✎ Written by: Denisa Cerna
✓ Fact-checked by: Kaija Sander, Ph.D.
“If there is an ongoing gap between where you are and where you want to be – and your efforts to close it are consistently met with your own resistance, pain, and discomfort – self-sabotage is almost always at work,” says Brianna Wiest, author of the bestselling self-development book The Mountain Is You.
While self-sabotage appears as something born of self-hatred or low confidence, Wiest’s book offers a different perspective. According to her, self-sabotage is rooted in a subconscious and unfulfilled need that often clashes with what you consciously want.
“Just as a mountain is formed when two sections of the ground are forced against one another, your mountain will arise out of coexisting but conflicting needs,” she writes.
Your job is to reconcile those two parts of you: the part that strives to reach your goals and the
part that’s subconsciously holding you back.
Let’s have a look at what The Mountain Is You says about transforming self-sabotage into self-mastery.
Where Self-Sabotage Comes From
Based on Wiest’s book, self-sabotage is often a maladaptive coping mechanism – it’s a way for us to meet our subconscious needs without having to properly face and address what those needs are.
Examples:
You sabotage your relationships because you want to be free and find yourself, but you’re afraid to be alone.
You sabotage your career success because you actually want to backpack around the world or create art, but you’re too scared to quit due to societal expectations.
You sabotage your healing journey by psychoanalyzing your feelings because it helps you avoid processing them on an emotional level.
As you can see, self-sabotage as portrayed through Wiest’s lens is often based on fear. This fear may come in different forms:
You’re scared of uncertainty because it feels uncomfortable, and you confuse the discomfort of the unfamiliar with it being “wrong” (when in reality, it’s about adjusting to new circumstances and creating a new sense of familiarity).
You’re afraid to go after your goals because you associate the goal itself with a negative – often limiting and inaccurate – narrative (for example, you were raised to view financial wealth as something bad, and you don’t want to embody the “rich person” concept created in your head).
You fear changing your belief systems although they are holding you back in life (if you believe you are an anxious person, it’s harder to get out of your shell because you have to change the basis of your identity; if you believe that a simple job with a decent salary is the most you can get in life, it’s harder to be ambitious).
What Self-Sabotage Looks Like
Wiest writes that while everything is context-dependent, there are certain behaviors that are indicative of self-sabotage, including:
Resistance: You have a new project to work on but you keep postponing it (you may be scared of getting attached to something new and important or you might feel that your new project actually isn’t quite right for you)
Uprooting: You constantly switch between jobs, places, or projects, thereby not allowing yourself to blossom because you’re “only comfortable with the process of sprouting,” as Wiest says (you may fear the complex challenges that come with commitment and attachment)
Perfectionism: You hold yourself to unrealistic expectations and therefore struggle to complete projects or put yourself out there (you’re afraid of failure or vulnerability)
Attachment to what you don’t want: You force yourself to want something and don’t listen to your authentic desires (you might be scared of financial uncertainty or other people’s judgment)
Guilt of succeeding: You hold yourself back from success (because you’re worried you don’t “deserve” it, don’t want to “outshine” someone, or feel that you shouldn’t be happy when there is so much suffering in the world)
Limited emotional processing: You suppress uncomfortable feelings and don’t allow yourself to process them (because facing your discomfort and pain is scary)
If you find that you engage in some of these self-sabotaging behaviors, that’s a meaningful first step!
You’re now closer to turning self-sabotage into self-mastery. Self-awareness is key because the moment you become aware of your self-sabotaging behavior, you can actively choose to change it.
How to Transform Self-Sabotage Into Self-Mastery
Wiest offers plenty of self-development advice in her book, and here are the four strategies we’ve picked out as the most important:
1. Disconnect action and feeling
When you choose to do something new or different, you may feel afraid and anxious, which can be quite uncomfortable sensations.
According to Wiest, the key is not to confuse “uncomfortable” with “wrong” – every change equals a step outside our comfort zone, and our feelings are indicative of how our bodies react to unfamiliarity no matter whether this choice is “right” or “wrong.” The fact that you don’t feel like taking action doesn’t mean you’re incapable of it.
