O.M.G Not Another Rabbit Hole!

As I logged onto my coaching call, I really wasn’t sure what I was going to use it for. I had a heavy feeling my my chest, I was tired, and completely zapped of all motivation and clarity on my next steps. I knew there were things I should be focusing on, but the thought of doing so only intensified the heaviness, which in turn increased my internal criticism, leading to more overwhelm and defeat - the rabbit hole I’d gone down was deep, dark and isolating. And I felt trapped.

Have you ever felt this way? Stuck in your own darkness, wondering if you’ll be able to sleep this one off tonight?

Photo by Sangga Rima Roman Selia on Unsplash

As my coached and I delved into this mindset it became increasingly clear that my saboteur was having a hay day! We all have saboteurs. They are opportunistic thought patterns that present themselves when it’s least convenient. The dictionary describes Saboteurs as “a person who makes a mess of a situation on purpose.” For the sake of this conversation we’re not talking about actual people, but rather our Ego that kicks into overdrive when it thinks we’re getting a little too close to the line called Risk. Our Ego is always in survival mode and when we start making decisions that could present any form of risk, it slams into high gear sending out our Saboteur with all its unhelpful thoughts: “STOP! Don’t cross that line. That’s a bad bad idea. I’m going to lose EVERYTHING if I do that. People will think I’m stupid - we can’t afford that! I’ll look like an idiot. I can leave that until later. We play the safe-game, not the risk-game”… I could go on, my Saboteur has a whole host of things to say when I begin stepping out of my comfort zone and into what feels like unknown territory. Our Ego despises the unknown and will do anything and everything to get us back into familiar territory - it will mess up our best laid plans to press into the edges of our comfort zones, on purpose. That is its job.

We all have a Saboteur

Here’s the other really tricky thing about our Saboteur. It will morph as it sees fit, especially if we are not heeding its warnings. Have you ever noticed that as you start learning new ways of dealing with your negative thoughts, or managing your fears and anxiety, that new types of thought start to emerge? Ones like: “I’m not (fill in the blank) enough. All this positive self-talk is letting me off the hook. This self-compassion thing isn’t keeping me accountable. I’m missing out! What if… I should have…”. This is where I was when I got on my call with my coach. In my head I was thinking - ok I know these thoughts are not overly positive, but hey, they’re keeping me align to my values of accountability, integrity, mastery, and purpose. Or were they?

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Dr. Lucy Hone, a researcher who specializes in resilience and wellbeing would say these kinds of (falsely positive) thoughts are not in any way helping me align with my values. Simply put, they were not motivating nor were helping me to move forward, rather my experience was overwhelm and paralysis.

Our values, when authentically practiced and balanced, never lead us into overwhelm.

Value Masquerade

This was a huge Ah-Ha moment for me. I started to realize that my Saboteur was showing up as a masquerade of my values. Our values are great tools to help us stay aligned with what truly matters to us, but when they rev into overdrive they can become something quite sinister. What appeared to be accountability had actually turned into judgment, integrity into guilt, mastery into perfectionism, purpose into obsession, competitiveness into jealousy.

My Saboteur had subtly convinced me that through shame, guilt, perfectionism, obsession and jealousy I could achieve my goals. And boy was it wrong - even research says this is a recipe for disaster. In her book, The Burnout Fix, Dr.Jacinta Jimenez points out that “research suggests that self-criticism predicts increased stress, negative perfectionism, and even depression”. She goes on to say that instead of being a motivator, self-criticism can actually decreases our motivation because is amplifies our fear of failure and undermines our self-esteem and goals. On the flip side of the research, self-compassion is associated with increase resilience, stronger motivation, improved mental wellbeing, positive emotions, and an overall reduction of feeling overwhelmed.

Comfort Zones are Cozy

Here’s the thing about our comfort zone - it’s really cosy, easy, and familiar - isn’t it? But growth cannot happen here. We need to venture to the edges of our comfort zone, to stretch ourselves a little - this is called healthy stress, the good stress. Good stress calls us to the edges of familiarity, and the known, but to be clear it doesn’t ask us to dive in head first. I like to think of it like a field. The field is my comfort zone - it has everything I need and around the parameter is a fence. The fence has been put in place by my Ego to make it clear the boundaries of “safe” and “unsafe”. What I’ve discovered though, is my Ego has strategically placed a whole bunch of rabbit holes near the parameter of that fence that I have to navigate. Now I could choose to stay in center of my cosy, familiar yard, but I’ll need to be content with what’s there, nothing more, nothing less; and some people are quite happy with that. But for those of us to are committed to growth and expansion, we need to get on the other side of the fence now and again.

Here’s a personal example. For my birthday one year, my husband, bought me a tandem skydive experience. I’m one of those people who doesn’t feel the need to jump out of a perfectly good airplane, but Mike feels otherwise and has skydived for many years. On the day of the event I was nervous. As the my flight time got closer and I was suiting up with my instructor Pete, I started to miss some of those strategically placed rabbit holes, meeting up with my Saboteur once again. Whoosh: what if the parachute doesn’t open? I’m going to get up there and lose my nerve to jump, then everyone will think I’m lame. I’m really not sure I can do this. I could walk away right now. What if this is a really stupid decision? This is what it looks like when we start encroaching on the boundaries of our comfort zone. Before I knew it, I was tumbling out the the airplane, stunned by the scenery I’d also only ever seen on Google Maps, and landing safely with a sheer desire to do it again!

And often that’s the way it is when we finally buck up the nerve to venture outside of our comfort zone. Courage is only required in the presence of fear. Our Saboteur would have us think there’s no possible way it will work - the stakes are far too high, but more often than not the benefits outweigh the risks. Now, let’s be clear, I’m not saying you need to go skydiving. I mean if it’s your thing, then I urge you to do it. But more importantly, what’s that thing you’ve been wanting to do, that thing that feels too daunting or nerve wracking, that you haven’t done yet? What’s the thing you’re putting off because your Saboteur has convinced you it isn’t worth the risk? Which rabbit holes have you been spending too much time in?

Consider Journaling and Reflecting

Use your values here as guideposts - are you clear about what your values are and how to step into them?

What really matters to you and what does that call you to lean into?

How do you see you can take this next step with confidence knowing it’s guided by your values?

Can you clearly sense when these authentic values are taking the lead verse when your sobature has concocted a masquerade?

I’ve posed a lot of questions here because I think they’re worth reflecting to help you get clear on what you barriers really are and what next steps could look like for you.

And if you’d like to move through these with a Coach, contact me and we can discuss how coaching will benefit you.