Facing Your Self-Sabotaging Habits Head On Workshop
In this workshop, you will explore the fact that you CAN be successful in losing weight.
How many times have you acted against your self-interest and then asked yourself why you self-sabotaged your desires? Self-sabotaging thoughts and behaviors are perpetuated by an inner critic we all possess. Get ready to explore where much of self-sabotaging comes from – your “critical inner voice.”
The critical inner voice casts doubt, undermines your desires, and may try to convince you to be paranoid or suspicious toward yourself and your desire for a lighter, healthier body. This month we will take a fresh look at your self-sabotaging habits combining therapeutically proven strategies with practical tools and self-assessments to identify your triggers, modify your thoughts and behaviors to stop this vicious cycle in its tracks.
Session #1:
Advanced Self-Sabotage 2.0
Session #1: Commitment
In this workshop you have an opportunity to do some Advanced Self-Sabotage work this month to really get you clear of why you might be struggling with your weight and body goals.
Since you are a member, I wanted to go deep to have you unearth what’s going to move you far beyond any self-sabotaging actions you’ve been experiencing.
If you do the steps in this training, you will absolutely move toward the goals that you want to achieve.
Let’s first talk about commitment – Commitment is a promise or a pledge to do something.
You’ve all made tons of commitments in the department of weight, right?
But commitment can feel very elusive which is why you may be struggling with committing to a certain size or weight and then struggling to get there.
What is standing in your way of committing and following through on this commitment every day?
- Some of you have made this promise to stop eating at 8pm and some of you are doing great. Others of you are still struggling.
- Some of you want to eat when hungry and stopping when satisfied – some of you are doing great. Others of you are still struggling.
- lose a certain amount of weight
- fit into a certain pair of jeans
- calm your mind around your weight and body
- not eat after a certain time at night
Whatever your goal is, it must be clear, doable, and you have to be willing to give it “your all.” So make sure you are excited about the goal you choose today.
What is the one thing you want to change this month?
AVOID DABBLING and instead of having a million goals that you want to accomplish, go all in this month on your goal. Focus your attention on one prize and go after it.
When You Are Unconsciously Weighing A Different Option
If, let’s say your OPTION A is –
“I will eat when I’m hungry, stop when I’m satisfied, and drink loads of water in between.”
Unconsciously there is an OPTION B that is keeping things the way they are by overeating, not paying attention to hunger, eating when you aren’t hungry, or eating way past satisfaction.
Even if you don’t believe in your OPTION A, you can be doubtful and still do it.
You can still be doubtful that hunger and satiation will allow you to lose weight. You can feel all that doubt and even think there is another program that could be better… and still commit to the action of honoring your hunger.
EVEN if you feel fear and doubt you can take action to listen to your body’s cues.
What we are going to do now is have you walk through this process to uncover your option B. You can pull up The CORE of Why You Self-Sabotage Worksheet or simply follow along with the notes.
- Write down what you want that you aren’t fully committed to yet. We will call this OPTION A.
- What is your brain weighing instead?
THIS IS OPTION B (for example: staying comfortable) - Why is option B appealing?
- Immediate gratification
- Comfortable
- Requires no risk and no responsibility
- Not hard work
- Safe
- Feels better in the moment
- Won’t drain my energy
- No risk of messing up
- More pleasurable in the moment
This allows you to see why your BRAIN is choosing option B at times
over option A - What emotion or emotions is option B helping you avoid?
- Fear
- Deprivation
- Uncomfortable
- What positive emotions is option B helping you avoid?
- Possibility
- Feeling capable
- Strong
- Responsibility
- Success
- Accomplished
- Powerful
- Who will you be if you choose option B?
- Never sees what I’m capable of
- Never feel beautiful, sexy
- Never wear clothes that I want
- Always feel embarrassed
- Sad
- Fat
- Debilitated
- What would you have to let go of to choose option A?
- Confusion
- Doubt
- Worry
- Hiding
- What is appealing about the person who chooses option A?
- I’d be an inspiration to others
- I’d accomplish my goals
- I’d choose me and my life
- I’d be a person who believes in myself
- I’d know that if I can accomplish this, I can accomplish anything
- I’d see proof that I am awesome and can do anything.
