How to Stop Self-Sabotage and Start Receiving + Meditation

Have you ever noticed yourself pulling away just when things start going well — in your relationships, your career, or even your healing? You’re not alone, and there’s a reason this happens.

In this episode, I explore the deeper emotional and nervous-system patterns that make receiving feel unsafe, even when we consciously want more love, abundance, and ease. We’ll look at why self-sabotage is not a flaw but a protective strategy — and how to gently shift these responses so your body can hold more goodness without fear. You’ll also be guided through a soothing healing meditation to help your system relax, open, and feel safe to receive again.

✨ You deserve the life you’re calling in — let's help your body believe that too.

With love,
 Dr. Evette Rose

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Safe Space
• 0:59 Self-Sabotage As Protection
• 2:26 Common Patterns And Worthiness Wounds
• 4:10 Nervous System, Familiarity, And Change
• 6:05 Identity Conflict And Fear Of Loss
• 8:20 Subconscious Loyalty And Dopamine Hiccup
• 10:30 Science Meets Soul: Receiving Safely
• 12:08 Awareness Without Shame
• 14:05 The Key Question To Unlock Receiving
• 16:20 Regulate Before You Receive
• 18:05 Reframing Giving And Receiving
• 19:18 Practicing Small Acts Of Receiving
• 21:20 Self-Sabotage Reframed As Alignment
• 23:19 Guided Healing Meditation And Affirmations
• 27:55 Closing Reflections And Blessing

