Been noticing the self-sabotager in me; the one who is afraid to go beyond old patterns that I’ve inherited and made my own. The one who doesn’t want to evolve – out of fear of the unknown but mainly out of a toxic loyalty to old family patterns and a fear of family members, a loyalty to their suffering and their limitations.
“I’m still included somehow, I’m one of you see, even if you disown me. I’ll sabotage myself to stay close, to prove my loyalty, to show you I love you, the only way I know you’ll receive. I’ll limit myself so that you don’t attack me. I’ll keep myself in check so that you don’t have to.”
This one, the one that unconsciously inflicts self-harm; in small ways and big ways. The one that trips herself up so that she doesn’t go beyond her family’s capacity. Health, money, self-image, career, life expectations. It would be too threatening, too hostile otherwise.
Not wanting to admit that it doesn’t have to be this way, that there’s an easy way out and it’s not that hard. It’s quite simple actually. But something wants to make it hard, to make it so that the hamster wheel never ends and stepping off is not an option. Something wants to make it so that happiness is an elusive and far-reaching dream. So that I can stay close to my family, stay out of the way of their menacing competitiveness, their unconscious harm infliction because I’ve stepped out of bound.
I’m starting to see that stepping off is an option, there is choice somewhere in there. I don’t want to condemn the self-sabotager. It was trying to get love the only way it knew how. I don’t want to stop her either. I know that acknowledging her is the beginning of something new. To recognize when she’s in action. When she’s making herself small and limited to protect herself from the cruelty, competitiveness and harshness – it’s the utmost intelligence. The most loving act of desperation.