- The reason this work is very advanced is that we are looking at the unconscious side of our mind – the programming running underneath our desire to change. It’s the part of the iceberg below the water of our consciousness, only seen in our actions and thoughts.
Focus Work for week 1:
NOVICE LEVEL – Finish The CORE of Why You Self-Sabotage worksheet. Write your OPTION A down in a place you can see it. Read it 1- 3 times a day. Focus on this goal intently this week.
INTERMEDIATE LEVEL – Do the novice level assignment from above. Then on a 3 x 5 card (or other paper) write your OPTION A on one side. On the flip side write something to help you get back to OPTION A thinking like… “Oops! That decision came from my past, not the vibrant, healthy me I am creating now. I really want OPTION A and I choose to continue practicing now. I’m getting back on the bike.” You can use some of your answers from the worksheet to make it more powerful for you.
ADVANCED LEVEL – Do the assignments above. Report into your accountability group or on Monday’s/Friday’s Check-In posts to let everyone know what you are up to. Listening to an extra of any of Marna’s classes or podcasts will round out your week.
Session #2:
Session 2 – The Brain Science of Self-Sabotage
Welcome to session 2 on Facing Self-Sabotage Head On where we are taking a deeper dive into self-sabotaging patterns and habits that you are having in your life.
In the last session, we discussed Commitment. You came up with one commitment to make with yourself. Then we discussed that oftentimes when you make a commitment and don’t follow through, you are unconsciously weighing another option. We called that option B and you did some great work exploring YOUR OPTION B and what is going on under the surface.
Today we are going to look at the brain science of self-sabotage and the two camps your option B choices fall into both consciously and unconsciously
Three examples of the Brain Science of Option B:
Attaining a reward (like I’ve been good all day let’s have this snack) for a quick dopamine hit that makes us want to repeat this behavior.
Avoiding a threat – Avoiding looking too beautiful, avoiding being sexy, avoiding compliments, avoiding the pain of possibly gaining the weight back.
Scientists discovered –
* The Thalamus detects when a real or assumed threat is present
* The Amygdala activates the fear response. Which triggers the sympathetic nervous system to quickly prepare the body and the mind for defensive action.
We know this as –
1. Flight or flight – where you want to fight or run from the situation or which
2. Fear-freeze – Where your mind and body are so overwhelmed by the situation that you freeze. We see some animals playing dead and we do the same things.
You don’t need a real threat for this to be activated. A memory from your past or perceiving something as a threat is enough to activate this.
Avoidance – Frankly, making decisions can be complex. Sometimes people want to avoid the sacrifices of time and energy that it might take to achieve this goal. Achieving this goal comes with new responsibilities that add to stress levels that might be easier to avoid. For example, new responsibilities like cooking, or working out, or stopping when satisfied can be circumvented by not even trying.
Self-sabotage is like driving while tapping on the brake. The car’s progress is impeded by engaging the brake. You want to hit your goals but the unconscious Option B keeps us from zooming forward.
I’ve categorized Self-Sabotage into 4 ways that you might be self-sabotaging to attain a reward or avoid a threat.
Take some time this week to look at the truth of what is playing out. You can assess your patterns this week with this worksheet: Transforming Your Self-Sabotage Type to be able to make real progress. Read on for an explanation.
Identifying Your Self Sabotage Type
TYPE 1:
There are some you don’t really believe you can be successful so you avoid trying or fulling going for it. For this type, what you want just seems like a pipe dream standing where you are. You actually don’t believe you can be that person. Further, it might be that you don’t believe that you deserve good things. If you can see yourself being the person with a beautiful body, with an amazing figure, you are more likely to move toward that. If you don’t think you could ever be good or enjoy exercise, then why bother.
TYPE 2:
Negative internal voices – If you’re telling yourself you can’t be or have that, then it’s going to be harder for you. If you are bullying yourself, who is standing up for you?
TYPE 3:
Fear of change or the unknown – when a new goal is introduced, your mind CAN introduce this as a stressor, and self-sabotage may ensue. It’s unknown!
TYPE 4:
Need for control – If you feel like you HAVE to do things a certain way, control can take you out of the game. It can prevent you from taking advantage of new opportunities where you may not have a ton of control.
FEEL FREE TO ADD YOUR OWN SELF-SABOTAGE TYPE
The more personalized this is, the more you will be able to see your self sabotaging patterns happening under your nose so you can begin to choose differently than you have in the past.
