u/CarlosLwanga9

"Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts; and in the hidden part thou shalt make me know wisdom."

King David, Psalm 51:6 KJV

"The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens on the outside as fate."

Carl Jung, Aion

This is self-sabotage in my experience - Knowing the right thing to do and not doing it.

A recovering porn addict knows that they are not supposed to reach out for Porn or Masturbation but in spite of their best intentions, they keep reaching out for it.

A young man understands that a particular young lady is not interested in them romantically, but he keeps on calling or chasing after her even though he does not want to.

An artist at a job self-sabotage by procrastinating at a job even though he knows that it is required on time simply because he cannot help himself wanting it to be perfect.

A young man becomes a shut in for years and years and years, wasting precious life. The young man understands that he needs to go out there and live life but he cannot help himself - he shuts himself up in his room, just watching movies as the days pass by.

No one wants to purposefully be an addict and disappoint the people they care about. No sane young man wants to force themselves on any young woman, particularly someone they are interested in. No one wants to be a bother, at home or at work. No one wants to waste their life away.

I have been each of the people mentioned above. I still struggle with 3/4 of these.

But I never wanted to be any of these things. I had an idea of what I would become and worked consciously to achieve it. If something went wrong, then the solution was simple. Simply change it and everything will be okay.

But it wasn't.

Let me use Porn and Masturbation addiction as an example. I have always considered porn and masturbation addiction as a terrible thing - it went against my lover boy persona that I had worked so hard to build, and the ladies don't like it. So, I did everything physically possible to consciously keep away from and avoid pornography and masturbation. And it would work for a few months but then I would inevitably self-sabotage and reach for the Porn and Masturbate.

It became a vicious cycle. Consciously work to stop myself from using Pornography and Masturbation until I inevitably self-sabotaged. It got so bad that I started to believe that I would never escape it - so I just wallowed in the addiction. I stopped trying to work on it and just drowned in Pornography. But I hated myself in the process. I reached a point where I learnt that while consciously trying to get rid of the addiction did not work, neither did wallowing or indulging the addiction.

Through Prayer and a lot of help, I began to realize that I have spent my whole life ignoring the Inside of the Cup and the Platter - or as I understand it, the parameters within our unconscious that we operate under (that we are not aware of). Particularly the reason why we do what we do.

Not just the examples I gave above, my whole life has been an exercise in self-sabotage. Like I said, there was an ideal that I wanted to consciously become and then there was the way I was self-sabotaging against that ideal.

So that is what Self-Sabotage is -- We all have an ideal that we are striving to work towards and become. But more often than not, we remain only on that level. We self sabotage because there is a discrepancy or disconnect between whatever we are working to be or become, and the genuine truthful reasons for why we do what we do.

I don't want to be a porn addict. That is the conscious ideal. But there is a discrepancy in the reason why I do what I do -- I approach sexual pleasure as medicine - a way to run away from my pain. I also see sex as just a way to boost my ego. On the outside I can be an unselfish lover but on the inside its all about me or for me. I will be the best lover etc. It really is just selfishness even though I mask it with selflessness.

I don't want to be a shut in. I became one after Covid. I don't want to be one. Women like an exciting guy, not some dude afraid to get out of the house. That is the conscious ideal. But there is a discrepancy in the reason why I do what I do -- I am angry at the world, the LORD God, life and others for what happened to my mother - she died of Covid. I am not aware of it but my being a shut in is all just a gigantic temper tantrum because of what happened to my mother. Again, it's just selfishness. Life moves on and a person has to continue living. It's not just about me or for me. It's about everybody else as well.

As a graphics designer, I wanted my designs to be perfect and to look good. The thinking is obvious. If I make things look good and great, then they can get a lot of attention which is great for me and everybody else. But clients have different considerations, I have learnt through the years. These days I try to focus on the client first. Anyway, even though the reason why I was obsessing with perfection was seemingly selfless, it was absolutely selfish because it did not put into consideration what the client actually required.

So, you see the pattern behind every single event or self-sabotage. The self- sabotage is good because it is showing you that there is a discrepancy between the ideal person you are trying to be and the genuine reasons for why you do what you do. But you can't figure that out by looking at yourself directly. Why? Because it is really, really easy to lie to yourself. One of the easiest things things on the planet to do is to lie to yourself. So instead of trusting your own thoughts and ideas on the subject -- look at the events that happen in your life. We see ourselves clearly through the events we experience, our reactions to them and results that we get. The LORD God, fate, life - whatever you want to call it - gives us these experiences for a reason - they are never random.

So, for me, the thing the LORD God, fate, life was teaching me was that in spite the fact that I consciously work to be selfless, the reason behind my actions is absolutely selfish. I have to learn to also do what people actually require for their wellbeing. Because how you treat others is how you will treat yourself and how others will treat you.

That has been my experience.

What do you think?

Blind Pharisee! Clean what is inside the cup first, and then the outside will be clean too.

LORD Jesus Christ, Matthew 23:26

'I realize under the circumstances you have described you feel the need to see clearly. But your vision will become clearer only when you look at your own heart. Without everything seems discordant; only within does it coalesce into unity. Who looks without, dreams. Who looks inside, awakes.'

