How to Heal Your Personal Self-Sabotage

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In this episode, guest Ashley Beaudin and dig in on the different types of self-sabotage, how to recognize them in your body, and ways to choose to self-soothe that foster business success and empowerment.

Ashley Beaudin is a self-sabotage and slow business coach helping you create a supportive life and business. She helps creatives move from from self-sabotage to self-support and craft intentional businesses.

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The episode:

Katrina Widener: Hello, everyone. It's Katrina. And today I'm here with Ashley Beaudin who I'm very excited to welcome to the podcast.

Ashley Beaudin: Yeah, I'm super excited to be here.

Katrina Widener: Ashley is one of our group coaching experts, which I'm also super excited for, but she is here to talk to us today about self-sabotage and specifically self-sabotage in entrepreneurs.

So Ashley, if you wanted to maybe quickly introduce yourself, then we can jump into everything else.

Ashley Beaudin: Yeah. Hi, I'm Ashley and I help creatives heal their self-sabotage and craft intentional, slow businesses that really honor our wholeness and really help us prioritize our wellbeing. And I am obsessed with everything to do with self-sabotage, why do we do the things that we do and how to practice and cultivate ways of meeting ourselves with support, and care, and compassion.

Katrina Widener: Yes. Yes. I love everything that you do because it is so aligned with a lot of the work that I do. So I'm like, yes, slow businesses. Yes, alignment. Yes, let's dig into why we do the things that we do. Those are all things I'm very passionate about. So that's one of the reasons why I'm like, yes, I'm so glad that Ashley is here today.

Ashley Beaudin: Yeah. I love that.

Katrina Widener: So when it comes to self-sabotage as entrepreneurs, which is something that every single entrepreneur deals with, what would you say is like the most common forms of self-sabotage that you see pop up in people?

Ashley Beaudin: Yeah, it's funny because I feel like there are what I would call like culturally acceptable forms of self-sabotage. They're forms of self-sabotage that probably show up the most and that in some ways are very normalized, things like procrastination or perfectionism or overworking are all ones I think that most of us can resonate with or relate to in some capacity or some season of our life. And those, I would say are some of the top ones for entrepreneurs.

Katrina Widener: That makes a lot of sense, especially because we as entrepreneurs are in a capitalist society and are very influenced by the values that that society really puts on a pedestal.

And even in some ways, those like, those kinds of self-sabotage can -- like I'm thinking for instance, overworking -- can even come up as things that people almost get like lauded for, or that people are like, oh my gosh, you're doing such a great job in your business. You're working so hard, which isn't always actually the best thing.

Ashley Beaudin: Yeah. Yeah. There's definitely... or even if you think about like the self-sabotage mechanism of people pleasing is very much applauded in women and that isn't what we really want to be a part of.

Katrina Widener: Exactly. Yes. I love talking about that. Cause I feel like a lot of our maybe self-sabotage, like the way that our self-sabotage shows up is often informed by our society and informed of what is, or isn't I guess in some ways too, shown as good behavior or something to strive for, et cetera, et cetera.

So how did you get started diving into self-sabotage? I'm just curious because it is something that I know I associate with you and your brand a ton, too.

Ashley Beaudin: Yeah. I mean, You know, like all good things normally it comes from our own story. And that was definitely the case for me of walking through my own journey of exploring my self-sabotage, even exploring my own self hatred, and starting to unravel and heal from those, those things. But it really came down for me to this one like major aha moment where I realized that all the ways that I was self-sabotaging, that really what I was doing was I was just trying to stay safe. I was just trying to get myself back to a place of safety and it really flipped the script in my mind of wow, like I'm not self-sabotaging because I'm so flawed or I'm so broken. I'm actually, self-sabotaging because I'm so deeply committed to my own safety and wellbeing and it, so then it became less of we got to cut this part out of me and more of wow, like there is so much capacity here for support. And it elicits almost this response of compassion of wow, I've been fighting so hard for myself.

Katrina Widener: Yes, that feels so good. I love that that's almost like self-sabotage is your brain trying to do self support, but maybe not knowing the best way to do self support.

Ashley Beaudin: Exactly. Yeah. So we're looking for safety. We're looking for soothing.

Katrina Widener: So, I know that you work a lot with business owners on creating a slow business, which I am all about, and also on helping themselves maybe through their self-sabotage is a better way of describing it, or like coming up against their self sabotage in a way that feels like healthy and holistic and positive, maybe. What does that kind of work look like? Like how do you normally work with people?

Ashley Beaudin: Yeah I would say the foundational piece is the self-sabotage piece and really looking at first if someone's coming to me that obviously they're noticing that their self-sabotage is having an impact on their life or business that is not sitting right or is not feeling good. And it starts with that feeling of what are the consequences in some ways of myself sabotage? And why do I want something different? Because there are some, sometimes like self-sabotaging tendencies that we don't want to change and that's totally fine.

