The Self-Sabotage Show with Damian Culhane

In this episode you will hear all about Sylvia’s experience as a digital nomad, she is a Soul vision coach – who helps people find their purpose. Sylvia generously shares her story about how she gave all her belongings away and began travelling to experience a new gateway to new life. She had been working in a stressful environment as an Art Director in a big advertising agency in Cologne in Germany. Suffering with her inner voice trying to tell her she was not good enough and that she could not do the work, she would experience the saboteurs of procrastination and talking herself out of stuff! This self-critical, judgemental inner conflict showed up as issues in her work, sadness and isolation and a passive anger that bubbled under the surface.

Now Sylvia lives in Montemore, Portugal and you will hear how she transitioned from an Art Director to helping people connect with their purpose.

During this interview you will learn about the Hero’s Journey created by Joseph Campbell as we chat about co-living. You will also hear us talk about co-dependent relationships and how to shift into interdependent relationships – learning to deepen your connection with yourself. You will discover more about how the experience of sabotage can be a valuable lesson and a necessary journey that is needed for you own development.

In this episode you will hear an interview with Leah Bateman, an Artificial Intelligence entrepreneur – focused on health and fitness. She is a qualified Pilates instructor and Reiki Healer– having overcome her own pain, physical disability and illness which had been caused by work-related stress.

Leah’s journey with self-sabotage is around perfectionism – an insidious form of sabotage. Convincing yourself that you care and want to do things well, this can be subsuming and energy draining – becoming more and more anxious and less confident. The self-judgement and perfection may be intrinsic motivators to perform better, but the great intentions can become quite toxic – leading to sickness and burnout.

You lose objectivity and become obsessed with your perfection – affecting work life balance, not being able to switch off and relax. Drawing into the dark playground – a nefarious place where you are not able to enjoy the present moment, distracted by the inner voices reminding you of the perfectionism trap – an energetic drain. You distract yourself, avoiding and procrastinating – triggered into ineffective activity, unfulfilling behaviour and emptiness. Draining energy and leaving you feeling apathy and depression.

You will also learn about how ‘thinking about’ a task or project can convince you that you are doing something about the outcome – even though there is nothing progressing! You will hear about Solomon’s Paradox – the more emotionally close we are to a situation, the less wisdom we have available to resolve our own pain or problems.

The answer to overcome the sabotage – listen to the podcast to learn some tips and hints! You will hear how breathing techniques and visceral scanning of your physical body shifts your focus, which switches off the sabotage mind. Using breathing for alignment and balance, including touch and voice to connect to the present moment. You will also hear about how important it is to incorporate physical fitness in to your life on a daily basis to help yourself on all levels.

Emotional pain is akin to physical pain, so rather than continue with our stress or ruminating over the stress that is triggered – remove yourself from that pattern of sabotage. Being compassionate with yourself and incorporating movement can take time to integrate – the more this can be used to build your self-command to have more control over your mental and emotional health.

In this episode you will hear an interview with Faraaz Ali, who is a high-performance coach working with parents and leaders. You will hear a deep conversation about how sabotage can affect health and well-being, along with Faraaz experience of travelling to multiple countries for nine months – with his partner and his three-month-old daughter.

You will also hear lots of practical hints and tips around how to overcome self-sabotage, how to align with your values and how structure and systems that we can create play such an important role in our ability to manage stress and improve emotional stability. You will also hear about mindset and how awareness plays such a critical part to overcoming sabotaging thoughts, emotions and behaviour. Many of the examples and personal stories shared help to associate the pressure of everyday behaviour and expectations of socio-economic environment on sabotage.

Enjoy.

Notes: You will find the books mentioned in the Podcast are available on Amazon: Deep Work by Cal Newport, Atomic Habits by James Clear, Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

Join me in this revealing interview with Alicia Withey - where I am in the hot seat and answering questions about self-sabotage. The content includes: why your unconscious detaches you and hear my story of how emotional eating started. You will also hear about how to deal with self-sabotage, particularly if you have been triggered by recent lockdown behaviour. 

