"The Self Sabotage of Living Like A Teenager Long Into Our Adult Years

"The Self Sabotage of Living Like A Teenager Long Into Our Adult Years

As self-sabotage coaches, we often encounter "pro-teens", or what we call "lifelong professional teenagers." Lots of self-sabotage can be attributed to a person not taking their proper rite of passage from child to adult. When we fail to mature into a fully functional adult, inside our adult life, things usually go very wrong.

I remember one client who was checking all the boxes for "pro-teen" based behaviors. Those behaviors were causing her lots of tension in her adult life. She didn't save any of her money and lived from cheque to cheque. There was always more money flowing out than in.....and she just kept spending anyway. She obsessed over things that a teenager would obsess over.....like clothes (the latest fashions), boys, watching lots of TV, sleeping in when everyone in the house was already up, eating junk food late into the night, and then starving herself the next day and of course, she was very concerned with what other people thought of her. The opinions of others ruled her life. She was a follower and a people pleaser, which meant at the end of the day everyone was happy....except her. People pleasers are doormats for everyone else. As children, we're naturally like this. We're supposed to morph out of it but she never had. This is now extremely common in large portions of the adult population.

This was her patterned behavior, the way she adapted to the world in order to increase her chances of acceptance, survival, and being well-liked in the herd. Only kids think like this. Real adults don't. Unfortunately, these are the survival adaptations we make as children and this client wasn't understanding that most of the problems she was having in her life were because she was acting, thinking, and talking like a teenager......inside her adult life. She was acting like she was 18 but she was actually 48. A child only thinks 5, 10, and 15 minutes down the road. A real adult thinks 5, 10, and 15 years down the road. When you think short term inside an adult life........you get pain. And this client was in plenty of mental, physical, spiritual, and financial pain. The more she avoided growing up, the more pain she would encounter. Child-based behaviors were deeply engrained into her nervous system......so what was the solution?

Like in all cases of self-sabotage, our behaviors are simply patterns that are playing on an old record player inside our subconscious. We can change that record at any time. I helped her get rid of the old record and put on a new record, which accelerated her behavior toward her dreams. We didn't just make her a new record, we laid down a whole new LP, with a brand new "top 10". That new top 10 was about her rising up to her full potential and making her dreams come true.

If you're looking to overcome your self-sabotage, just email me at innerexpression88@gmail.com. Title your email "It's time. I am ready for change."

Blessed be. Love only

Colli