4 Ways To Understand Emotional Baggage
Why and how we self-sabotage
When I mentor and coach my students often explain to them that after a while they may reach an emotional tipping point where their emotional baggage (EB) will “kick in”.
This Emotional Baggage will often lead us to self-sabotage. I have experienced this im my life as well.
Emotional baggage: This generally refers to some unresolved psychological trauma. In the quest for wealth EB such as guilt, regret, fear, stressors, trust issues, paranoia, despair or grief that are usually detrimental to one’s quest for freedom and wisdom, and overall mental well-being, and social and relationships. These unresolved issues can be rooted in issues such as old karma, emotional abuse, childhood trauma or prior stressful events.
As a metaphor, the term refers to one’s carrying of the collective emotional load of the past into the present moment, especially thought patterns in making investment, and business decision.
Self-sabotage: This is usually a pattern of negative behavior or thoughts, especially of an involuntary or unconscious nature. Self-sabotage is usually harmful to one’s own personal and financial interests or development. Attaining wealth and serving others through this wealth is a beautiful thing, but self-sabotage can hold us back from reveling in our achievements and personal growth.
One of the essential patterns of self sabotage that emotional baggage brings us is a sense of self criticism, and “perfectionism”.
As you learn to build your natural strengths you will make mistakes here and there. Mistakes are part of life. I have made many, and my mentors also have.
A mistake is any action or judgment that is misguided or wrong. One of the greatest and humblest of spiritual exercises is to forgive oneself. We can’t make others forgive us, though we can certainly make amends. Still, with meditation contemplation, introspection, critical thinking, financial literacy, and even prayer we can learn to forgive ourselves.
We all make poor choices. By working through them we can learn from them, and can become wiser more responsible, resourceful, and resilient.
Don’t be too hard on yourself. The process of learning from our mistakes can be a simple and systematic approach if we are not weighed down by emotional baggage and unrecognized cognitive biases.
Here’s how you process mistakes with clarity, self-love, kindness, and with a focus on self-improvement. The key I to move past regret and become, empowered pick yourself up, dust your-self off and start all over again if needed.
Again the key is to bounce back from difficult situations learning to apply your empowerment to everyday situations, inch by inch and step by step.
Remember, mistakes are an essential element of the human experience. You don’t need to like them. In this process, we not only learn just how to avoid them, but develop strategies and tactics to keep us from avoiding them.
No matter how hard you try, you will make mistakes. With blinders how will you learn how to work through emotions like sadness, guilt, shame, anger, fear, and embarrassment. It is these mistakes that give us resiliency.
How to Avoid Repeating Mistakes and Repeating Self-Sabotage
As you study and explore what I send you you will become more skilled realizing that you have made a mistake. The next step is to reduce the damage to yourself and other for that mistake, and not repeat it. Here are a few steps you can take:
1. evaluate the situation, and why you think it was a mistake,
2. separate your feeling from the facts,
3. bring in a support systems of friends, peers, and family to help you develop a strategy or game plan. Though your ego will tell you to figure it out yourself, there are few tactics better than collaboration,
4. Once you address mistakes in this way you will soon have a lifelong problem-solving blueprint blueprint for bouncing back and moving forward.
In time you may even be grateful it happened on a small scale so you didn’t need to learn it on a large scale. Lao Tzu, the great Taoist Sage speaks of this. Essentially, he teaches us that if we learn early to work through the situations we are presented with we will know how to handle future challenges with mental strength, courage, compassion and without guilt or shame.
Many of my students have what is called a INFP personality type. These individuals tend to have Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, and Curiousity (Prospecting) traits.
These rare personality types tend to be quiet, open-minded, and imaginative, and they apply a caring and creative approach to everything we do.
Although they may seem quiet or unassuming, people with the INFP personality type have vibrant, passionate inner lives. Creative and imaginative, they happily lose themselves in Lucid reams, Astral Journeys, and daydreams. In a waking stated they invent all sorts of stories and conversations in their mind. INFPs are known for their sensitivity — these personalities can have profound emotional responses to music, art, nature, and the people around them. They are known to be extremely sentimental and nostalgic, often holding onto special keepsakes and memorabilia that brighten their days and fill their heart with joy.
Idealistic and empathetic, people with the INFP personality type long for deep, soulful relationships, and they feel called to help others. Due to the fast-paced and competitive nature of our society, they may sometimes feel lonely or invisible, adrift in a world that doesn’t seem to appreciate the traits that make them unique. This is when the begin to self-sabotage.
Interestingly it is precisely because INFPs brim with such rich sensitivity and profound creativity that they possess the unique potential to connect deeply and initiate positive change.
If they can get past the “shadow” they will do very well, in the process of spiritual growth.
How will Self-Sabotage Show Up For This Person As They Seek Grow Spiritually? Here are some ways.
• They dwell on things so much that it consumes them. For example, past relationships. They are constantly nostalgic over past relationships, and they tend to dissect every single ‘what ifs’ and ‘if onlys’, making it hard to move on.
• They may forgive but rarely forget.
• Passive-aggressive; They hate being confrontational.
• They are bottle emotions to a point that they might simply burst… At random times.
• They have boundary issues. They crave for intimacy and affection from others once they have received it. Then they have a tendency to push others away.
• They prefer to hear outlier, life hack, and counter-intuitive mind blowing stories rather than superficial “how to do” stories about what has worked consistently in the past for others who are wealthy and successful.
• They get pleasure out of saying and doing random things (Re: Elon Muske). This doesn’t usually work for him and probably won’t work for you.
• They are obsessive and become easily addicted to people, places, and things. This can lead them toI turn to self-destruction when things go wrong.
The Takeaway
When you know you have made what I prefer not to call a mistake, but a “poor choice”, I stop and ask myself a few basic questions.
• “What happened?”
• “How am I feeling?”
• “What (if anything) do I need (not want, but need) to do to make this better?”
• “What is message here,” even before I ask “what have I learned?”
• “What can you change for next time?”
• “So, how am I feeling NOW?”
When I am going through this process, I remind myself, I’m not looking to be perfect, just more PEEPPASS (practical, effective, efficient, precise, productive, accurate, and self-aware.) I remind myself that I’m looking for growth in every choice I make, good or bad. I can’t avoid making poor choices yet I can always learn ways to improve, develop and maximize my potential physically, mentally, emotionally, financially and spiritually.
To transcend self-sabotage on your way to personal growth in both the spiritual and material domains you wil need to embrace your scarcity “shadow”.
Here is a cool video on self sabotage