We talk about how mental fitness helps to alleviate the reptilian response - which is almost uncontrollable at times of stress, worry, anxiety, fear and sadness. The negative voices inside your head are you unconscious response - but you have a choice. You will hear my explanation of your Judge saboteur and how to understand and have awareness to your own saboteurs.  You will hear how to quieten the 'monkey-mind' and how the work of Carl Jung is so relevant to understanding yourself and the steps of your pattern of sabotage.

I struggled with multiple addictions and was wallowing in my own self-pity and sadness. Learn how I was able to pivot my mindset to change my thinking...

In this episode you will hear the conversation with Faye Blake who helps people to feel at home in their own skin, trust their intuition and connect with their purpose in this life. You will hear about our common experiences and personal escapism through alcohol and binge eating to combat depression.

You will hear about the impact this had on relationships with loved ones and the fear of being judged. Faye talks about how the escapism made her feel like she was not good enough, like she always needed to be more or do more. You will hear how this led her to feeling like she was out of control or broken and at times like it was never ending.

You will also hear our conversation about the suffering, which led to a lack of trust and lack of self-love. We talk about the need for something external to “fix” us and that the escapism is a way of numbing out.

What you will learn from listening is that you are enough exactly as you are. The only person that you need validation and acceptance from is yourself.

Faye shares how she learnt to live in and love her body, so that she could feel safe again in her own skin. We talk about how everyone needs to understand themselves at a deeper level. This can be achieved through a whole host of methods of self-inquiry which are revealed in the episode….

In this episode you will hear my interview with Jody Bartholomew a kundalini yoga instructor with a degree in psychology. Jody grew up in Hawaii, then moved to California and she loves travelling. She has a Bachelors in Psychology and loves learning. You will hear how Jody moved to Germany and started teaching English. She became a Job Coach for people with disabilities and later began working with male refugees from Middle East. Jody is now living in Dortmund, Germany and she trained in Kundalini Yoga to overcome personal issues.

You will hear our discussion around relationships which caused Jody to create a lack of self-worth, leading to feelings of jealousy. She talks about how she became aggressive and controlling – building up a sense of mistrust and how she found reasons to leave relationships. She also attracted the wrong type of partners and was not willing to see the truth, but instead she was seeking to fix others.

Jody shares her personal story of the impact this had on herself and others, including self-hatred, biting her cheeks, aggression towards self and even tension in her jaw. She discovered all of this through her own Hero’s Journey, learning about spirituality, relationship sabotage and her depression. The healing came from her study and practice of kundalini yoga…

Thank you to Jody for sharing with such vulnerability and for the courage to talk about these experiences. The Self-Sabotage Show has been created with the hope that sharing these difficult topics and life experiences will enable others to have the courage and freedom to also face their own sabotage.

In this episode you will hear an amazing and inspirational interview with Anthony Lungabardi, who was adopted when he was two years old. He was found in a wood shed, having been abandoned by his mother. Later is life Anthony became homeless for 6 years as a teenager, when his adopted father became physically and verbally abusive towards him. These events can be traumatic for anyone... The fact that this all happened in Anchorage, Alaska – one of the coldest places to live in with temperatures well below freezing for months – makes Anthony’s story of survival so inspirational. He shares some unforgettable moments of how he managed to turn his life around, healing the suffering he experienced.

Welcome to Episode 4 - you will hear an interview with disabled influencer and entrepreneur Martyn Sibley. You will hear us discuss many topics relating to sabotage, running a business and disability. In particular we talk about the impact of sabotage on Martyn's health and mental well-being, causing him to experience stress and anxiety about not being enough.

Martyn also talks about how his desire to always keep everyone else happy, causes him to not have his own needs met. You will hear us talk about the 'pleaser' saboteur and how this can cause you to feel resentment if you are always trying to help others all the time.

In today's episode you will hear a recording of a live phone-in session with Lorraine Stamp. 

The 'Ask the Coach' session covers a number of topics relating to sabotage and you will hear a more detailed description about the beliefs that cause sabotaging thoughts. You'll hear some personal stories and most importantly some useful and practical tips to overcome self-sabotage. 

Right at the end of the episode we talk about the fact that 91% of people are seeking a new direction and 'purpose'. This was highlighted in a Sky News article about lock down, which mentions their survey where only 9% of people wanted to return to normal.