I can’t tell you how often I get to a point in session with a client where they have just shared some details about the difficult situation they are struggling with and I say something like, “I know this may not make sense from where you sit, but this is actually really good news!” It’s confusing, and I’m sure sometimes they want to hit me, and I don’t blame them.

That’s where we are now in our exploration of the Saboteur. Please don’t hit me.

So what have we covered so far? The ego and the nervous system are both opposed to change that takes them too far out of their comfort zone. It doesn’t matter if it is change you are desiring and even working to create, all your efforts can be undermined, counterbalanced, and undone if they feel sufficiently threatened.

We get caught in a paradox. Most of the things we are wanting, seeking, and working to create are things we don’t have and are therefore unfamiliar to us. Unfortunately “the unknown” (regardless of how good we’ve decided it will be, or how much we want it) tends to send us deep into the stress zone, activating the Saboteur.

This brings us to the good news:

The Saboteur doesn’t show up for no reason. It doesn’t get bored, it doesn’t torture you for its own amusement. It responds to the specter of radical change and catastrophic unfamiliarity, which the ego perceives as a threat to its survival.

But if we look at the situation from another angle it can be described quite differently:

The Saboteur has been activated by the presence of “possibility.”

In other words the prospect of expanding your business, or losing all that weight, or getting out of debt seemed too real. It wants you to believe you do not have the choices it feels threatened by; you’re never going to have the time to write that book, you’re never going to get organized enough to restructure your business, you’re never going to be able to focus long enough on one thing to see this new idea through.

But the truth is that the Saboteur emerged in the first place because something started to feel very possible. You started talking about it, thinking of actually doing it, maybe even taking steps.

We don’t sabotage our dreams; we sabotage our potential realities.

It wants you to believe it can’t be done and you are not capable anyway. The goal is for you to feel bad about yourself and overwhelmed by the situation. What I’m suggesting is that when you notice yourself getting in your own way, you say instead, “Apparently my dream is dangerously possible. I must be on to something!”

Unfortunately this is easier said than done because the Saboteur knows you extremely well, it has access to all your information, because it is you. It knows which beliefs about yourself to activate to attack your self-esteem, it knows what barriers to present you with to kill your energy or overload you, and it knows the perspective to take on the situation and the way the world works in order to make progress seem impossible.

However, even this can be a great gift if you look at it differently. When you are willing and able to stay conscious and observe the Saboteur at work then it will teach you exactly how and why it operates. Basically, you can follow your fear and decode its playbook.

Do you recognize an opportunity impersonating one of your blocks or breakdowns?

In our last episode we explored the nervous system’s role in a inviting an appearance of our arch nemesis. You may recall his new definition:

Saboteur: [sab-uh-tur'] The part of you that tries to protect you from change by removing choice.

Now let’s look at the contribution of another partner in crime, the ego.

By ego I mean, who you see yourself as right now. Everything from height, age, weight, gender, to likes, dislikes, talents, failings, popularity, job status, political and spiritual affiliations, etc. It wants to know exactly who it is and spend a lot of energy reinforcing its definition of itself.

Believe it or not, in most cases it would prefer to hold a negative version of itself versus an uncertain one. Like your nervous system, your ego wants to feel in control and frequently seeks to avoid the destabilization of change.

Accordingly, two of its greatest fears are death and the unknown. Death to the ego occurs when it fundamentally can no longer think of itself the way it used to. Part of the reason breakups and divorce are so difficult is that the ego got attached to defining itself relative to the ex-partner. The devastation we feel is largely the struggle to accept that we are no longer going to have the life we had pictured; we can no longer be seen as part of a couple.

This ego death experience often follows losing a job, kids growing up and moving away, or even a receding hairline. But it can also apply to change we see as positive.

Have you noticed the plot of almost every “E! True Hollywood Story” or “Behind The Music” is the same? A nobody turns into somebody, it’s fun for a while until it all falls apart, but then they figure it out and now it’s all okay.

In fact most stories about everything follow this pattern. We are constantly reminding ourselves that transitions are hard but if we hang in there our egos will reform into a better, more relevant version of who we are in the present.

This makes plenty of sense when we are transitioning away from something we saw as good, but we fail to see the stress it causes our ego to become a rock star, make a quantum leap in our business, or radically deepen the intimacy in our marriage. The fact that a new ego will be reborn into a new and better situation can be of little comfort to the ego that must dissolve for this to happen. There are very few eager martyrs.

Think of it this way: there are support groups for lottery winners. Apparently it’s not as easy as it looks, but we would all take that chance.

Many lottery winners blow all their money and have their lives ruined. In fact most people who end up millionaires lose and remake their money several times before they learn how to keep it.

We don’t take into account that most of our friends are in our income bracket; when we make a huge leap in earnings, our whole social circle can change. Suddenly relatives we didn’t know we had come out of the woodwork when they find out we are rich.