This week, you have the opportunity of going through this process to understand your self-sabotage type when it comes to situational patterns or automatic thoughts that self-sabotage you.
Then you can practice creating more empowering thoughts and actions. This knowledge will help you in THE MOMENT to move onto a new path that aligns with what you want.
Focus Work for week 2:
NOVICE LEVEL -In at least 2-3 circumstances throughout the week as you face your automatic thoughts and actions that are counterproductive to your true health intentions, fill out the Transforming Your Self-Sabotage Type worksheet to identify the type and come up with a new thought.
INTERMEDIATE LEVEL– Do the novice level assignment from above and do at least 4-6 circumstances. Be sure to declare whether the strategy/thought worked.
ADVANCED LEVEL – Do the assignments above and listen to at least one extra ThinWithin podcast or class this week. You could re-listen to today’s class on Zoom.
Session #3:
BEING with Self-Sabotage Through Acceptance and Cognitive Defusion
Session 3 – Acceptance Through Self-Sabotage
Last session we spent time Identifying Your Self-Sabotage Types. By noticing the automatic thoughts that occurred, identifying the type, creating a new empowering thought to get in front of them, we were able to take new action and assess if it worked or not.
When you do this work, incredible patterns appear in your self-sabotage. So much in your life and your relationship can transform with just noticing the self-sabotage.
In this session we are going to continue on but with less writing and more BEING. We will explore acceptance in this session, along with a psychological term called cognitive defusion, a term coined by Steven Hayes.
When we overcome self-sabotaging actions and feelings, it leads to feeling pretty awesome. Those moments we get in front of any self-sabotage or feeling badly about ourselves we make progress. However, when we don’t, which happens because we are human, it may feed into negative feelings around not being good enough, smart enough, motivated enough to get this weight off.
Today let’s just sink into the feeling of being ENOUGH through acceptance.
During this course as we’ve been looking at self-sabotage, we’ve noticed some situations create automatic negative thoughts in our minds. If we don’t get in front of these thoughts, they lead to unhealthy automatic actions. Last week, we did work to recognize them and empower new thoughts to see if that helped.
Cognitive Defusion
Cognitive defusion is the practice of observing and distancing the thought from your mind.
This practice is a way of seeing a thought as just that – a thought, and then allowing it and accepting it to be just that – a thought.
Notice and let your thoughts just be thoughts.
A thought to overeat. A thought for ice cream. A thought to eat because I’m feeling a certain way. A thought to not workout.
They are just that – thoughts.
You can allow a thought without HAVING to take action.
Go deep into the FEELING part of your body and SEE the unhealthy thought that will bring you away from your vision for your health. Like steam – see the thought just coming in and sizzling out.
So this week you have an opportunity to NOT DO anything but just NOTICE the thought. Find acceptance for having that thought. This acceptance may reduce the intensity of the feeling which will let the thought or feeling just move through you without having to act.
Have you ever noticed a cloud, how it changes shape, then just separates and goes away? I want you to imagine watching your thoughts like that. Imagine your thought as a cloud, separate from you. Let it form, shift, and then just drift away – drift away and move on.
This practice is a way of seeing a thought as just that – a thought, and then allowing it and accepting it to be just that – a thought.
Notice and let your thoughts just be thoughts.
A thought to overeat. A thought for ice cream. A thought to eat because I’m feeling a certain way. A thought to not workout.
They are just that – thoughts.
You can allow a thought without HAVING to take action.
Go deep into the FEELING part of your body and SEE the unhealthy thought that will bring you away from your vision for your health. Like steam – see the thought just coming in and sizzling out.
So this week you have an opportunity to NOT DO anything but just NOTICE the thought. Find acceptance for having that thought. This acceptance may reduce the intensity of the feeling which will let the thought or feeling just move through you without having to act.
Have you ever noticed a cloud, how it changes shape, then just separates and goes away? I want you to imagine watching your thoughts like that. Imagine your thought as a cloud, separate from you. Let it form, shift, and then just drift away – drift away and move on.
This week you’re going to have the opportunity to play with and use Cognitive Diffusion to help you with any self-sabotaging patterns.
