How to tranform self-sabotage with the power of Intentions

I was talking with a dear friend the other day, who is currently recovering from Burn-out and a long phase of complete exhaustion and depression. She has arranged everything in her life in a way, that enables her to really take time for regeneration and healing, as far as possible with a small child at home. She found a mind-body training she wanted to do and had already bought it as an online course, started a habit-tracker and downloaded an app to learn a new language. All things that really spark joy for her. Then she told me that she observed, how despite all the good intentions and making space for herself in everyday life, she constantly sneaks out of doing those things she desperately longs to do! She portrayed this with an excample: there is a short exercise from the mind-body training that needs to be done several times during the day. It only takes one minute! My friend even set the alarm on her mobile, but when it rang, she simply was destracted and didn´t do it. I pictured her dealing with her child while cooking and said "I can understand, you probably had other things going on." She answered:"Yes, I was occupied with banking stuff." I was surprised and said "Oh, your child wasn´t even there?" and she replied: "No! I had the whole day for myself!"

IS THERE A REAL INTENTION FOR THE REALISATION OF YOUR DEEPEST DESIRES?

It hit me like a bolt of lightning:"Then you don´t have an intention for it!" Obviously there is no REAL intention inside of her to put her selfcare on the top of the list, to prioritize her healing before anything else. Because if that was the case, she would have put the laptop away as soon as the alarm went off, and dedicated one minute of her time to her exercise.  Instead, her deeply encoded REAL intention is "I put everybody else´s needs before my own needs. My family, my household, my responsibilites are more important than my wellbeing." And that is why it´s not possible for her to do what she desperately wants to do. We all know this. It is also called self-sabotaging.

What are your “favorite“ acts of self-sabotaging, or: what is it that feels the hardest thing to do, even when you have the time, place and ressources for it? It is worth to dive deep and find out what lies at the roots of your behaviour. Mostly, our inner child does not feel safe enough to go there. In my friends case: to simply put herself and her well-being above everything and anyone else´s, was far too dangerous. At least that was what she learned in her upbringing. Self-sabotaging is to be taken seriously, it want´s us to face it, and look at it´s roots. You cannot simply make it go away. It want´s you to see something, as it was there for you long ago, and protected you. It didn´t mean you any harm, back then, when you were a child in a dysfuntional family, that had to be there for the other family members, and ignore her own needs, because otherwise everything would have fallen apart. It wanted to protect you, it helped you to survive.

HOW TO REALLY WANT WHAT YOU WANT

Be brave enough to face what lies at the roots of your self-sabotage. And then, do what needs to be done, but first and foremost: set an intention. Because unless you do not really, really mean it, you will not succeed. But once you really mean it, and feel it, that you really want that thing, that quality, whatever it is, nothing can stop you. Once you form a conscious intention and commit yourself to keeping it alive, really nothing can stop you. And you do not even have to know HOW it is going to be done. When you have a conscious intention, magic happens. Everything will sort out, step by step, day by day, when you commit yourself to it. The hardest part about it often is to really get ourselves to want what we want. Once we really want what we want, the rest is comparatively easy.

In my friend´s case, it meant forming a conscious intention for putting herself and her needs and wellbeing on the first place in her heart. To deepen this, she took all the amazing tools and things she wanted to do for healing and regeneration, and got to the core of them. Because at the moment they were just appointments written in her calendar, another thing on her already long to-do list. So, the mind-body training, what is it really about? She found out she wanted to feel connected with her body, with all her senses, fresh and juicy and sexy and powerful. So this made her form the intention for feeling fresh, juicy, sexy and powerful. In that way, it transformed from another appointment in her calendar into something that she really wanted, sonmething she could feel in her bones. She went on making this investigation into everything else that was on her list of recovering, and in that way she connected on a deeper level with herself and her healing process.

The power of conscious intention is beautifully described in the following text, that was, according to my research, mistakingly attributed to Johann Wolfgang v.Goethe, but was in fact written by William Hutchinson Murray, in his 1951 book ´The Scottish Himalayan Expedition´:

“Until one is committed,  
there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back
— concerning all acts of initiative (and creation),
there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans:
that the moment one definitely commits oneself,
then Providence moves too.
All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occured.
A whole stream of events issues from the decision,
raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents
and meetings and material assistance,
which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.
(...)Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.“