Even something small like, I am always working to the last minute, but do I really want to change it? No. That could be one for someone. And so it's really starting at that place of why are you here? And what kind of impact has this been making on you that you now would want to transform it?

And also because there's a lot of shoulds out there and if you're going to come to me and you're going to say I shouldn't be people pleasing, you're not going to stay with it. You're not going to want to really dive deeper and do it because it needs to be like the inner awakening.

This is something I want, I want for myself, I want something different. And so we start with healing self-sabotage and looking at how are these self-sabotaging tendencies keeping you safe? What about them makes you feel like they are protecting you? And a lot of my work is really rooted in working with the inner child to begin to heal the wounding and vulnerability that the inner child might be feeling because to me really self-sabotage is about staying safe, but it's really led by the wounds and fears and trauma of our inner child. And, I, the way that I like to look at it is that the inner child sort of flags down our self-sabotage, and it says like I'm scared, I'm overwhelmed. Get me back to a place of safety.

And that's why it can be very confusing for us as adults. We can say something like "I want to make you know $5,000 this month", or "I want to get going on all these podcasts". And then we like self-sabotage and we're like, but why? I really do genuinely want this, but it just might be that your inner child is that's not safe. I'm scared, I'm overwhelmed by all these decisions you're making. And that can create that cycle.

So by meeting with the inner child, tending and maybe reparenting or offering care and support, and we ultimately diminish the need for protector. The inner child learns that they can come to you and they get trust you, and that you'll meet them and support them versus them having to get your attention in drastic ways by flagging down your self-sabotage.

And that's also your self-sabotage type or the self-sabotage that you operated dominantly will often be very reflective of your early childhood experiences. And so if you delve in people pleasing a lot, you probably grew up in a home where you had to make sure that everyone was happy or your parents were like super critical or there were responsibilities put on you that were really inappropriate to be put upon a child.

And so we do a lot of that work, which can be very like super deep and sometimes intense, but very much a slow process. And so then from that place, we look at the business model that you're operating in. One of the big things is that a lot of business models that operate in modern business, specifically online business. I would say operate at the exact same speed as your self-sabotage. They're very fast. They're very reactive. They're very all consuming. And I really believe that one of the reasons why so many entrepreneurs stay stuck in self-sabotage is because it mirrors the same pace in their business, which like triggers them into a sense of I need to stay safe. I need to find a way to stay safe.

So we introduce new ways of doing business that are slower and more embracing of who you are and really utilize checking in: Am I okay with this? Do I have the capacity for this? I'm going to check it and say one, do I have the capacity to do that? And two, is it going to actually be supportive for me internally? Or is that going to spin me out into this need to regain a sense of safety.

Katrina Widener: Yes to all of that. Nobody can like see me, but I'm nodding and nodding up that I'm like 100% in support of. So for people who are listening and who are like, okay, cool. Like you've mentioned procrastination and overworking and people pleasing, but they're like, how do I recognize when I'm in self-sabotage? I mean, she has an amazing quiz, everybody that you can go find your self-sabotage type, but also if you're in the moment, how do you recognize, like I'm coming from a place of self-sabotage or, oh my gosh, I do that sort of self self-sabotage. How do people recognize that and react to it in the moment?

Ashley Beaudin: There's some cues that can let you know, because sometimes on the outside self-sabotage and self-support can almost look exactly the same.

Like sometimes it's I don't know, like taking a day off could be self-support, but taking a day off could also be self-sabotage if you're avoiding work. So the only person who can really know is you. And I think that the main things that I like to say is that just notice the energy going on inside. Is it like survival and a shutting down? Then I would say you're probably in self sabotage. If it's more of like an opening up, like a support, a receiving almost of care, then it's more likely that you're operating in self support.

Cause sometimes it's so clear, it's whoa this is exactly what I'm doing. But sometimes it's not as clear. So you can check in with maybe that energy piece, but when you're noticing it, one like just completely take shame or even fixing out of the equation, but just notice and just ask some questions, inquire on it further. What's actually happening for me right now? What am I, where am I feeling overwhelmed or afraid or vulnerable? How is this keeping me safe? And that can just give you such valuable information.

One of the things I say all the time is everything is information about how you work internally and the more information that you can get about how you work internally, the better equipped you are to support yourself and heal your self-sabotage.

Katrina Widener: Oh my gosh, that quote, I'm like already in my brain. I'm like, oh my gosh, that's so good. Both personally, because I just nerd out about that kind of stuff. And I love being able to like, look back and look back and look back and be like this informed this decision and this informed that decision.

