 I've had a lot of people request me to make some videos about why we self-sabotage relationships and what we can do to stop it, so make sure that you stay tuned. What is up everybody? This is Chris from The Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution. And if you're new to my channel, my channel is all about mental health and what I like to do is pull different topics from maybe the YouTube community or pop culture in general to try to teach you how to improve your mental and emotional well-being. So if you're into that, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And yeah, this is going to be a little bit, just a little bit about the show you on Netflix. So if you haven't seen it or don't plan on watching it, don't worry, there's not really going to be any spoilers. We're going to be talking about self-sabotage. So there's a part about self-sabotage. But anyways, this was recommended to me and the topic's been recommended to me over on social media. So if you're not yet, make sure you go follow me actually over on Instagram and Twitter at The Rewired Soul. Tweet at me, follow me on Instagram. You can DM me. I try to get to all the DMs. But the best thing you can do is actually tweet at me just because a lot of people do not tweet at me. So more likely I'll see it. But other than that, let's get started. So yeah, for those of you who have seen the show you and you just want some context, there is a scene where Beck is questioning the relationship, she's getting very paranoid, thinks something might crazy be going on with the ex or whatever and Beck's friends call her out about her self-sabotaging and to bring up her daddy issues and all that kind of stuff. And she kind of gets this moment of clarity like, oh man, maybe I am self-sabotaging this relationship. But for the rest of you who haven't seen the show you on Netflix, you're probably at this video because you're familiar with self-sabotaging relationships. So we need to talk about why we do it, how to get out of it and all of that. I am going to share some of my experience as well because I am somebody who used to self-sabotage a ton of relationships and there's some reasons behind that. So I'm actually going to be talking about this pretty cool article I found over on Psychology Today and it's from Melanie Greenberg, PhD. And look, she's all about the mindful express. You know I'm about that mindfulness, baby. So anyways, she actually wrote a really good article for Psychology Today and pulls in some different studies. So let's talk about the three main reasons that you self-sabotage and what we can do about it. The first one she talks about is faulty thinking, all right? So faulty thinking, I look at this more as we stick with what's familiar. So she talks about part of the psychology of the familiarity heuristic and basically, you know, our brains, we stick to what we know. We are creatures of habit. That's how we're set up. That's why, you know, we like to eat the same foods or go out to the same restaurants. For some of us, doing something new scares us. So she actually cites a study that they did with a complicated word puzzle, right? So she took a group and not she, a different doctor, took a group of people and they give them a complicated word puzzle. Let them finish it, see what was going on. And then they had them do a second word puzzle, but they gave them two options, OK? Two options. They say, you could do this first option, OK? It is a harder, longer puzzle made by the same person who created the first puzzle. Or you could take this second puzzle, which is a lot easier and it's created by somebody different. Most of the people picked the first option, even though it was harder and more stressful. I think they even included a time limit. They did that because of the familiarity heuristic, right? So think about that when it comes to relationships and self-sabotage. We sometimes self-sabotage our relationships by sticking with what's familiar, all right? So this next one I'm going to talk about is a little bit more about childhood, but let's talk about it now anyways. Like, if you grew up in an abusive household or even like parents who are fighting or your caregivers who are fighting or whatever, that is what's familiar to you. That chaos, the arguing, the fighting, that is familiar. So this might be why you sabotage yourself by dating terrible people, right? You're dating people where you're never going to find the true love that you deserve, the respect that you deserve, somebody who treats you right, because you're not used to it. I know for me personally, when my life started getting better and I started working on my mental health, I would actually get anxious, because just things being chill was new, something new to me, and I had to work through that. I had to learn how to be okay with being okay. Like you hear a lot of people say like, it's okay to not be okay. Like I'm here to tell you, it's okay to just be okay. Like I used to date very chaotic women and we always had chaos going on. And when I would date somebody who had like their stuff together, I felt uncomfortable because I wasn't familiar with it, but that's something that I've worked through. And now I'm with my beautiful girlfriend Tristan and we live a pretty chill life. We have my son who's in the other room, he's here every weekend, and then we got two cats that we get to play with. It's pretty sweet, pretty chill, all right? So ask yourself this question, are you sticking to what's familiar and that's why you keep dating the same kind of guy or the same kind of woman, whatever it is. So this next one is fear of intimacy or fear of rejection. So a lot of this comes from our unconscious. So in this article, it talks about attachment styles. If you are interested in attachment styles, go check out my buddy's channel, Ryan Liberty. I'll link it down in the description below. He does a lot, a lot about attachment. So the one, the attachment style that they're talking about specifically in here is insecure attachment, all right? So we unconsciously have this fear of repeating the past. So some of us, we felt abandoned by our parents. For example, my mom, some of you have met her on my channel, she just started her own channel. Like we have an amazing relationship today but the first 20 years of my life, she was an alcoholic and when I was a