Most people aren’t used to handling money on that scale. Think of all the times you’ve heard of someone who had been wealthy going bankrupt and losing their mansion and all their cars. Didn’t you wonder how that was even possible?

There is a war going on between the part of them that wanted that life and the part of them that has become disoriented and destabilized by it. Guess which side the Saboteur works for?

Change demands we stretch our comfort zones, that we face the unfamiliar. Stretching too far takes us into the stress zone. Too much stress, real or perceived, conscious or unconscious, positive or negative, causes us to contract. From a contracted position we can only see through the lens of fear . Our priority switches from thriving to surviving.

So what happens when this response is running concurrently with your conscious position that you do want to risk and grow (enter the stress zone)? Like a computer program that has encountered contradictory commands, you crash. Your Saboteur finds a way to keep you from starting to write that book, making those important calls, or taking steps to get the support and assistance you require. You get to the end of another day, unable to cross it off your list.

And you wonder why, what’s going on?

I encourage you to ask yourself this: “How did my ego respond to this information?”

Next time, The Good News About Your Bad News.

I find our definition of the Saboteur changes as our relationship to it evolves. In the first stage we admit we have a problem and are powerless over it before cross-addicting onto sugar and caffeine. In other words, you know you are in your own way but you don’t know why or what to do about it.

At this point the Saboteur is loosely defined as “that inexplicable tendency I have to be my own worst enemy.” As you start to learn to recognize the Saboteur, your particular version, and how it manipulates you, it becomes possible to also understand why.

Which brings us to our second-stage definition:

Saboteur: [sab-uh-tur'] The part of you that tries to protect you from change by removing choice.

We exist on many levels simultaneously, and they don’t all agree with each other. In fact some are directly at war with each other. You want your business to be growing and thriving, and your relationships to be deepening and evolving, and your life to be challenging, expanding and exciting, right?

Of course you do!

But not all of you. There are some parts of you that see these as threatening and risky possibilities. These are the parts that forget to set your alarm, that hire the absolute wrong person, that over-commit and then implode with overwhelm.

Believe it or not, they do all this for your own good, your protection. And with absolutely no appreciation or recognition from you, you big ingrate! Let me introduce you to two of them:

The neurological level –

The body is programmed to create homeostasis. This means it seeks to normalize the unfamiliar – it will try to bring any dramatic shift back to the middle. It wants balance, predictability and manageability.

Imagine if I asked you to put your hand in water that was (unknown to you) either very hot or cold. Before your mind could register the experience, your reflexes would most likely intervene and yank your hand away. In most cases you wouldn’t even be able to tell if the water was too hot or too cold. The point is, it doesn’t matter.

Your nervous system judged the experience as “too much” and took over, compensating for the potentially disruptive change (extreme temperature) by recoiling from it.

Notice it doesn’t seek permission or wait for agreement from any other part of you. This means your neurology and your conscious mind can be headed in two contradictory directions at the same time.

Think of someone who is addicted to cocaine. Their conscious mind has judged the experience of intoxication to be “good” and worth repeating, and they will spend a lot of time, energy and money unsuccessfully chasing that first high.

Why won’t it ever be as good as the first time? Just like with the hot/cold water, the nervous system has determined that dramatic shift it experienced under the influence to be “too much,” and it begins adjusting to normalize the body’s response.

These competing agendas illustrate how two different levels within one person can be at war, pursuing opposite goals simultaneously.

Perhaps you can see how the Saboteur might be able to take advantage of this to thwart your plans. Do you notice these kinds of contradictions blocking change and progress in your life?

Tune in next time for part two, “The Ego’s Role in Self-sabotage.”

For a while now I have been focused on my clients’ struggles with self-sabotage. We seem to present ourselves with more obstacles than every other person, system and institution in our lives combined.

When I first mention it to people, they frequently self-identify unhesitatingly. “Oh, I definitely have that problem – I am my own worst enemy!” They are aware of a pattern of blocks, breakdowns and disruptions, and they are aware that they are playing a significant role in creating them, but that’s about it.

What I have seen is that there is tremendous benefit to be gained from understanding and working with this dynamic in our lives. It starts with becoming better acquainted with the “Saboteur.” I find it very useful to personify it, like the inner child – one of many personalities inside me that plays various roles in my life. One I can learn to recognize and incorporate.

There is almost always a lot of room for growth in this area because we are used to feeling alienated from and frustrated by the Saboteur. We are not eager to align with our ineffectiveness, negativity and bad choices.

We may not understand why or how the Saboteur operates in our lives, but we can at least start by identifying the results of its handiwork. Perhaps you recognize some of these typical examples?

• You get to the end of the day and wonder why the one thing you said was a priority didn’t get done, and you’re not sure where the time went.

The Saboteur is masterful at luring us into unconsciousness, where we are highly susceptible to distraction, avoidance and losing focus.