Just as a cloud is separate from you – your thoughts are your programming, not necessarily you. You are a person who wants to be lighter, thinner, and leaner. You are a person who has goals and dreams but at the same time, you also have a lot of programmed thoughts that sometimes get in the way.
Not All Your Thoughts Are Yours
Not all of your thoughts are yours. They have been programmed in and often automatically come out, but they do not have to be acted on – which means –
- You can workout
- You can stop eating
- You can go to bed without a snack
- You can get in front of your self – sabotage
Notice your thought, accept it, and move on.
Focus Work for Week 3
- I notice that my brain is saying….and I accept that…. (then move on)
- I’m having a thought that….and I love myself for that and I don’t need to give it another moment of my time or act on it.
- It’s curious how my brain is offering this thought….
- It’s funny how my brain really wants…. ADVANCED LEVEL – Do the assignments above and up your game by listening to at least one extra ThinWithin podcast or class this week.
Session #4
Self-Sabotage - Putting it All Together
A Quick Review
Over the past few weeks we have covered quite a bit about self-sabotage.
From understanding that if you keep self-sabotaging you might be unconsciously “weighing another option.” We called it Option B. This can even come in the form of unconsciously considering another diet option, or it may be the need for
- Immediate gratification
- Staying comfortable
- No risk and no responsibility
- Feeling safe
- Feeling better in the moment
- Something that won’t drain my energy
- No risk of messing up
In session 1, we explored commitment and our B options.
Then, in session 2, we identified Your Self-Sabotage Type that might be creating these unconscious B options like control, identity, fear and how to get in front of those types, through creating new empowering thoughts, taking new action, and determining if it worked or not.
Last week, in session 3, we discussed cognitive defusion, a term that allows you to think thoughts about food or wanting food and overeating…all of the noise our mind creates to go with them…without having to act on them. Accepting the the thought and allowing yourself to chose to follow through or not.
Take a moment and just write down what you think has been the most beneficial strategy for you thus far.
The Power of Visualization
In this session you are going to use the power of visualization as just another way to activate your brain to get in front of self-sabotage. Visualization offers several benefits:
● Visualizing yourself succeeding helps you believe that it can – and will – happen. Which increases confidence.
● Visualization helps you “practice” success. When you imagine every step of an event or activity going well, you get your mind and body ready to take those steps in real life.
● Anyone can benefit from visualization. You don’t have to be a life coach or personal development expert to use visualization to achieve your goals.
I wanted to do this, today as a lead into next month where we will explore self-hypnosis – which is going to be so fun and so amazing!
Open this worksheet to use for this week: Self-Sabotage – Visualizing A New Outcome
Start imagining an exact scene where you encounter self-sabotage. Don’t be vague or unclear – the more specific you are, the more details you imagine, the better the visualization will work for you.
Picture the scene as if you were there:
- What color are the walls?
- What are you wearing?
- Who is in the room with you?
Make sure you use all of your senses in the visualization exercise. Sight, sound, taste, smell, touch – include them all so that you really bring your vision to life.
Here is an example:
Imagine yourself standing in front of a group at work. Picture each persons’ face, and what each one is wearing. Hear the sound of papers being moved around, the smell of fresh coffee, the sight of sunshine coming in through the office windows.
See yourself being successful in a stressful scene that often results in overeating like at work.
Tips For Visualizing Something You Want & Actually Making It Happen
- Visualize What Life Will Be Like Once You Achieve Your Goals. …
- Visualize The Steps You’ll Take To Get There. …
- Picture It All In Vivid Detail. …
- Create A Vision Board. …
- Write Down All Your Goals. …
- Set Mini Goals Along The Way. …
- Let Yourself Zone Out And Daydream.
Homework
NOVICE LEVEL – 3 times this week, visualize yourself in a situation that can result in self-sabotage. In order to build your brain’s muscle to see different possibilities, practice before the situation occurs. You can use this worksheet to record your experiences: Self-Sabotage – Visualizing A New Outcome. Also, write down the most useful strategy from this course. If you’d prefer to just keep practicing the same skill and skip this week’s suggestion, please do!
INTERMEDIATE LEVEL- Do the novice level assignment from above and also attempt to visualize a different result in the moment of stress at least 3 times this week.
ADVANCED LEVEL – Do the assignments above and listen to at least one extra ThinWithin podcast, coaching, or class this week.
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