lot of stories that sit at that vibration. And that substance takes us right into that frequency. And all of a sudden we are attuned to the narratives of that frequency. Having to face that over and over and over again. Our vibe really matters the vibe that we show up in. And I do believe that we get to cultivate that consciously by what we put in our body, by the habits that we build. And by the choices we make relative to self healing and the language that we use, how we show up in relationships, these things all have energy. Words are spells. Language really matters. Words matter. As in they literally turn into matter. As we write them in our journal as we speak them you know, share, share a story, rooted in complaining, rooted in sharing or venting, every, every detail of what's going wrong in a project, guess what that's going to get bigger, what we focus on grows. So where we, where we focus our attention really matters, our intention really matters. Learning to build coherence across the inner and outer world is I believe the, the art of, of leadership, being that bridge. Cultivating energy within to create new worlds externally, it's a huge part of what leadership is to me being that guide or that usher into new ways of being into a mission or a vision that we ourselves embody. It's difficult to embody our values and our principles. If we're polluting our bodies with toxic chemicals if we're in habits that are unhealthy, and take us off track or cause us to self sabotage I've I've deeply lived in some of that self sabotaging energy for sure. For sure. Alcohol has been a big part of that for me, and I'm still healing those patterns. You've heard me say that self growth isn't isn't linear. we cycle through the same learnings as new versions of ourselves to pick up a little more wisdom each time so that we can spiral upward into a high vibrational life into high vibrational businesses that are expressions of our unique gifts. That's, that's all that's what we're doing here. That's really what we're doing here. Everything is energy. And I think I think the, the pattern that sits behind things like alcoholism, workaholism is a pattern of, of compulsivity. It's rooted in, you know, addictive behavior, whether you're addicted to a substance or a food, or behavior or a person. Like I think we can get addicted to our own self sabotaging. We can get addicted to our stories, or our very identities, we get so attached to that. We can get addicted to drama. I mean, let's just look at all the shows that are on TV, we're very addicted to drama in this world, and action. But often what sits behind that that addiction is compulsivity and what is compulsivity I've come to see it as as avoidance really, as a mechanism for for staying in a repeating compulsive behavior to protect us from looking at the thing that's directly underneath it. And for me, that often is the fear of not being enough or not belonging. Even though I so want to be different and shining in my gifts and building a different world co creating a different world with you all. I'm still a human, I still have, you know, basic needs of belonging, of not being rejected, of wanting to be really seen. So my compulsivity is whether it shows up in my perfectionism, or my addictions that I've been working with over the years addictions to alcohol, coffee and work mostly those are those are sort of the big three for me and I think within the addiction to to work is the addiction to doing to being compulsively in a doing or producing energy. So each one of these addictions has its own nuances of patterns. That I've just been like really pulling back the layers is on lately? I think we could have an episode for each one of these. And it would be really, really insightful. But these these addictions, these compulsive cities, these parts, these protector parts, what are they? What do they all have in common? They're keeping us the same. They're keeping us where we are keeping us in what is familiar so that we can feel a sense of safety. So how do we create enough safety within ourselves to be able to grow, to be able to feel safe enough to step on the ledge to look off and see what's there for us to have a nervous system that we can self regulate enough. And better yet a nervous system that we're so masterful at, at regulating through our through our behaviors, and our food and our practices as, as leaders that we're actually co regulating the entire collective nervous system of our team, or our community, because of how rooted and grounded and safe we feel. leaders create safety so that they and those around them can take risks, can step into more creative spaces and to step into innovation. There's magic in cultivating this, this new pattern of of self regulation and self trust, and what that then unlocks within us. When we have safety within, we can feel safe enough to look at the hard things to look at the fear, including the fear of our own potential, the fear of losing loved ones, the fear of failing even, we can look at all these fears, and we have to, if we want to grow we have to look at these patterns. These patterns that hold us back, we are often the thing standing in our own way. And so I often say to, to clients and to those I am working with are consulting with that. We have such a focus on external solutioning on building systems that are going to allow us to get to the next phase of scaling. But if the humans are not ready to step into that new level, if they haven't done that inner work, there's so much that breaks down within the human system of relationships, including our relationships with with ourselves, there's so much that breaks down in the human system that is running that operational system that you can have the you can have the best operational system in the world. But if the humans running it or aren't aligned within themselves, and grounded in purpose, and if they haven't done the work to face their fears of putting themselves out there and expressing their authenticity and creativity through those systems, then the systems are just something impressive to look at it that they're hollow, they're hollow without the lifeforce energy of our consciousness flowing through them. So we have to do both like the scaling our businesses is is this this deep work of inner and outer cultivation growing a thriving garden if you will, inside and externally and that starts that starts with the soil the health of the soil The health of our bodies of our buildings that like the environments that we are planting these seeds within, we get to look across all all of these layers and grow really healthy whole regenerative people and companies. One way that I love to look at this through like one lens is the lens of the chakra system. If you have listened to previous episodes, you know that I am both a Reiki Master and an executive education Coach and an executive myself and to build to build systems and people and cultures that are truly whole, I found it to be incredibly helpful to look at it through the lens of the chakra system. And you may have heard phrases like teal organizations, there's also this you know, this color coding that is directly linked and reflective of the chakra system. red being the base level of security the foundational needs being met it's rather binary at that level. Getting up to the color orange, we start to connect with the beliefs that run a person or an organization moving up to the solar plexus