When You’re Your Own Worst Enemy

The art of sabotage is a powerful talent that requires many years of practice to really get good at. The unfortunate reality is that most great saboteurs use their powers primarily against themselves. The habit of tripping ourselves up is formed through a lifetime, but it doesn’t take a lifetime to get over. Developing the replacement habit of practicing mindfulness is a great way to retake control of not just your life but your own mind.

Accepting ourselves

This might seem like one of the most difficult accomplishments, but it can actually be achieved without too much effort. Accepting your failures is important, but accepting your successes is something that many people who fight with anxiety and depression tend to have difficulty with. You have to give yourself some time to unreservedly feel the emotional kick of a failure and to express it. But then you have to put it behind you. Talk about the actions that led to a failure and actionable methods of changing them. You have to not let your failures become your identity. You didn’t fail because you are you. So, find out the truth of why you failed. With success, on the other hand, you need to recognize and make a habit of what got you there. Patting yourself on the back is important, so don’t forget to do it.

Gaining perspective

Many of us tend to spend a little too much time stuck in our own head. Gaining perspective is crucial to understanding the reality of a situation, not just what your fertile imagination makes of it. For instance, if you’re having trouble with personal relationships and see how to explore the idea of how your actions impact another without your own bias. Learning to be kind to others can teach us a lot about being kinder to ourselves, too. At the same time, sometimes you might be crowded by troubles you just can’t seem to get away from. Practices like meditation or a journal allow you to review a problem without being in the thick of it emotionally. They give you a layer of distance that can help you accept the reality of a situation or find a solution that you might have otherwise missed.