Transcript

Speaker: 0:06

Welcome to Heal Within. Here with me, Dr. Evette Rose, traumatherapist and also creator of Metaphysical Anatomy Technique. And remember that this podcast is your safe space to explore emotional healing, nervous system repair, and also deep inner transformation. And if you are ready to go deeper and you would like to be supported in your journey, you can also book a one-on-one session with me or with any of my certified metapsychology coaching practitioners. Or you can even join one of our upcoming live healing events, workshops, or retreats at metaphysicalanatomy.com. And now let's begin your journey back to wholeness. One breath and one breakthrough at a time. And today in our episode, we're gonna dive deep into how to stop self-sabotage and actually start receiving. And if this is a challenge for you, then sit tight and let's start. You see, first of all, something that I would love to share with you just even before we start, something that I learned is that self-sabotage is not a weakness. It's not a flaw, it's a protection. It's protection. And once we understand the hidden reason behind it, that is when we can actually start to choose differently. You see, when we self-sabotage, this is when we we have behaviors, thoughts, or patterns that actually prevent us from achieving what we consciously desire. An example can be um procrastination and perfectionism. That was definitely one of mine. It can be sometimes picking fights and relationships just when things are going well. In the past month, with my clients. This seems to be really a big I'm seeing an opening coming up for a lot of people to step into their worth. And a lot of people can't receive that. And you know, self-sabotage can also look like maybe rejecting support and help from people, it can be undercharging sometimes for services or giving up just as you are about to achieve success. You see, the truth here is that the mind wants to grow, it does, but the nervous system is a little bit of a culprit, it craves familiarity. So we can actually sabotage not because we are broken, there's nothing wrong with you. It's really truly just because the body associates change with danger. But we need change, or at least be able to embrace it to get to from where we are to where we want to be. So while we progress through this podcast today, just and you don't have to answer it now or figure out the answer, but let it marinate in the back of your mind. I invite you to think of maybe yeah, let's do that. Think of one area where you've wanted to change, but you kept blocking yourself, not deliberately, but you feel like you're always up against blocks. What behaviors show up? You see, for me personally speaking, I will share some of mine. Um, a lot of points that I had to work through is worthiness wounds. It's like I don't deserve this, I'm not worthy of it, um, someone else deserves it more than me. And then there's a really big famous or infamous one that I know a lot of my clients also sometimes feel deeply challenged with is fear of loss. If I get it, I could lose it. The universe just gives me something to take it away. Can you relate? Right? So and then there's um especially for me was identity conflict. Ooh lala. This was big. I've always been the struggler. I'm not the successful one. Success is for others, it's not for me. Can you relate to that? Or at least you've had your season or or a day or so where we where we feel that. And there's another part to this that deeply frustrated me. And it was that that nervous system, my nervous system just didn't want to cooperate, right? That that dysregulation. Because for me, calmness, abundance, um, love to feel safe, all of this actually felt unsafe. My body, my nervous system was wired for chaos. It's like, no, that's way too relaxing. Come on, that is that's not safe. We don't know how to function in that. We know how to function in drama. And here we go. I'm laughing because I I can see it so clearly now. I can see it so clearly. Do I sometimes still get caught up in a little bit? Yeah, but I have to say I'm more out of it now than in it. Thank goodness. I'm getting there. So also there's another point. Oh, while I remember, there's another point that I want to share with you. Um, something that I also notice in myself is subconscious loyalty to the past. Subconscious loyalty to a past that's not even real anymore. Holding on to pain, um, poverty, struggle, sometimes out of loyalty to family stories or our ancestry. And something that I also want to share with you quickly also is what I really deeply discovered this year, that I started to appreciate more and more now is I call it the dopamine hiccup. This is when we become used to the struggle of not getting what we want, that our reward system rewires to feel motivated by the journey rather than actually instead of the outcome. And this can happen when we stay too long in that state of struggle. And we don't break the habit, we don't break the pattern, we we don't apply self-help tools to start to find ways or reasoning or understanding why do we stay stuck. You see, this is now where, if I can reframe it in the fun way, where science meets the soul. Right? The brain's negativity, that that bias and these trauma imprints, it makes receiving feel unsafe. Right? And feeling unsafe, how do we receive from the universe? Right? We don't feel safe to receive. And when we look at it from my perspective through my metaphysical lens, I'm also seeing that unresolved emotions that can act almost like, you know, imagine it like energetic blocks that's keeping us from holding the vibration of more goodness, peace, prosperity, right? Because what you think is what you energize, and that's the vibration that that yourselves, that your body holds. So what are you sending out? Right? So my journey back to feeling worthy of receiving was to learn to start to have awareness. But here's the catch. I don't know if you can relate, but this was very true for me. Awareness without shame. You see, there was always shame for me when I notice a bad habit or a pattern or um a trauma or something that was within me that would that I would at least judge and perceive as being not good, unhealthy. Um people will look down at me if they know, oh my god, if it had that, what? Like that's just you know, feeling picked apart. But these were all just stories in my head. Right? And when I started to to break down this shame and and this this challenge with receiving, I had to ask myself the right question. I asked myself many questions, and a lot of them were not for me personally, not necessarily the right one. And one that really sticked was what am I afraid would happen if I actually receive this? Meaning whatever it is that you're sabotaging. And for me, many, many years back, when I sabotaged my relationships by just always not being with the right partner, um and and I asked myself this question what am I afraid would happen if I actually received a loving relationship? And this is a question that just cracked my heart wide open. Wide open. And at the time, not in a pretty way, not in a pretty way at all. Because I I I felt that that that lack of self-worth of having safe love. I I couldn't, I couldn't even imagine it, I couldn't fathom it. Because my dynamic