and the color yellow, it gets more dynamic in the social constructs and the relationships that the unique gifts of each part are beginning to flow through the social system that makes up that organization. Green in the heart we get into mission purpose, loving reciprocity for how we interact with any other member of an ecosystem whether it's a supplier or a competitor throat chakra is blue we get into honesty, authenticity, the messaging like the purity of our messaging as leaders and as organizations. So, authentic marketing would live here authentic sales would live here as well. Moving up to the third eye and that that beautiful indigo color purple we get into the the intuition of a person the inner guidance and the the intuition of accompany you know what is what does that mean? That means that this is a this is a whole and sentient. Intuitively intelligent. community really connected so deeply through all of the lower chakras that that it can see. It can see how to stay in aligned in its purpose it can see how to maintain its integrity. And I mean, the crown chakra, which is often depicted as as white or just light in general, all colors. I mean, who knows what's available to us at that, at that level we get into we get into you know, direct channeling of creativity and our souls higher purpose or organizations higher purpose. And I think you could, you know, in that I just went through kind of, in simple form, looking at how the chakras exist within a leader but also map over into the organization's whole health. But you could also map the different operational structures that exist within each one of these, these core energy centers of a, of an organism really an organization is an organism. We've gotten rather mechanistic in how we view organizations and how to structure them but I think we're moving back to a more Our natural and organic version of organizing and operating as one organism unlocking, you know, the potential of companies I think, in large part is unlocking the, the collective intelligence and oneness that's available within a team. But you can imagine that every, you know, every function, just like an organ in a body, every every core function core business function has its own nuances and what makes it healthy, finance, HR, marketing, sales, strategic planning, I mean, you could, you could map all these across the chakra system. And I guarantee you at some point, I will do that, and share a visual of this, because I've been fascinated with merging my worlds of Reiki and business for a really long time. And I think this is one way to do it. But yeah, the the wholeness of one's health and integrity, as a leader, you know, internally ripples out into how that shows up externally, within teams and within companies. So we see this alignment show up across scales. And when that occurs, we build an incredible coherence across scales of individual team, organization, industry planet. We talk a lot about these scales, within the Harvard exec ed course as well. And the patterns that can occur at any one scale, to developing this pattern recognition, which is really what we've been talking about in this episode, developing this skill of pattern recognition, for her own healing practices, heals the pattern at all scales, so that we're not bringing those same patterns within us that hold us back, that sabotage us that keep us playing small. When we heal those within ourselves, we ensure that we don't bring those same patterns to our relationships and teams and company culture, or company's DNA. Founder shadows are a thing. If you're a small business owner, you're bringing, you know, just like you bring, you bring all your patterns and all your baggage into a new romantic relationship. We do the same thing with our companies. A lot of parallels there, too. So this is this is important work. And it's hard. It's hard. That deep inner self healing work is hard. But when we think about what's at stake, and kind of going back to this idea that at some point, we hit a threshold where it is more painful to stay small than the potential pain of failing or being judged. Then really, the choice has already been made the choice, the choice to grow to evolve, is inevitable. I love those inevitable choices into our into our own becoming beautiful. And our intuition tends to guide us there. The synchronicity of our own lives tends to guide us there naturally. And we can have a lot of grace and patience with ourselves and our own readiness to heal the patterns, or to come back through again and again. However many times it takes to heal every little nuance of that pattern to transmute it, to alchemize it and then ripple it across scales. leadership starts in us and then ripples out into everything that we do. It's why self leadership is so important. We have an entire culture within us. In our self talk, in the energy that we show up in, we have an entire team that we are running within us at any given time because of all the parts that exists within us our inner child or inner critic or inner micromanager perfectionist. I mean you name it. The sabotager We could give all these parts names. They're all members of this inner family or entertaining him that we lead that we that we love that we learn to love to help them transmute, and alchemize. Being a leader is a wild ride, having this self responsibility is a wild ride. self responsibility, response ability, our ability to respond. I just love this definition. Imagine having an ability to respond clearly and in full Integrity with your inner compass. To respond from your deep connected sense of purpose. That's how I want to respond. I don't want to respond reactively from my traumas, or from my patterns, that no longer serve me. So I'm willing to do the deep work, willing to do the deep work, self healing and leadership are not separate. And I trust so deeply that if you are here, if you've made it this far in, in this podcast journey, and in this particular conversation, that you are doing the deep work, I really trust that I know, I know that to be true. And I know that you're doing an incredible job. So thank you, thank you for doing the inner work that transforms our outer worlds. As leaders, we are guides we are beacons were lighthouses. And I want to, I want to end this episode in total gratitude for the work that you're already doing. Know that it is enough. Know that you'll grow when you are ready. I know that nothing that shows up on your path or in your business is by accident, it's everything is an opportunity might be reflecting back a pattern at an exact moment when you are ready to look at it when you are ready to, to work with it. So if you're if you're a business owner listening to this, I really trust that that deep relationship between you and your company, and everything that it's reflecting back to you. And I trust in your ability to be with that, to nurture that. And then if you're choosing the path of entrepreneurship, or the path of of being a small business owner, that there's some part of your soul that that asked his to receive wisdom in this way. And that asked for this to be such an arena for your self growth and that your path of self growth will lead to the exact the exact things that that you are wanting to put out into the world. It's incredible how connected the path of the entrepreneur is with the self healing path. So thank you, thank you for being on that path with me. And I will see you next time.