The Quiet Self-Block

SPEAKER_00 0:04

There is a strange thing most of us do. Even though we'd never admit it out loud. We say we want the better job, the healthier body, the happier relationship, the calmer life. And then somewhere quietly, we keep doing exact things that get in the way of all of it. Not because we don't care, not because we are lazy. But because something underneath us, something we don't fully see yet, is afraid of what would happen if we actually got what we want.

Introducing Pat Pearson

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Welcome back to Healthy Mind, Healthy Life, the show where we have honest, grounded conversations about the inner world of being well in real life. I'm your host, Yusuf, and today I'm in conversation with Pat Pearson. Pat is here today to talk about something every single one of us have lived through. The quiet, persistent, often invisible pattern of self-sabotage. The way we hold ourselves back from the life we say we want. Pat has spent her career helping people see what is really driving these patterns and how to finally stop standing in their own way. With that, I welcome my guest Pat to the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Hello, good to have good to be here. Glad to be joining you, Yusuf. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Perfect.

How Pain Reveals Patterns

SPEAKER_00 1:36

So before we go into the deeper themes, I want to start somewhere personal. So when you look back at your own life, was there a specific moment that made you realize that self-sabotage was not just something other people did, it was something you needed to understand inside yourself first.

SPEAKER_02 1:58

Absolutely. Absolutely. When I was um young, very young, I uh fell in love, as we all do, many of us, hopefully. And that uh that man, that situation turned out very badly. And because of that, I had moved from my home, I'd moved in with them, I'd done all kinds of things to leverage my life, and it all kind of in a very early age collapsed on me. And so I had to start asking myself, what is this about? What was in me that made me choose this person? So I got very interested in my own personal therapy, in my own personal journey, Yusuf. It was from pain, as I think everyone's journey is. We want to resolve the pain. And I never wanted to pick badly again. So I became a therapist. I worked with people, I heard stories of lovely people, one woman who wanted a great relationship, another person who wanted more money, a third person who wanted to be healthier. And all of these people were smart, they were talented, they were driven, and they hit invisible glass ceilings. They sabotaged themselves. And because of that, I got very interested and started to do research, started to read and think about it. So, yes,

Deserve Level And Inner Thermostat

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more in my own personal pain and working with others, I discovered this theory that I call deserve level, that we have an internal deserve level in which it's like a thermostat, you set it. And if you don't want, if you don't get, if you don't raise it, you don't get more in your life. So that you live up to what you expect, not what you want, but what you expect. So if you expect it won't work, you make it not work. If you expect you're gonna fail, you fail. All right. So the key is to look at our beliefs and our feelings and other issues and deserve level and raise that level so that you can have more of what you want and keep it. And I'm happy to tell you, I have a nice relationship now, and I'm very happy. So it worked.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

I'm glad that it worked. Thank you. And there's this misconception that self-sabotage is about laziness, lack of discipline, or just bad habits. Like most people treat it like a willpower problem. But your work seems to live in a much deeper space than that. And what's the biggest misunderstanding people carry about what self-sabotage actually is?

SPEAKER_02 4:43

That's that's a wonderful question, Youssef. And you're really right. People get very critical about themselves. They've they they shake their finger at themselves. They say, you're lazy, you're you're not doing it right, you're not structured enough, you're not this, you're not that. The truth is, self-sabotage is a habit. It's a pattern that you've learned. And you can unlearn it like any pattern. It is repeatable over time. If you don't take it on, you repeat it. If you do take it on, you can resolve it and change it. Once again, think of a thermostat. If you want more, you have to raise the thermostat. So you raise it up, and now you get new permission to accept more in your life. But that has to do with your patterns, your your programming from your parents, from your culture, from your background, what I call permission from your past. And those need to be worked on, and those are deeper issues, nothing to do with laziness. People want these things badly and they work hard, but they keep hitting this invisible barrier.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

And when someone first hears your reframe of it, what tends to land hardest for them?