with my dad, you know, him being quite a violent person and having these addiction challenges, this this was part of my ground foundational platform from the day that I can remember until I left the house. And to feel safe in a relationship for me meant, well, if I let my guard down, then you know anything can happen. I'm I'm not ready to defend myself. Imagine that. Living every day in a dynamic where you're ready to defend yourself constantly. Imagine what you're listening for in conversations. What did I do wrong? What is gonna happen next? What is the where's the criticism? Where's the attack? Right? And so this is what can sabotage relationships if if we don't learn to find, well, where is that unsafe element in me that's causing my filters to look for this, to filter that out in dynamics, conversations, um, connecting with people, right? And another aspect that I want to share with you that really, really truly helped me was to learn how to regulate before receiving. Yeah. Regulate yourself before receiving. Find tools to calm your nervous system. You can do it with breath work, you can do it with um uh maybe just going for a power walk, just letting your body get rid of that excess of cortisol and adrenaline. Because a regulated body can hold more love, more abundance, and more joy. Right? And I love, I don't know about you, but I love reframing. I love reframing. So I love it because what I did was I reframed receiving actually as balance, right? So what does it even mean? So giving and receiving there's two sides of the same flow, right? So it's the same as when we breathe. We inhale to receive, we exhale to give. Both are necessary. Remember that. And what I started to do that really helped me as well was just practice small little acts of receiving. Receive a compliment. Receive it without, you know, oh yeah, you know, I was just doing my hair for filming today, and uh, you know, if I had to walk out like this in the street, people are like, oh my god, where are you going? You look great. I'd just be like, I would normally make excuses and saying, well, I've actually been filming the whole day. Um, you know, I'm doing this, I'm doing that. And now it just I was like, oh, thank you. Just take it, right? Just take it. And I've also learned to say yes when someone offers help. I've learned that. But that's also allowing support, right? Receiving support and celebrate small wins. Very, very, very important. So you see, and I want to touch back on this quickly before we start our healing meditation, which we will start very soon. Self-sabotage is protection. We touched on that right in the beginning. It's not a weakness. I can't tell you how many people I speak to when they talk about their self-sabotage and how they just absolutely break themselves down. The goodness, the judgment, the criticism, so much negativity that comes with that. It's not a weakness. It's a protection strategy. And we just need to help the body to understand where we have progressed to in our life, where it might be that we are in a place now where it's safe to receive. We can receive. And receiving, it's almost like it's a practice of worthiness. It's not luck. It's not luck. It's a practice of worthiness. And what that means is the more you allow yourself to receive, the more capacity you also will have to give. It's not selfish, it's alignment. I repeat it. It's not selfish, it's alignment. All right, very good. And so now, when you are ready, let's start our healing meditation, and let's start now by taking a nice deep breath. Very good, and just start by focusing on your breath, just as you're inhaling and exhaling fully out, and notice as you do, feel your body becoming heavier with each exhale supported by the ground beneath you. Imagine roots growing from your feet and your spine, reaching deep into the earth, grounding and stabilizing you, whispering inwardly, in this moment I am safe. In this moment, I am safe, and bringing your awareness to the crown of your head, slowly scanning down through your face, through your neck, your shoulders, your arms, your chest, your stomach, your hips, your legs, and also your feet, and notice as you do that, notice any sensations, warmth, tightness, heaviness or ease. And what's important is instead of judging, simply allow, simply just acknowledge what you feel. Imagine a soft wave of golden light moving from your head down to your toes, relaxing every muscle it touches, placing one hand on your heart, and one hand on your stomach, and taking now a gentle breath in for a count of four. Hold for a moment and exhale slowly for a count of six, and notice as you're inhaling and exhaling, imagine that you're breathing in calmness and also peace and balance with each exhale, releasing tension, fear, and old energy as well, repeating this rhythm and letting your body just soften and your mind quiet down, feeling your nervous system also shifting into safety and rest. Now imagine a warm golden light above your head, and as you're breathing, see this light flowing down into your body, filling your head, your chest, your stomach, your legs, and your feet, and this light it carries healing, compassion, and also inner peace, allowing it to gather in all these different areas of tension or pain, gently softening them, and just gently within yourself, allow this light to restore you. You are whole, you are calm, and feel this light expanding beyond your body, creating a safe, peaceful aura around you. And now let's affirm our positive affirmations, and all that you have to do is listen to my voice and allow yourself to receive them. I am safe to receive love, joy, and abundance. I deserve the blessings life brings me. I release all patterns of self-sabotage with compassion. Receiving is a natural part of life's flow. I allow myself to be supported in big and small ways. My nervous system relaxes as I welcome goodness in. Opportunities are safe for me to explore and embrace. The more I receive, the more I can share with others. I celebrate my progress with gratitude. Ease feels safe in my body now. Every day I expand my capacity to receive. I say yes to my blessings instead of pushing them away. Life supports me, and I welcome its gifts fully. And I invite you now to take a moment to sit in the stillness within this light. Notice how your body feels now. Lighter, calmer, more at peace, allowing yourself to carry this calmness into the rest of your day. Taking a nice deep breath. Very good. Just notice as you are breathing, feel that surface beneath your body. Feeling fully supported as you're coming back into the here and now, bringing your full focus and awareness to the bottom of your fate. Very good. And gently opening your eyes and welcome back, giving yourself also a nice big stretch. And remember that you are not alone. Remember that you're healing one step at a time, one breath at a time. And today's affirmation: I say yes to my blessings instead of no. And remember that if this episode touched you, then please share it with someone else who could also be on their healing journey. And as always, breathe deep, listen within, and stay gently curious. I love you. Thank you for being here today, and I look forward to seeing you in our next episode. And until then, be the light that you are. Bye for now.