Carl Jung, Letter to Fanny Bowditz

DIRTY:

By now, everyone knows my story, but I keep repeating it because a lot of the unconscious parameters and beliefs that I am trying to clean have their origin in those experiences.

I am learning - through grace, experience and a lot of mistakes - that that is the main purpose of Psychology. To help people clean the inside of the cup and the platter. I don't know if I am 100% correct but I understand the inside of the cup and the platter to be the unconscious beliefs and parameters that we operate under. In my experience, I spent a large portion of my life trying to change my bad behaviors on the outside to no avail. Th point was to change the unconscious beliefs and parameters that we operate under.

As a child, I grew up really poor. I developed the belief that unless you make everything only about you and for you then you will never get what you what. But the opposite is true - when you make things only about you and for you, you never get what you want.

At least that has been my experience.

CLEAN:

My whole life I moved through it making things about me or for me, but I was wrong. I could go far in life, but I was never effective.

Only recently - again through prayer, grace, and learning from mistakes - that I am realizing or seeing that if you want to be effective and successful, or even simply to go far in life, you must realize that things are not just for yourself or about yourself.

Ultimately, everything we do - at least that is what I am learning - is for our communities, our descendants, our families, our descendants, our loved one's, others, our countries, future generations and our faith. Doing what they require. To make things better and more perfect for them and to lift them up.

That is generally the story of mankind.

That has been my experience.

What do you think?

'Blind Pharisee! Clean what is inside the cup and the platter first and then the outside will be clean also.'

LORD Jesus Christ, Matthew 23:26

'I realize under the circumstances you have described you feel the need to see clearly. But your vision will become clearer only when you look at your own heart. Without everything seems discordant; only within does it coalesce into unity. Who looks without, dreams. Who looks inside, awakes.'

Carl Jung, Letter to Fanny Bowditz

DIRTY:

I grew up the only child of a single mother.

We were very poor, and my mother couldn't find work. She had to constantly depend on the kindness of others. She grew up wealthy and upper middle class before she had me. She had it all. A great job. A respected husband. Wealth and money. She had a good life. Then my father died and she lost everything.

As a child, I always felt that my mother was preoccupied with what happened and why she lost everything. She seemed frozen in time, oblivious to everything else including me. Don't get me wrong she was a great mother - she made sure I was always provided for. But, other than that, she really neglected me. Her biggest preoccupation was getting back what she had lost. I didn't understand it back then, but I felt that neglect. It shaped my decisions going forward.

I became the same way. I learnt that you have to push and push for what you want or require in life. Everything else doesn't matter. Just concentrate on that. And that is how I approached life. I chased after what I wanted and I learnt a lot about life, but I neglected relationships, just as I had been neglected. I got everything I wanted but slowly by slowly I started to realize that I was caring less and less about my character and the way I was getting those things. As long as I got them, it did not matter how I got them.

My mother got what she wanted -- she got everything back, but she still wasn't happy. The things she had lost, she got back but it came at a terrible price. And I had worked my entire life for what I wanted but I was also miserable. By the time, she died, we barely had a relationship - we could barely talk to one another. When she died, all of the pain and sacrifices and work I had put in seemed utterly pointless. I should have focused on her more - she just wanted love and safety, and she thought that getting love meant getting back the things she had lost. I had thought that just make money bro or make yourself perfect, then everything will fall into place. My mother had focused entirely on her personal quest and neglected me. I had also focused entirely on my own personal quest and neglected her.

CLEAN:

I love video games particularly RPGs. I will never forget the first RPG I ever played -- Final Fantasy X. Glorious game. Very few games today - however good they look - can match the substance, the art, the beauty of that game.

Anyway, a feature of RPG games is that they are divided into two - the Main Quest and Side Quests that you have to do for other characters in the game. Some of these Side Quests are absolutely hilarious. A guy can ask you - a character who has the ability to summon gigantic monsters or meteors from the sky - to climb a tree and get his cat : D. But any good gamer knows that you do the side quests in order to farm precious exp to handle the bosses of the Main Quest. Without those side quests, you can't possibly win the main quests. Plus those side quests are what make the game beautiful and worthwhile.

Life is exactly the same way. Everyone is on a quest for something -- what they require out of life -- whether its money, power, love, safety. Whatever it is you require. Yes, work towards it but remember that you get it best when you help others achieve their quests - or what they require out of life.

Have you ever watched The Last Kingdom? Fantastic Show! Set in Early medieval England during the Viking invasions, it tells the story of Uthred of Bebbenburg who has lost his fortress to his usurping Uncle. Desperate to get his legacy back, he plots to overthrow his uncle but spends years and years doing side quests for Alfred The Great and his sons. At first, he is absolutely angry that Alfred keeps distracting him from his main quest but slowly by slowly he starts to see what doing the side quests has given him - a powerful ally in the form of Alfred The Great and his descendants -- a small army of loyal and faithful friends and soldiers -- Honor and Glory among the other Kingdoms including Viking one's - Experience in ruling, diplomacy and fighting - a loving family to continue the legacy he so desperately wants to achieve.

The irony is, doing all of those side quests or what others required gave him what he needed to finally win back the legacy that he lost.

I have found that life works - more often than not - on the same principle. That has been my experience.

What do you think?