She says: “Though your emotions are always valid and need to be validated, they are hardly ever an accurate measure of what you are capable of in life. They are not always an accurate reflection of reality. All your feelings know is what you’ve done in the past, and they are attached to what they’ve drawn comfort from.”
2. Learn to distinguish between instinct and feeling
Since your gut is connected to the brain via the vagus nerve and may therefore receive subconscious messages from the brain at a very high speed, “gut instincts” are responses that can guide our actions in the present moment.
However, Wiest stresses that a gut instinct is not an oracle. In her book, she distinguishes between “instinct” (a physiological response in the here and now) and “feeling” (an emotional reaction affected by thought). When you move away from immediate danger, you’re guided by instinct. When you worry about a potential future threat, you’re guided by the feeling of fear.
Wiest suggests that you ask yourself these questions:
Are you responding to someone who is in front of you, or are you responding to your idea of them in your head?
Are you reacting to a situation that’s playing out right now, or are you reacting to one you imagine, assuming you know how it will go?
Are your feelings regarding what’s happening right now or what you hope and fear will happen in the future?
3. Release your emotional backlog
Your feelings may not always accurately reflect reality, but it is still important to validate and process them.
If you suppress a lot of your emotions, Wiest says that you might experience an “emotional backlog”. And since emotions can be physical experiences – they can manifest as tension, headaches, or rapid breathing, to name a few – your physical as well as mental well-being could be affected.
But what is an emotional backlog? Wiest compares it to a full email inbox: “When you experience emotions, it’s as though you’re getting little messages from your body stacking up one at a time.
If you don’t ever open them, you end up 1,000+ notifications deep, totally overlooking crucial information and important insights that you need to move your life forward.”
One way to release your emotional backlog is to meditate and pay careful attention to all sensations within your body. However, Wiest highlights that the key is to shift your approach to meditation.
Don’t meditate to feel calm. Instead, meditate to just feel. Allow all your emotions to come up and experience them as a non-judgmental, compassionate observer. She adds that various breathing exercises and working out can also be very helpful.
4. Embrace the power of microshifts
Since the thought of making big changes gives rise to fear and therefore might lead to self-sabotaging behavior, Wiest recommends that you start small.
Allow yourself to adjust to a new sense of normalcy. “Think of microshifts as tiny increments of change in your day-to-day life,” she writes. “A microshift is changing what you eat for one part of one meal just one time. Then it’s doing that a second time and a third. Before you even realize what’s happening, you’ve adopted a pattern of behavior.”
Conclusion
The main message we have taken away from The Mountain Is You is that every act of self-sabotage indicates something more important is going on underneath, be it the fear of judgment, an unfulfilled need to pursue one’s passions, or the anxiety around stepping outside of one’s comfort zone.
Therefore, the book serves as an illuminating self-development tool that can help you journal about your fears, get to know yourself on a deeper level, and feel motivated to pursue your authentic desires and goals.
However, do keep in mind that The Mountain Is You is not a psychological treatment or a scientific study and is best used as a personal development tool complementary to professional guidance.
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About the author:
Denisa Cerna is a non-fiction and fiction writer who's passionate about psychology, mental health, and personal development. She's always on a quest to develop a better insight into the workings of the human mind, be it via reading psychology books or combing through research papers.
About the reviewer:
Kaija Sander is a cognitive neuroscientist and scientific consultant for Myndlift. She holds a BSc in Biomedical Science with a specialization in Neuroscience and Mental Health from Imperial College London and a PhD in Neuroscience from McGill University. Her doctoral research focused on brain connectivity relating to second language learning success. She is passionate about the broader applications of science to have a positive impact on people’s lives.
References:
Seymour, Tom. Everything you need to know about the vagus nerve. Medical News Today. Updated 2023.
Wiest, Brianna. The Mountain Is You: Transforming Self-Sabotage Into Self-Mastery. Thought Catalogue Books. 2020.