• You take an action or make a choice and look back later and wonder what you were thinking. Not only was it not productive, it created the opposite of what you said you wanted.

The Saboteur can make a stupid idea seemed temporarily smart or use a new, exciting, smart idea to distract you from following through in completing the current project.

• You can’t shake that voice that shows up at the worst time saying, “Who do you think you are? You’re not ready for this/not good enough/not able to do everything that needs to be done. You’re already hopelessly behind on this one project and there are five others you never finished and the house is a mess and the dog needs to be walked, and you haven’t done laundry in so long that you’re not going to have anything to wear tomorrow for that meeting you’re not prepared for.”

Hypnotizing ourselves with repetitious negative perceptions of the self and the situation becomes a well-honed habit. These anti-mantras then run on autopilot without our being fully aware of them or their pervasive and corrosive effects.

• You can’t get a handle on the part of you that keeps getting overwhelmed by an avalanche of ideas and possibilities. Or getting lost and stuck, confused about how to move forward. Or procrastinating and letting things pile up, till you feel hopelessly behind.

Creating situations and states (overwhelm, confusion, hopelessness) that drain our energy and make progress feel impossible is a Saboteur specialty.

The Saboteur leads us to conclude that we are lazy, untalented, unfocused and unworthy. In a sense it takes us over and convinces us that it is right: you can’t get where you want to go, you have no control of your situation and you may not really have anything of value to offer the world.

When defined in this way, it is relatively easy to see that we are engaged in self-sabotage. But it leaves us wondering why we would do this to ourselves – what’s the point? Fear of success? Fear of failure? Personality flaw? Low self esteem? To begin to answer this question we must revisit our definition of what the Saboteur is or, perhaps more accurately, what it does.

In our next episode I will get into more detail, but for now I would like to offer two new versions. The Saboteur’s job is:

1) To protect you from change by removing choice

2) To collect information about where your blocks and breakdowns are so you clarify what needs to be addressed in order for you to go to the next level.

I don’t know about you, but I sure do enjoy the annual complaints about Christmas being “under attack.” Somehow the institution of Christianity is jeopardized by allowing other seasonal celebrations to ride its coattails, creating the dreaded all inclusive “holiday” season.

I guess I’m surprised to hear Jesus is suddenly so easily threatened. Somehow till recently we had managed to live with the bizarre hybrid that Christmas has been for an awfully long time. The mishmash of pagan rituals, economic stimulus, and office parties together with the virgin birth (which, by the way, isn’t even remotely mythologically unique to Christianity) flew relatively successfully under the radar.

My neighbor’s yard has a manger scene combined with illuminated depictions of a Christmas tree (I don’t think they have those in Bethlehem. Shouldn’t it at least be a palm tree?), Santa (no connection to Jesus), and lots of penguins (aren’t they from the South Pole?). I’m not sure which is more remarkable – that we ever arrived at such a schizophrenic compromise, or that it never really gets questioned.

Why isn’t Santa Christmas’ public enemy number one? Here’s why I think it works.

Mythology doesn’t have to be accurate to be true. What’s more important is that the stories and rituals connect us to our tradition of understanding the world. They must express something essential and relevant yet timeless. If they resonate on a gut level, they need not make intellectual sense. Let’s face it, almost all mythology is absurd and impossible on its face, but some of it still stands the test of time. When that happens, it suggests to me that somehow it is pointing to a deeper truth.

So why does Santa coexist so easily with Christ? I believe it is because Santa is still the epitome of our collective understanding of and relationship to God.

He is a wise and magical, ageless older man with a white beard who lives at the top of the world (lookin’ down on creation). He sees you when you are sleeping and awake, keeps tabs on your behavior and rewards or punishes you accordingly. He’s capable of miracles that defy the laws of time and space and is assisted by many angelic helpers. We never actually seen him, but we like to think we see evidence of him and will manufacture it if necessary (dress up like him, leave presents in his name, eat the cookies that are left for him).

Perhaps most importantly he requires the leap of faith of believing in him, something which gets harder the further away from childhood we get. The more practical and less imaginative we become the more unreal Santa/God becomes. We really liked the idea of it though, so we try to keep it alive for children who are still capable of belief.

Unlike with Santa, most of us stay in our child relationship with God even as adults. We feel we ought to believe even when we don’t, while maintaining a sort of superstitious desire to appease and curry favor in order to receive gifts. Too often our personal mythology doesn’t mature. Without a way to connect that is relevant to adulthood, we become spiritually infantilized. No matter how evolved I might tell myself I am, when the going gets rough, how quickly do I resort to bargaining with God to take away my pain? What do I promise to do or not do in order to be rewarded?

Happy Kwanzaa!

What did it take for you to “grow up” spiritually? Where do you see room for growth? Tell us in a comment below.

P.S. David Frum covers similar territory in his post, The real Christmas ‘war’: Jesus versus Santa