‎Remember when you were young and living under the “rule” of your parents, where everything they said was Law! Where you had to do what they said “or else!”. Not just at home, but at school. In fact, everywhere as you grow up, you are taught that there are some things you must do “or there will be negative consequences”! Usually these were consequences delivered by the person telling you what to do when they got cross with you for not doing what they wanted you to do, in the way they wanted you to do it.

It’s something we’ve picked up throughout life – we only get cross with others when they don’t do what we want in the way we want them to. But that’s not the main point of this blog.

Now think about how you felt when you were being told what to do, especially if you didn’t want to do it in the first place! Chances are, you’d find a way of somehow rebelling against it – either openly, or covertly. You may well have been thinking in your head “you wait until I get bigger than you, or more powerful than you, or leave you – THEN I can do the complete opposite and there’s nothing you can do about it!” And you’d most likely be spot on with that last bit.

So you leave home, or school, or employer, or whatever the situation is and you may well decide to do the very thing you were told or advised not to do just to prove that you can do it. One of the most common of these is about getting into debt. People advised you “never get into debt” or to “wait until you have enough money” or “you’ll never be able to afford it anyway” and so on. Some of that is quite good advice – that last statement is a bit of a nonsense though!

The point here is that we are often given advice by others but we rebel against it because we don’t like being told what to do, or we don’t like the way the advice is being given. “If someone tells me what to do, they’ll have power and control over me and they might abuse it. So I need to prove to them that I can do what I want and not be controlled by them”.

This can be empowering at times, but it can also be incredibly self-sabotaging – especially when it comes to money, food, drugs, alcohol, and sex. When we are young we are told what to do with our money, what to eat, not to drink or take drugs or smoke, not to be promiscuous and ‘sleep around’. These are the most obvious ones that spring to mind and ones that are easy to remedy once we hit that magic number of 18.

The challenge with rebellious behaviour is that there will always be others who will be affected by it at some point and, if you’re not careful, you could end up being locked up in prison because “Society” says you’re not responsible enough to make decisions for yourself. This is also not a helpful approach, but that is just the way it is right now.

Now this blog is not about placing blame or saying you should do everything you are told! Indeed not! It’s about helping you to realise where you might be self-sabotaging just to prove that you can make decisions for yourself, and do what you want to do. Do you really need to prove to others that you can make choices for yourself? Does it really matter what they think? Do you really need to self-sabotage just to prove others wrong?

When others give you advice or tell you what you “should” do, it isn’t necessarily just to control you, or to validate themselves and their choices. Often people give advice because they’re trying to help, because they have experience themselves of similar situations, and because they care about you. They may not necessarily deliver it in the way you like – indeed they may even be quite aggressive in their delivery!

Take a moment to process before you do the complete opposite of what someone suggests. Think about what they’re saying and whether it actually makes sense, regardless of how their delivering it. The thing to remember here is, whether you choose to do what they say or not YOU are making the decision for your own reasons – NOT theirs. Do you get that? No matter what you do in your life YOU are the one who decides whether to do it or not – regardless of whether someone’s told you to or not.

Surely an even better way of rebelling against others’ apparent attempts at control is not just to do the opposite to piss them off, but to do what feels right to you for your own reasons! Self sabotage only really hurts you. Remember that phrase “cutting off your nose to spite your face”?

This quote by Deepak Chopra is so brilliant:

"People will suffer almost anything, as long as it means that they don't have to change."

When the Universe moves forward, as it is constantly doing, everything in it will move forward too. When the Universe changes, as it is constantly doing, everything in it will change to. Often we lose sight of the fact that, even though we want to (and do what we can to) stay in the same place and at in the same way, we are in fact changing! We may well be changing to the same thing over and over again, but we are changing. We change from being stuck in the last moment, to being stuck in the present moment. Choice. So even if you don’t want to change, and fight against it, and self-sabotage… you’re still changing. Now there’s a kick in the larlars for you!! All that effort you’re putting into proving you don’t have to change, and rebelling against being told you have to change, and you’re changing anyway! Owchie!

So this is just a few thoughts to get you thinking about your own rebellious and self-sabotaging behaviour. Where are you doing either of these things because of perceived control by others? Where are you doing either of these things to prove a point? Where are you doing either of these things to resist change? Knowing this, what, if anything, will you now do differently to be beautifully rebellious against your own self-controlling/self-sabotaging behaviour and so Be the beautiful, powerful, loving, wonderful Being that you really are?

Go forth and empower yourself to make all the changes you want in order to create an even more wonderful life for yourself. Or not. But if it’s all the same to you… I’m going to ;-)