SPEAKER_02 6:04

Well, what I hope lands the hardest or the best is that they can change it. Okay. This is not written in stone. Okay. It is not a you know commandment from on high. It is just a pattern that you learned early in your life, like a pattern about finances. Maybe your your family wasn't very successful. And so you think you're not going to be successful because you are like them. But those beliefs then shape what you do on a uh subconscious level. So I hope they hear if it's a pattern, if it's a habit, I can change it. I can I can make it different. So that's what I want it to land, not a self-criticism, but I want them to get curious, not critical, and take it on.

Permission Beats Willpower

SPEAKER_00 6:56

You know, the distinction matters so much because we have been treating self-sabotage like a discipline problem. When it is really, really a permission problem, most people are not lacking willpower, they are lacking the inner permission to actually have what they say they want.

SPEAKER_02 7:16

That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And one of the ways you can do that is you can write down, take a little test, make yourself a little test, write down what do I want. Just write it down, put it on paper. And then the next question is what am I doing to get it? And if you're not acting in your best interest, you are currently sabotaging yourself. If you say you want to lose weight, but you eat all the ice cream in the world, not so much. Okay. If you say you want a good relationship, but you get in one and it goes along for a while. I had a I had a an attorney who did this, a lady, lovely woman, who really wanted a good relationship. She got in a relationship after about six months. She always turned it around to think that they were going to abandon her. So you know what she did, right? Yusuf, take a guess. Which she abandoned them first because she was afraid her belief was they were going to leave her. So she wanted to leave first. So she had a string of very nice men that she had discarded because of her patterns, her belief system. She grew up in a home in which her mother was divorced five times. So she didn't trust the relationship, the relationships would last. Same with money. Okay. Come out of a home in which you were told we just don't ever make money. We're not money-making people. We just get by. And you live that belief. You keep telling yourself that, and that's where you stop. I'm in the change business. I want to shake people up and say, don't accept it. You deserve more. But you have to work at it. This isn't just given, you know? That's why I wrote a book. I think you know about that book. It's on Amazon right now. It's called Stop Self-Sabotage, second edition. My first edition sold 100,000 copies. This one is better. It's out now. And I invite your listeners to invest in themselves. It's an easy thing to get and to and to challenge themselves. Exercises in there that will lead them to their answers. Because every person's answer is their own, Yusuf. I can't give you a mass answer because you know your history is different from everyone's, you know, you're you. But you can have more than you have. I'll tell you that right now. Everybody can.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

But

Practical Steps To Start Changing

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does not know how to start changing that. So what's a real practical first step you'd give them this week?

SPEAKER_02 10:12

Well, you know, I mean, you know, if you're talking to somebody who is, you know, making shoes, they tell you to get new shoes. I would tell you to get books, okay? I would tell you specifically, you know, in in all good heartedness, to get my book because I've worked on it for 30 years. You can't go through that book and not have an answer. You know, if you want an answer, it is out there for you. So keep searching. Listen to your podcasts, get on, you know, get on the wonderful world of the internet and don't take no for an answer. No, with 30 years of therapy I've been doing on people, I've seen hundreds of people deserve more and change. So that can be you, wherever you are. Don't let it don't stay there if you're not happy with it. So you know, I'm not, I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not gonna say it's easy and one, two, three, four. No, come on. It's it's more complex than that. You have to do a little soul searching, but it's worth it. It's worth it, you know, healthy mind, healthy body, right? It becomes an internal real estate. It's like you buy it and it only appreciates. You never get dumber, you never go back and forget what you've learned, you know. If you've invested in learning and growing, which your lovely program is doing for people, then that will go with you. So you owe it to yourself, you know, take a time, invest a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

That is such a such an useful answer because I think we resist it usually, the thing that points right at the wound. And until we are looking at the wound, the surface behavior just keep finding new costumes to wear.

