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When I was small, my American-ness rubbed up against my Hui-ness. I remember remarking to my dad that life was always going to be unfair for me, and loads of other people never had it as hard as I did. My dad was quick to point out my faulty thinking and my use of words like always, never, and forever. “Why do you use these words?” he asked. “Some days are hard, and some days are not, for all people.”
Then he sat at the kitchen table, sipping his tea as if he were a monk sitting cross-legged on a mountaintop. I didn’t hear him utter my forever kind of language. Instead, he peppered his conversations with possibilities and set aside anything that seemed remotely permanent. To him, life was about acceptance and harmony with the natural flow of life. It is wu wei 無為 or non-action, sometimes you do nothing, and everything flows.
Over time, I have found that it is best to get out of my own way. Being my own worst enemy can lead to self-sabotaging behaviors and negative states of mind. Self-doubt, for example, can morph into procrastination, or worse, paralysis.
Even though we do not suffer from a clinically diagnosed mental illness like crippling depression or a debilitating emotional disorder, we still do not have the life we want to live. Or we may have religiously attended therapy for years, yet find ourselves hiding from our emotions and what we truly feel. Meanwhile, we sense we’ve been sabotaging ourselves with negative self-talk. Every week, we find ourselves sitting across from the therapist with a new catastrophe that needs immediate attention—the boss dismissed the project, the friend didn’t call back, or the partner is brooding over a remark. We might ask ourselves, When will I be living the emotionally satisfying existence that I deserve?
Self-sabotaging thought processes can come in many forms, including absolutist thinking. The person who suffers from this kind of cognitive distortion uses words like forever, all, and worst. Essentially, words like these can halt open thinking. This mental trap is deployed by depressed and anxious people regularly. Research published in the journal Clinical Psychological Science looked at this type of thought distortion and analyzed dozens of Internet forums. They examined absolutism in the use of language. The investigators found that forums for depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation showed the highest number of absolutist words—including always, totally, entire, never, or nothing. Not surprisingly, suicidal ideation contained the most usage.
For sufferers of cognitive distortion, this type of thinking can invade all areas of life. In relationships: “You always think about yourself and never about me.” In the workplace: “My project was a complete failure.” And in health: “I blew my diet with that donut, so I might as well eat all of them.” These sufferers tend to be unrealistic about life in general, hard on themselves and others, and often demanding what is unattainable.
We Don’t Have to Thwart Ourselves
Self-sabotage often comes with a dose of cognitive dissonance. In many areas of life, we contend with this type of mental discord. Cognitive dissonance is mental disharmony that happens when one’s behavior flies in the face of proven fact, like the party guy who knows that drinking a bottle of bourbon in one evening is bad for his health, but does it anyway because he thinks it is part of his identity. Some standard examples of the disconnect between behavior and belief include:
Smoking even though you know it causes cancer.
Driving a large gas-powered SUV even though you want to be energy efficient.
Eating cheesepuffs every night, even though you want to lose weight.
Knowing you have a project due, but you scroll through cat videos, procrastinating.
There are many ways to foil ourselves if we are self-saboteurs. We might put things off, overeat, self-medicate, or avoid hard emotions. These can be nuanced and subtle behaviors we might not even notice, but there they are.
