What if Your "Self-Sabotage" is Actually Self-Protection?
RELIGIOUS TRAUMA RECOVERY, IFS, INNER CRITICS
Photo by Nathan Dunlap on Unsplash
Have you ever caught yourself in that familiar spiral of doing exactly what you know you shouldn't do? You know the one—scrolling social media when you need to sleep, eating that third cookie when you promised yourself you'd stop at one, or snapping at someone you love when you meant to be patient.
For years, I heard this explained through the lens of Romans 7:15: "For I do not understand my own actions... I do not practice what I want to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate." The answer I was given? Our sinful nature. Our broken, fallen humanity that needed to be controlled, disciplined, and ultimately rescued.
But what if that explanation is not only wrong—what if it's actually harmful?
The Problem with the "Sin Nature" Narrative
I spent years with what I now recognize as an Inner Controller—an internal voice that felt like a slave master trying to enforce order against my apparently rebellious nature. This Controller was convinced it needed to manage my thoughts, emotions, and actions at all costs. It believed I had to present a perfect image while suppressing any feelings that might lead me to sin.
This Inner Controller thrived on passages about dying to self, cutting off parts of myself, and finding joy only in complete surrender to someone else's will. It monitored my every thought, catalogued my emotional "failures," and stood guard against any impulse that might reveal my true, supposedly corrupt nature.
The Controller's message was relentless: Everything good comes from outside you. Nothing good comes from you. Don't trust your emotions, your body, or your instincts—they're corrupted and will lead you astray. Present the right image. Say the right words. Feel the right things. Control, control, control.
This isn't just theology—it's the blueprint for psychological abuse. And here's the tragic irony: this internal Controller, created to keep me "good," actually created the very problems it was trying to solve. The more I tried to control my inner world, the more chaotic it became. The harder I gripped, the more everything slipped through my fingers.
A Revolutionary Shift: What Social Science Shows Us
Here's what decades of research in psychology, neuroscience, and trauma therapy have revealed about human behavior. We do what we do for surprisingly simple reasons:
To meet our needs
To cope or survive
To protect ourselves (or someone else)
That's it. No cosmic battle between good and evil in your soul. No sinful nature to beat into submission. Just a human being trying to take care of themselves in the best way they know how.
So why do we do what we don't want to do? Because we've been told one way is "right" (godly, responsible, smart), but our body, emotions, and needs are telling us something different. The conflict isn't between good and evil—it's between competing needs and strategies for meeting them.
When you have an Inner Controller running the show, this conflict becomes a war zone. The Controller doubles down, trying harder to suppress, manage, and perfect. Meanwhile, the suppressed parts of you—your authentic emotions, legitimate needs, and natural responses—start acting out in increasingly desperate ways to be heard.
Your procrastination might be the only way your exhausted parts can force a break from the Controller's relentless demands. Your emotional outbursts might be your tender parts finally breaking through the Controller's iron grip. Your "self-sabotaging" behaviors might be your system's attempt to restore balance when the Controller has pushed too hard for too long.
The Controller interprets this as evidence that you're broken and need even more control. But what if it's actually evidence that you're human and need more compassion?
The Internal Family Systems Revolution
One of the most hopeful developments in therapy is Internal Family Systems (IFS), developed by Richard Schwartz in the 1980s. Instead of seeing our internal conflicts as evidence of our brokenness, IFS recognizes that we have different parts of ourselves, each trying to help us in their own way:
Managers try to keep us safe and successful, often by controlling and planning ahead.
Defenders (what IFS calls Firefighters) focus on soothing and protecting us when we're in pain, sometimes through distraction or rebellion.
Tender Parts (called Exiles in IFS) carry our wounds, creativity, and authentic desires—the parts we often hide away to avoid more hurt.
All of these parts have good intentions, even when their methods create problems.
What This Means for Your Daily Life
Instead of waging war against yourself, imagine approaching your internal conflicts with curiosity and compassion. When you catch yourself "self-sabotaging," try asking:
What need is this behavior trying to meet?
What is this part of me trying to protect?
How can I work with these different parts as a team?