SPEAKER_02 12:07

It's well said. That's right. And we don't want to look at it. See, there's the other thing. Yeah, there's a thing called resistance. We don't like looking at this stuff, right? Because it makes us uncomfortable. But what I am asking you to do, everyone to do, is to trade temporary discomfort for enlightenment, for getting more of what you want, to not be afraid, to look at it in the face. Self-sabotage is almost always based on fear, Yusuf. You know, you fear something. You fear that getting more will make you, you know, your people, your, your, your friends not like you, or you fear that you can't really get healthy or whatever. So there's usually a fear base under the self-sabotage. But once you take it on and you look that fear in the face, you're in control and it isn't. But that's a little uncomfortable. And most people don't like to be uncomfortable. But what I can guarantee is it's temporary discomfort for absolutely guaranteed gain. So go through it. Take some time. Don't have anything to lose. You're not gonna get, it's not gonna hurt you. It's gonna make you better, you know.

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Pat

Take Ownership And Find Pat

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for people who want to connect with you or want to read your work, where can I do that?

SPEAKER_02 13:32

Well, Amazon is selling it, or you could go to my website, you know, www.pat Pearson. It's spelled P-E-A-R-S-O-N.com. And they can connect with thee, they can be in classes, they can do all kinds of things. Uh, but it's the really important part point here is not, you know, me, it's them. It's taking time for yourself. It's, you know, my real message here is that I've spent a lifetime use of working with people, you know, and I have so enjoyed the the good rewards of that. And I just want people to be happier. It seems there's a lot of unhappiness out there, you know, and most of us can change that in ourselves. We can't change it if we're waiting for someone else to do it for us. We can't change it if we're looking to the world leaders or the economy. We have to take it on as a personal quest, a quest for our own deserve, you know, a quest for our own transformation, which is why I like your program. You know, it's about transformation. That's the name of the ball game. So take some time, do it for you.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

And uh I know you have already given us, but uh is there any last message that you want to leave us with?

Rewrite Old Loops And Close

SPEAKER_02 14:57

Last wishes? Well, let's see. I want you to look at your past, okay? I want you to look at the messages that you heard growing up from your father, from your mother. Write them down. You know, if you asked your parents for something, what would they have said to you? Would they have been supportive of you going out there and and being, you know, a podcaster or or writing a book or making money or getting love? Or would they have told you negative things? It's those negative beliefs that are the poison. And that's what we have to resolve. We've got to find them, we've got to search them out, and we've got to change them because it's a loop in your head. It goes around and around and around, and it's a habitual loop. So every time you start to think about something you want, if you've got this program running, it cuts you off. It just says, no, you can't have it. No, don't even think about that, you know. So we've got to get a little bit of distance on our own loops, our own negative programming. And we got to look at it. We got to say, you know, no, no, I don't want that loop. I don't want to think that. I choose, big big words. I choose to pivot and and take on a positive thought and affirmation. I do a lot of training about that. That's the way out of this dilemma. Your thoughts, change your thoughts, embrace your feelings, get them out, love them, and release them. Thoughts and feelings. Those are the two ways out.

SPEAKER_00 16:41

Thank you so much, Pat. This conversation has been such a clarifying conversation, you know. Letting us know, you know, the type of conversation that we had today, it lets us see at the trivial things in a very different way. And that changes the whole way we look at it and changes ourselves and changes our whole life, I would say, if we just implement those, if we start working on those. So thank you so much for that.

SPEAKER_02 17:16

You bet, you bet. And Yusuf, everybody can do it. Okay. This is not this is not reserved for someone who has a degree or anything. You know, it's the people who take on the call, who who pick up the the gauntlet and say, I will be more, I will achieve more. And there are millions of them out there. So it's uh thank you so much for reach reaching your folks in India. And like I said, I love your country. I've been there three times, and what's the Taj Mahal, which I loved. So anyway, thank you so much, Yusuf. And hope we can do something again another time. Take care.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

Yes, absolutely. And to everyone listening, you are not the obstacle in your life. There's just a part of you that has not yet been told it is safe to stop protecting you. And the day you finally have that conversation, gently, honestly, and without shame, is the day your life starts to feel like yours again. Thank you all for being here. I'll see you in the next conversation.