Self-sabotage combat

Hey guys just wanted to share something I found insightful. Right now I'm at a friend's house, and we were toking and then everyone went to sleep. I wasn't sleepy so I started to think about some stuff I had learned in CBT - Cognitive Behavior Therapy. It's kinda long, but it may be worth it.

It's about making a plan and sticking to it, basically. Obeying yourself and working with your inner talk, as opposed to against yourself. Which is what exactly what I've been doing all my life.

In my view my inner talk is almost the same as the unconscious, or the little red devil whispering in our left ear. Almost as an instinct, it schemes up things that we are too busy to notice (but can train ourselves to!) to give our life some logic, some sense of direction. As cavemen, I'm pretty sure we had to come up with logic steps in our daily life in order to survive, eat, etc.
So I think the human mind is not comfortable with uncertainty.

We (or myself, in this example) have these "built-in" instinctive protection that "tries" to give us some certainty, even if it's in very illogical ways. But I'm digressing here.

What I'm saying is that to accomplish our goals, to feel better and stronger, we need some sort of internal coherence. I don't think I ever had that, and I think many people feel the same (think about the "depression boom" of today).

I was feeling weak and hopeless. Because I feel I have little control over my life and over the things I want. Then I started to notice why.

There's this "little voice" in our heads, and mine gives me excuses to not follow my plans. Basically, self-sabotage. I'm sure this voice understands me better than anybody, and I'm sure it's doing the best it can. But once you notice its talking...

Talk to it. Explain why it is wrong. In a socratic way, you will always win, because it will always be wrong. Anything that is says will be purely to take your mind off your goals. So it's like talking to a very stubborn mother who you know is wrong.

But that's okay. When you're down in the dumps the voice will win. After all, that's what it's been doing all these years (very successfully) and it had a very good reason: it just wants "the best" for you and you know that. So first step: know your enemy. Learn to recognize when the self-sabotage comes in. Just know it's there and realize what it's doing to you: trying to stop you from achieving your goals.

So once you've started to see a pattern (and oh, boy, there sure is!) it begins to get old. You learn its tricks, its same old lame excuses and you realize that you actually have a chance. So start an argument. You should have three things in mind when doing that:
1 - What is your ultimate goal (example: start exercising), which is SACRED, make that your last stand;
2 - What are the potential benefits you will get from achieving the goal and
3 - What are the necessary steps you must accomplish to achieve it.

Try to have these very clear in your mind, imagine them, visualize them.

When you start talking to it and counter-attacking the negative inner talk,
It will come up with ALL kinds of excuses, it will be merciless. That is its job.
It will be desperate and throw the stuff that you hate the most in the face.

good job!

That's when you know you're 95% close to winning battle. When you realize that your inner talk is throwing its most desperate stabs at you into making you give up, you know that it's not as strong as you thought. It is throwing the towel, for god's sake. It is asking you: please beat me, master!

But most of us give up at this point. We accept the excuses and sabotage ourselves all over again.

That's why your goal, its benefits and how you must overcome them must be clear in your mind. By doing this you'll KNOW that it's better to stick to them than to give up to some old, sad, lame "inner talk" that actually fucks up your whole life.

You've chosen the path that will lead you to your goal. This give us coherence, and a logic that it's actually logical, not the crazy bullshit that you've been feeding yourself all these years. When you have that sort of "inner logic", you don't need the inner talk to "get you through life". You'll have the strength to achive your goals.

It might take some time, I'll admit it. But if just you begin to notice it coming...

Peace out