JAMIE GREENE

Beware your inner Saboteur: he’s that little bugger who will pull your own rug out, just as you take your final step of the victory lap.

It doesn’t make sense, right? The stunning Super Model who has the world in the palm of her hand while she destroys herself with bulimia and a string of abusive boyfriends. The entrepreneur who throws away millions in a reckless wager in Vegas.
How about the recovering alcoholic with 20 years sobriety under his belt who relapses at his 20 year high school reunion?

Leave your thoughts and questions below. I'd be happy to answer them.

If you're like me and considered to be a late bloomer, there's good and bad news... The good news is all those additional years of experience have gleaned invaluable wisdom and strength. The bad news... you're late!

So how to tackle this one? The truth will always set us free and my truth began very young in boarding school when I was noticeably the only 14 year old boy whose voice hadn't yet broken and not a single hair on my legs! It was devastating self-esteem decimation!

It doesn't get any worse than being 15 and finally visiting the luxuries of home on a brief reprieve from school, only to be greeted on the phone by "Hello Melanie dear, can I speak to your mum please!" Melanie being my very feminine oldest sister! You get the picture.

On to college in the States (then an 18 year old young man with full hormones intact and maybe requiring a quick shave once a month) and time to declare what to do with my adult life. It seems to me there are two types of people in the world;...

At the root of most all presenting problems that bring people in to seek help, anxiety is the culprit!

Ask any therapist, family physician, healer, astrologer, tarot reader or psychic and they will likely concur that the underlying catalyst for unrest is anxiety.

And yet, it is so misunderstood.

For 10 of my 20 years in the field of personal development, I specialized in anxiety disorders. Impressive? Well, what does being a specialist actually mean? It certainly commands respect and credibility but what really is the secret behind being so special in a particular field?

What creates a specialization is experience. That's all. Nothing more, nothing less.

Consider this: The Cheesecake Factory specializes in 50 kinds of cheesecake, even though they have over 10 pages of other appetizers and main dishes on their menu (and portions that could feed half of Ethiopia, but that's another post!) So why cheesecake? Because it's a very popular dessert and for years, all that was on offer was...

Beware your inner Saboteur: he's that little bugger who will pull your own rug out, just as you take your final step of the victory lap.

It doesn't make sense, right? The stunning Super Model who has the world in the palm of her hand while she destroys herself with bulimia and a string of abusive boyfriends. The entrepreneur who throws away millions in a reckless wager in Vegas.

How about the recovering alcoholic with 20 years sobriety under his belt who relapses at his 20 year high school reunion?

They all have one thing in common... sabotage!

The origin of the word comes from 'sabot', a 17th Century french shoe worn by peasants who would throw them into the gears of machines to willfully destroy them. Sounds like a Provincial version of throwing the toys out of the pram!

Of course, we've become more discreet in our destruction these days: Failed diets, blowing the retirement money, playing hooky, flirting with the waitress in front of the wife or rejecting the only partner who...

Wishing your good mood would last forever is a bit like keeping your favorite haircut at the 'ideal length' without it ever growing out!

You see our moods are designed to change constantly, just as hunger is sure to return following the most satisfying meal. It's just a matter of time, and the challenge is how you handle it.

Why are we subject to such fluidity of emotions?

It's not important. Don't worry about it! You see, you can't stop your thoughts, can you? Well, guess where your moods originate… unconscious thinking!

I know, it's a cheeky paradox, but it's the truth. Your moods, feelings and emotions all stem from thoughts flying through your head at any given moment; some you are aware of and most you are not. Just as a seed must always precede the fruit, there is a crucial step in-between. Let's call it the 'trunk.'

If the seed represents our thoughts, the trunk represents our moods or emotions and the fruit is the manifestation of our actions, then it's clear that...

There's no such thing as fear of success... it's the fear of failing once you succeed!

Fear sucks. It literally sucks all our ambition, confidence and trust into a black hole we come to know as our self-esteem.

I was once grocery shopping, pleasantly minding my own business when all of a sudden, I noticed an acquaintance standing at the end of the aisle, pondering spaghetti sauces. How intrusive... this is my supermarket! All at once, I found myself darting down the adjacent aisle, hoping not to have been discovered, just to preserve a few more moments of domestic anonymity.

And all the while, an inner bully taunted me with shudders of rejection and intimate panic at the very notion that I might be 'outed' in an unscripted vulnerable moment of a real life encounter!

As a clinician I was never clear what self-esteem really meant so I looked it up in my Pocket Oxford and it became clear all at once; derived from the Latin verb, aestimare, it means to estimate or compare. Who knew?

Of...