child, I thought she abandoned me and just gave me to my dad, right? So I had this fear of rejection and fear of abandonment. So because of that, because of the way we grew up or because of what we experienced as a child, when people start to get close to us, we might just start pushing them away because we wanna be preemptive about it, right? We think, oh my God, they're getting too close. I don't wanna be hurt. So what can I do to push them away? Something that I've talked about in some videos, which is something huge, is something called self-seeking, right? We're doing something, expecting something in return. Usually when we think about that, we think about doing something nice, right? I'll do you this favor if you do me that favor. I'm gonna do this thing so you give me love, attention, affection, but it might be the exact opposite thing too, where we're doing something to get a reaction from somebody to push them away. Like something that's really messed up that we do, like have you ever started fights with like a significant other because you were trying to get them to break up with you, right? So part of the solution for this is therapy. Like you need to work through this stuff. So much of what's going on is in our unconscious mind and it's things that stem from childhood. Like you are doomed to keep repeating the same mistakes over and over and over again until you get down to the root of the problem. Like one of the reasons I have this channel and I make so many videos pretty much on a daily basis is because I want your mental health to stay in the forefront. Like I was the type of person for over a decade of my life, I was repeating the same mistakes over and over and over again and I didn't know why until I started working on my mental health and getting down to the root of the problem. Like I was never going to get out of those habits but the first step in so many things with your mental health is just becoming aware of where this issue is coming from. And for most people that's simply working with a therapist telling them about what's going on. So real quick before I forget, like when you watch my videos, I'm not here to diagnose you. I am not a licensed therapist or anything like that. What I see some people comment is watching my videos, make something maybe spark in their head and they're like, you know what? I'm gonna talk to my therapist about this next week. That is a good way to utilize my videos. If you can relate to something that I'm talking about, just simply bring it up with your therapist. Don't try to force it. Don't try to diagnose yourself. Just say, hey, I was watching this. I can kind of relate to it. What do you think? So lastly is a topic that I've been talking about lately which is procrastination and avoidance, all right? So this form of self-sabotage is something that you really, really might not notice. So when I was talking about Gabby Hannah and I was talking about avoidance, I made an entire video about that that you should go check out because I gave you some strategies like acceptance-based behavioral therapy to get through avoidance. Some of us are self-sabotaging without even realizing it because we're avoiding certain issues. For example, have you ever gotten into a small argument with a significant other or something like that and then you just avoid it, right? You don't wanna talk about it, you don't wanna do this. So maybe you give the other person the silent treatment or you just quit answering their calls or their texts. You avoid it. So this is something that brings consequences. We sit there, we wish, we hope with all our might. Maybe this thing will just go away, right? So you wait, you wait, you wait and you don't address the issue. This is so toxic for relationships. So if you're somebody who is avoiding these issues, like please, please, please stop. Because not only is it harmful to the other person, it's also harmful for yourself. So something that I used to struggle with a lot and a lot of you know, like I've mentioned, that I used to struggle with a lot of anger issues, which is one of the reasons why I wrote the book, Rewire Your Anger. I used to take these small little things that a significant other was doing and I would stuff them down. I would stuff them down. I didn't want to deal with them. I didn't want to talk to my significant other about it. I would just push it and push it and push it down. And what would happen is because I was avoiding it, because I was procrastinating these conversations, I would eventually just blow up over something stupid too, right? And sometimes it would happen with my significant other, but other times, because I was pushing so much stuff down, I would blow up at somebody at work, right? Completely undeserving. And this is one of the reasons why I try to teach you that it's so important to work on your mental health, especially anger issues. Like it is not fair to my girlfriend Tristan or my son Dylan, if I am pushing things down from other aspects of my life and then blowing up on one of them, that is not fair to them at all. So the best thing that we can do is start addressing these things head on. You know what I mean? But anyways, these are some of the reasons that you might be self-sabotaging. So remember, one of them is faulty thinking, like the familiarity heuristic. So I want to get comments from you down below. Do you find yourself dating what's familiar? Dating bad people over and over and over again? Or do you find yourself being afraid of getting too close? Do you think this might be something that's happened in the past? Even if it wasn't from your childhood, were you broken up with? And now you're afraid of getting hurt again, all right? Or the third one, do procrastinate and avoid dealing with issues as they arise and as they come up, all right? Let's have a conversation down below. But then I want to hear what you're gonna do to work on it, all right? But anyways, that's all I got for this video. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell because I make a ton of videos. And a huge, huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on Patreon. You are all amazing. And if you would like to become a patron and get some exclusive videos and perks and all that, click or tap on the Patreon icon right there, all right? Thanks so much for watching. I'll see you next time.