If you recognize an Inner Controller in yourself, here are some specific ways to begin healing:
Notice the Controller's signature: It often feels like stopping yourself, or emotion and thought repression. It monitors your thoughts and emotions like a security guard, always on high alert for anything that might be "wrong."
Understand the Controller's fear: This part developed to keep you safe—from rejection, judgment, punishment, or abandonment. It believed that if you could just control everything perfectly, you'd be loved and accepted.
Appreciate the Controller's effort: Instead of hating this part, recognize that it's been working overtime trying to protect you. Thank it for caring so much about your wellbeing, even when its methods have become exhausting.
Gently negotiate with the Controller: You might say something like, "I appreciate how hard you've been working to keep me safe. What if we tried a different approach? What if we trusted that I can handle some messiness and still be okay?"
Your procrastination might be protecting you from perfectionism. Your people-pleasing might be trying to keep you safe from rejection. Your withdrawal might be preserving your energy when the Controller has pushed too hard. Your emotional "outbursts" might be your authentic self finally breaking through years of suppression.
None of these are character flaws to be conquered. They're strategies that made sense when you needed the Controller's protection, and with understanding, they can be transformed.
The Core Self: Your Built-In Wisdom
Here's the most revolutionary part: IFS recognizes that at your core, you have wisdom, compassion, curiosity, and strength. This isn't something you need to borrow from outside yourself—it's already there, sometimes just clouded over by protective parts that are working overtime.
Your core self has qualities like compassion, curiosity, clarity, connectedness, creativity, courage, calm, and presence. (Sound familiar? These mirror many "fruits of the spirit," but they're not borrowed—they're inherently yours.)
From Self-Control to Self-Compassion
This shift changes everything, especially for those of us who've lived under the thumb of an Inner Controller. Instead of trying to control, shame, or override parts of yourself, you get to:
Listen with curiosity instead of judgment
Understand the protective function of "difficult" behaviors
Work collaboratively with all parts of yourself
Trust your inner wisdom instead of outsourcing it
Let your Core Self—not your Controller—be the loving leader of your inner world
The Controller promised that if you just controlled everything perfectly, you'd be safe and loved. But perfect control is impossible, and the attempt left you exhausted, anxious, and disconnected from your authentic self.
Your Core Self offers something different: the capacity to hold complexity, meet competing needs with creativity, and guide yourself with both firmness and kindness. It doesn't need to control because it trusts—trusts your resilience, your wisdom, and your ability to learn and grow from whatever life brings.
This isn't about becoming self-indulgent or abandoning responsibility. It's about retiring the Controller from its impossible job and letting your Core Self take the lead—with compassion, curiosity, and trust in your inherent goodness.
Why This Matters Now
We live in a world that profits from our self-doubt, our belief that we're broken and need fixing. The productivity culture I wrote about recently, the endless self-improvement industry, the spiritual bypassing that tells us to transcend our humanity—all of it depends on the lie that something is fundamentally wrong with us.
But what if you're not a problem to be solved? What if you're a human being worthy of understanding, compassion, and support—starting with your own?
What if your "self-sabotage" is actually self-protection that just needs some updating?
What if the voice you've been calling your enemy is actually wants to be your ally?
This is the more compassionate view of human nature that Paul was searching for, and that we all deserve to discover.
If this resonates with you and you'd like to explore it further, I invite you to check out my Befriend Your Inner Critic Course or dive deeper with my group program, Become Your Own Best Friend. You can also read more on these ideas in my blog post: "Why I Do What I Don't Want to Do: A More Compassionate View of Human Nature."
I'm so grateful to share this journey of self-compassion and discovery with you. Your healing matters, and you deserve to be your own best friend.
Hi, I’m Catherine. I’m so happy to share this time and space with you.
I’m a counselor and self-trust coach living on the Emerald Coast of Florida, on the unceded land of the Muscogee. I am a creative, mystic, and neurodiverse adventurer. I love writing, creating, and connecting.
I love helping folx Befriend Your Inner Critic and Become Your Own Best Friend. I enjoy hearing from you and walking alongside you on your journey.
With a full heart,
Catherine