And like for myself and for other people too, which is part of the reason why I'm a coach, but also I think that it is so important to realize that our brains are basically like computers and they've just been told one plus one equals two and one plus one equals two and one plus one equals two.

When in reality, sometimes that's just a pattern that our brain is picking up on and not necessarily the actual truth of who we are as human beings, or what we actually want, or all of those sorts of things. So it is, yeah, I'm just in love with everything that you just said.

Ashley Beaudin: Yeah. Yeah. We find a lot of safety in patterns.

Katrina Widener: Totally. But that doesn't mean that our patterns are always safe.

Ashley Beaudin: Yeah. Yeah. Not genuinely safe.

Katrina Widener: So I have one question that I wanted to ask, because I know that this has come up for me beforehand when talking with clients and they've asked this question. So I definitely feel like it might be something that the greater audience might be interested in, but I know a lot of times when we talk about inner child work, which is what you mentioned you do a lot of, people are like, but wait, I had a great childhood. I love my parents. They're amazing. I feel really uncomfortable "blaming them", or saying that's where the root of where things started. So what would you say to people who are living in that idea?

Ashley Beaudin: What I would say... why are you fighting so hard to say that? Because if you're fighting so hard to say that there's something else going on and it might not be that you're like protecting or pretending you didn't have a bad childhood, but it might be like, I don't want to look at that stuff. It could be like, I feel guilty for saying that some things were hard and the blame that might put on someone else. And I just find that normally when someone defends so quickly with that thought, I'm like, why, what is like what's underneath there?

So one that, but then too, like the thing that I think we have to realize that as children, sometimes it's the most small moments that have an incredibly formative impact on us. And so it could be something that didn't even happen at home. It could be something that had nothing to do with your parents, could have been like even a universal experience that a lot of us have, for example being really applauded at school, like if our grades were super high, but if they weren't high, then there was no recognition or affirmation, stuff like that it creates patterns. It creates learned ways of being in the world. And it can be something as small as that.

I also think sometimes people, they think oh, like I didn't have any big traumatic things happen to me and however, they define that, like my parents stayed together or I was never abused or whatever, but I think too, knowing that when we're little, like we're these often as little people we are so little, but we have such strong feelings and that can also be very overwhelming and overpowering. And even if it was something that happened to you that with so small, things like shame or fear or distressed or being left out, those things can become so overwhelming to our little beings and little bodies. And yeah, even though it wasn't like a huge thing, it's these little things to you that can have an extraordinary impact.

And so that defense is somewhat black and white and instead just do like some gentle inquiring, I see that I keep procrastinating. Why, what does this do for me? Where does this come from? A big question that you can ask is when did this behavior make sense?

Katrina Widener: Getting curious about it has always been something that I've found also kind of deescalates the emotional aspect. We cannot control what our brain stores and how it stores it and how it processes it. We like to think that we have control over what our brain does, but we really don't. That idea of almost saying, Hey I'm just going to get curious, like, where did this begin? Like when did this start feeling really safe to me? And maybe like, why did it start feeling safe at that moment?

And you're exactly right. It could be from our parents. It could be like our mom was on a phone call with bank manager and was mad that they made a mistake and your brain as a four year old processes that as, oh my gosh, we have no money. It's like this isn't safe. Who knows how your brain processes what, but making sure that you stay really curious about it, I think is awesome.

And I love talking about that also to finish off the podcast. But my one last question is if you had any other like small pieces or tidbits of advice that they could start with right now on how to respond when their self-sabotage is coming up.

Ashley Beaudin: Yeah, I think like finding one to three self-compassionate statements, when you find yourself self-sabotaging. Even statements like it makes sense that we're doing this because we feel overwhelmed or to your inner child I see you trying so hard to get safe and I just want you to know that I'm here for you. Or I'm listening you can get my attention in other ways. What do you need right now? Or like, you're not alone. Other people procrastinate, you're not alone. But we can choose a different way forward that's more supportive for us. What do you think that looks like?

Katrina Widener: Oh, my gosh, those are all. Those are all so... Like, I can feel them in my body. Just like, oh, a breath of fresh air, right? Like a grounding moment.

Ashley Beaudin: Yeah, totally.

Katrina Widener: Thank you so much for coming on here. Where can people find you?

Ashley Beaudin: Yes. Well they can find me on Instagram. @ashley.beaudin and yeah, take my quiz. See what type you get. And feel free to DM me and tell me.

Katrina Widener: Well, anyway, thank you again so much and everybody should go take Ashley's quiz. I've followed her for a long time and her information on Instagram is also amazing. So thank you so much for coming on here.

Ashley Beaudin: Thanks for having me.