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Saboteurs – the Master & Type 2
⛓️ Description
It’s your anxiety-based need to take charge, maneuvering & manipulating situations or people’s actions to suit you. When you can’t, you get very fidgety & impatient
⚙︎ connect to others through challenge, conflict, competition, or physicality – rather than ‘softer’ emotions
⚙︎ are a straight talker, but your in-your-face style is interpreted by others as anger or criticism
⚙︎ often intimidate or push people beyond their comfort zone, tending to be confrontational
⚙︎ come alive when doing the ‘impossible’ & beating the odds, & are surprised that you hurt others with your strong, willful energy & need to take charge.
⛓️ Beliefs
⚙︎ “If I work hard enough I can & should control the situation so it goes my way
⚙︎ Others want & need me to take control, so I’m doing them a favor
⚙︎ No one tells me what to do.”
⛓️ Emotions – YOU
⚙︎ have high anxiety when things don’t go your way
⚙︎ get angry & pushy when others don’t follow
⚙︎ are impatient with other’s feelings & difference in style
⚙︎ feel hurt & rejected when ‘out of control’, but won’t admit it
⛓️ Justification Lies
✑ “Without my Controller, I can’t get much done
✑ I also need to push other people
✑ If I don’t control, I‘ll be controlled, & I can’t bear that
✑ I’m just trying to get the job done for everyone’s sake.”
⛓️ Original Survival Function
⚙︎ Under the Controller’s bravado there’s a hidden fear of being the vulnerable controllee.
⚙︎ It can develop from early experiences when the child is forced to grow up fast, be on its own, & cope with chaotic or dangerous surroundings, to help survive physically &/or emotionally.
When continually hurt, rejected, or betrayed, you deciding to never be that vulnerable again. 
⛓️ Impact on Self & Others
🪄Being controlling comes at the cost of others feeling resentful toward us
🪄The Controller does get temporary results, but can’t tap into their own greater reserves
🪄It creates a great deal of anxiety, since we can’t control everything in life.
🦠 ACoAs posts
“AcoAs acting Controlling – Part 1“. Also “Over-C ourselves“
⛓️ Description
⚙︎ It makes you dependent on constant performance & achievement for self-respect & self-validation
⚙︎ Highly focused on external success, rather than being touch with deeper emotional or relationship needs
YOU
⚙︎ are competitive, image obsessed & status conscious
⚙︎ good at covering up insecurities & showing positive image, keeping people at a safe distance
⚙︎ adapt your facade to fit what will most impress other, to perfect a public image
⚙︎ are goal-oriented & self-promoting, with an unsustainable workaholic compulsion
⛓️ Beliefs – I :
⚙︎ “am worthy only as long as others think well of me
⚙︎ can be anything I want to be
⚙︎ focus on thinking & actions – Emotions get in the way of performance
⚙︎ must be efficient & effective – the best at whatever I do
⚙︎ won’t bother if I can’t be successful & outstanding”
⛓️ Emotions
⚙︎ I avoid emotions as much as possible & don’t feel them for too long when they do crop up
⚙︎ I’m afraid of intimacy & being vulnerable – can’t let others see who I really am (weak & needy)
⚙︎ Sometimes I feel empty & depressed inside, but don’t linger
⛓️ Justification Lies
✑ life is all about achieving & producing results
✑ my feelings are just a distraction & don’t help anything
✑ portraying a good image helps me achieve results
⛓️Original Survival Function
⚙︎ validation, self-acceptance & self-love are all conditional — based on continual performance
✒︎ it’s usually the result of conditional or altogether absent validation from parental figures
♥︎ Even with very loving, approving parents, it’s easy for children to conclude they’re mainly loved for achievements, obeying family rules…. rather than unconditionally.
⛓️ Impact on Self and Others
🪄Peace & happiness from brief achievement celebrations – is fleeting or short-lived
🪄Self-approval is very limited, & based on the next success
🪄Lost touch with True Self ‘s deeper feelings, & so have a weak ability to intimately connect to others
🪄Others can be pulled into your ‘performance vortex’ & get as lopsided in being focused on external achievement.
⚙️ ACoA posts
See all 4 posts, & Actions = Healthy opposites (part 1, ¶ f)
NEXT : Saboteurs # 5, 6
HEAL & GROW for ACoAs 