Tag: self destruction

Don’t Stop Yourself

Post author By jrlsage
Post date November 27, 2017

You cannot achieve greatness if you think you can’t.

There are a lot of factors that stop us from our work. The world loves to hand us obstacles. In fact, that is its job, to give us distractions.

Sometimes I like to think of it as a vetting process.

Anywho – as much as we are worried about the world, the people, what our boss thinks, how the president will react, etc. the biggest impediment to our greatness is often ourselves.

We believe:

Things can’t get done
The effort isn’t worth it.
The world will stop us.

If we believe our self-destructive talk, then the vetting doesn’t even have to happen. We’ve stopped ourselves.

Ask yourself – “are you stopping you?”

Tags next move, self destruction, stop

Blog Post

Forgive Yourself First.

Post author By jrlsage
Post date March 15, 2016

No one is better at criticizing yourself than you are.

Who else knows where all the buried bodies are? You are the only person that knows every secret you’ve held, every person you’ve wronged, and all the mistakes you’ve made. All those phony apologies, well, you know those too.

When it comes to all the mistakes you’ve made you are a bona fide expert. It holds you back, because you can’t get better without giving yourself permission first.

That is where it starts. Punishment comes from all sides, even from our own head. We have to decide to turn off the valve of self-destruction and decide to stop adding on to the pain. Only then can the process of healing begin.

There is a concept in money management where when you get your paycheck you stop and pay yourself first. You do this because often with money, we forget to take the time to think about ourselves. You take the time to worry about the urgent and not the future.

We treat ourselves that way. In self management, you have to start with forgiving yourself first, because we don’t think about the future, we think about the urgent.

So, give yourself the chance to get better.

Start with yourself and forgive.

Tags Forgive, learning, manage, management, money, pay, self destruction, self management, treat, understand

Blog Post

Self Destruction – After, Just Rest

Post author By jrlsage
Post date December 13, 2015

self destruction

BLOW IT UP. SELF DESTRUCT SEQUENCE IN 5…4…3..2…1

Oh I love to do it. Secretly, I think we all do.

When I think about all the self-destruction I’ve done in my life, it’s never good, but it comes with a few lessons. One thing I learned is that most of the time, it comes from me not being myself. Do it long enough, living as a lie becomes a powder keg, and within minutes of something bad happening, that keg explodes.

Nothing felt better than exploding in that moment.

That comes at a price. For all the fun I have subconsciously when I clear the decks, the pain afterwards is never worth it. Eventually, it makes me sick, and I decide to cut myself off from the people who support me, and I fall right into depression.

Self destruction is the kickoff sequence to a bunch of negative feedback loops.

Much of it stems from not being myself, forcing an issue, and not listening.

What sucks about the self-destruction sequence is that, like in James Bond Films, its difficult to stop, and generally is a waste of time. What I find far more fruitful, is to save what I can, and recover.

It is impossible to go to the past, so don’t try to. Just start recovery.

In recovery, it becomes really important to contact people, and get some love.

The time to figure out what happened is going to come, and trust me, there is no point in rushing the process. Remember, you just exploded, the wreckage is visible for miles, and there is no shortage of people who will let you off the hook.

In order to face up to recovery after that self destruction, resting is important, and the idea of not getting defensive is another one. Explosions happen. We aren’t robots, and we can’t expect to act like them. The only thing that works is to cut the feedback loop at the source, before it goes to far.

Tags destruct, earned, impossible, post mortem, recovery, rest, self destruction, sleep, the past

Blog Post

5 Steps to Self Destruction

Post author By jrlsage
Post date June 2, 2015
No Comments on 5 Steps to Self Destruction

I saw my self destruction in the form of a map. The idea crystallized right as I was in the middle of it. I didn’t know what to do but to see it through. I followed the lines the writer wrote for me as written, almost to a tee. Fitting it was in an acting class, the thing was theater.

Step One – Parsed Listening: I had to hear everything single thing that was happening around me. I wasn’t listening to see what was happening. Confirmation bias was the only thing I was listening for. In other words, I was looking for a problem and was willing to go to any length to find it. I found it in the form of a few chuckles. I flubbed a line and that laughter came in like full stereo. I froze for a second as my mind processed and connected the dots to make a story fit. It was shocking to see how fast this happened. After that second, my framing for the event was ready and I was off. Solution: Take a second, detach from the moment, watch it pass and get back to it.

Step Two – Disruption: Now with my mind ready to cause a ruckus, I’m ready to start one. I started to shut down emotionally and I pretended to not know lines. It wasn’t even pretended not to know as much as it was a complete fuck you to anyone I was working with. I willed myself to not say them. They would come out two seconds late. It was a huge pause before every session. If they were going to laugh then I was going to shut it down. Solution: Just try to live in the moment. Do the next thing right. Just start with making the next thing right.

Step Three – “False Breakthrough”: I wanted to get this over with, so I went along with everything to get the practice moving. This is enough to get me out of there. I generally give enough of myself at this point to redeem most of step two. The general idea here is to show that I can do it, and I just didn’t want to. This is where I start to think how I can redo step two at another time. The false breakthrough gives me enough time to do it.Solution: Recognize that ‘revenge’ is just another form of anger. The ego bruised, acknowledge it and move on.

Step Four – Seething Anger: This is my specialty. After its done I disconnect and leave anger around me. I unplug from everyone. I stare into space. After a while I add a cryptic layer. I don’t want anyone to know why I am mad, just mad. I look at the people who “wronged” me. I look out the window. Anything to show my disinterest. If I am in a closed space where everyone is talking, I put my headphones on.Solution: Breathe deeply, think of something you are grateful for. Focus on that.

Step Five – Passive Aggressive Professionalism: If I have to do something after this point, I set up the next meeting immediately. If you ask what is making me angry, I will tell you nothing. I am most vulnerable here though. If you badger me I will break. So to keep it going – I use step four to create as much distance as possible to have my emotional wounds heal. Solution: Breathe, write down my angry feelings, and spend the time breaking each one of them down. Let some time pass, apologize, and schedule something after.

This has been the first time I wrote this. Perfect time, perfect month to start working on these issues. If I can’t show them, or offer solutions(bold) then they will stick. Self destruction happens way more often, but I do appreciate that I can finally find it.

Tags Emotional Intelligence, list, self destruction