Ending the Cycle of Self-Sabotage Through Shadow Work

Whenever you make some kind of a plan, whenever you set some kind of goal in your life, you tend to promise yourself that this time you’re going to stick to your plan or goals. This time it’s going to be different. Then, for a week, it even feels real and suddenly, something happens and everything falls apart.

Let’s say, for example, you skip one day at the gym. You have that ‘one day’ where you eat some junk food even though you promised yourself that you’ll eat healthy. You start scrolling reels again even though you promised yourself not to waste time. So eventually, the old patterns and habits come back, and now they are in charge.

This is not exactly laziness. This is not a lack of willpower either. Most of the time, it’s something quite different, something quieter, and more stubborn. There’s a part of you that doesn’t want to change and that part takes control. It doesn’t want to give up easily.

What self-sabotage actually feels like

Self-sabotage is basically when you start a new habit and forget about it after three days. You get close to some major event in your life, like a promotion. Then you suddenly get into a fight with your boss and you get fired. Or, you meet someone really kind and a good partner. But then the relationship suddenly changes because you have some expectations of that relationship and your partner isn’t able to fulfill those expectations.

Things like that makes it very rough and every time something like this happens, you keep telling yourself that maybe the timing was wrong. Maybe I’m just tired of life. Maybe I’ll try again next month. But every time you do so, you know that you’re just in denial of that pattern that keeps repeating in your life. You get the same kind of result every time, but in some different shades.

I’ve seen people go through this for many years. These are smart people, capable people who have well-established careers, high achievers. They can solve a lot of problems in their business. But when it comes to their own life, then it’s always something different.

The kind of problem that happens within them is very hard for them to solve. It’s very strange to notice that self-sabotage normally happens when everything finally starts going well. Sometimes success itself will start to feel dangerous. If you have peace, it will start feeling unfamiliar. Basically, the old system quietly pulls the plug.

The part of you that stays in the dark

Every one of us has some things in our life that we’d rather not think about. It might be a bad anger issue. It can be a grave need for attention. It can be that victim mentality. It can be just neediness. Or it can be some fear, etc. Over time, these pieces get out of our sight. We don’t really think about them. We stop talking about them. But even though we stop talking about them, they don’t just disappear. They just hide underneath us.

Carl Jung called this collection of hidden patterns and materials the shadow. It’s not really something bad or evil. But it’s just a part of you which you think is not a part of the good you. You want to hide this part of yourself from the outside world so that they only see the good version of you. But the shadow holds all your feelings, all your traits, all your memories that you have rejected so that you could fit in and stay safe in society.

Here’s the important thing to remember. The shadow doesn’t stay quiet forever. Let’s suppose you try to build a new life that your old parts never agreed to. But now, when you have actually built a new life, the shadow will create doubt. It’ll create fear. It’ll create tiredness. It’ll create those hidden urges that you have always hidden from yourself and the world and the cycle will come back in.

Even though you try to move forward, the shadow will feel threatened. And then it will try to pull you right back in. You understand that something is going wrong. You feel ashamed because of it. Then the next time you try harder. The shadow self tries even harder and the cycle continues.

What shadow work really means

Shadow work is basically a practice of facing your old shadow self or the patterns head-on instead of running away from them. It doesn’t mean that you’ll have to become the worst version of yourself. But it means that you need to admit that those parts exist and you have locked them away somewhere. Once you have acknowledged it, you gain back the power to control it.

Now, you stop pretending that you’re that good, polished version. Now, you start asking simple and uncomfortable questions. Like, why do I freeze when someone praises me? Or why do I pick fights when my life is going on quite well? Why do I get anxious whenever life is boring? Things like that.

The answers that you’ll get will not be pretty. They will not be the answers that you were seeking. You might discover that there’s some part of you that does not believe that you deserve the good things in life. Sometimes it might be just that feeling that you’ll be safe whenever you don’t have to face your feelings head-on. May be the feeling that you want to avoid becoming just like your parents if you had a bad childhood.

This whole scenario is not about blaming anyone. It’s just about seeing the complete picture so that the old patterns lose their grip on you.

How can shadow work end the cycle of self-sabotage?

Self-sabotage is not random. It’s basically your shadow’s way of protecting an outdated idea of safety in your life. Let’s say, for example, if success in your workplace meant more work pressure, more visibility, or the chance of getting more rejections, then that part of you that’s the shadow self will identify those instances and keep finding ways to stay small so that you are not successful at your workplace.

Another example can be if being close to someone once led to pain, getting rejected, or getting deceived in some way. Then a part of you will try to create situations that will put you in a place where you distance yourself from other people or stop yourself from getting close to other people.

Once you have identified all these hidden patterns and motives, then something shifts in your life. The urge of self-sabotage won’t vanish overnight, but it will start becoming more noticeable in your life. You will get to identify it and notice it much earlier.

You’ll identify the similar patterns that keep happening to you. You’ll be more aware of what’s happening to you and how you feel. You will be more aware of that inner voice that keeps saying things to you like, “Don’t get too comfortable. Don’t trust people. Don’t aim for so much success that you become noticeable and that might attract problems.” Things like that. But now, once you’ve identified it, you don’t just obey it blindly. You pause. You see things. Then you act like someone who is actually in control of your life.

The harder truths that show up with shadow work

Shadow work isn’t always gentle and simple like we’re taught. Sometimes, when you uncover those hidden memories that you thought you could handle, they might just overpower you. They might be too heavy for you to carry along.

Sometimes you might just realize that you have been carrying anger toward some situation or someone for ages. You didn’t even know about it. While doing so, while you are facing your shadow, your life might feel a little bit heavier. You might lose sleep. You might get more tired, more emotional, or more reactive.

That doesn’t mean that you are doing something wrong. It just means that the materials that you have buried for so long have started moving. Some people get into the endless loop of overanalyzing everything about why this has happened, how this has happened, how to avoid this, how can I make sure that I’m doing the right thing, etc.

Start by trying out shadow work meditation

There will be a lot of guided meditations on shadow work that you can do. You might find them freely available on YouTube, or you might also find them on metaphysics websites like UMS. Meditations work great because they can take you deep into your subconscious and help you face your shadow in a gentle way without making you anxious. You can repeat those meditations whenever you please. You can set your own timings, etc.

Practice makes perfect

The more you practice shadow work on yourself, the better will be the results. Things will not change overnight. It takes time. But the main focus should be to keep at it. Keep working on yourself. Some days will be tough for you to handle. The other days will be quite easy. The whole point is to be consistent and have the willingness to work on yourself. Just remember that the whole plan or the goal was to stop letting your shadow quietly run your life. By identifying those hidden patterns, you have already won. You have already taken control. That’s a thing to celebrate. I wish you all the best.