Hi team. How we doing? I hope this cold winter weather isn’t keeping you too down. Good news is we are already in February, and next month is Spring! Keep your head up, we are almost out of the cold and into the warm!

I know, I am once again so late with this. I keep saying I’ll be better and I’ll be on time “next time,” but I just can’t figure it out. I always put doing this newsletter off until the stress builds and builds and I force myself to write, not primarily to write, but just so that I can get this done.

Cycle needs to break. Something needs to change. Because this problem doesn’t just exist for my newsletter, but permeates through my entire life. In a lot of aspects of my life, I am my own worst enemy. I am my biggest obstacle. Let’s dive deeper.

I am sitting here right now in a Starbucks, having just ordered an iced vanilla latte and egg bacon sandwich. I am full, content, satisfied. Yet, I’m staring at this screen, biting my nails. Frustrated and ashamed and insecure by how unsightly they look.

I might have a lot of tasks on my to-do list on a random given day. A lesson to plan for class, a meeting with a client to get ready for, deliverables that needed to go out yesterday, yet I’ll first do the task that isn’t required and isn’t time-sensitive. Because it is easier. And then at the end of the day, I’ll stress and wonder where all my time went.

I’ll have to be somewhere at 7pm. It takes 10 minutes to get there, so I should leave by no later than 6:50. There’s things I must do before I go, so I should probably get started. Wash my dishes, get a load of laundry going, pack my bag. I should probably budget 10-15 minutes of buffer time in case there’s an unexpected delay or I forget something. What do I end up doing? Procrastinating, stalling, twiddling my thumbs until 6:49, when I realize “oh crap, I have to run.”

I am hanging with friends. We are laughing, vibing, having a good time. Everyone is enjoying each other’s company. Someone will say something, and it’ll make me think of a joke. And I’ll say it, knowing it is perhaps a bit crass. Someone might laugh, someone might give me a semi-disapproving semi-smiling glare, and someone might say “that was not good.” And after, I will wonder why I felt the need to interrupt the sanctity of our convivial and wholesome conversation to pepper in a frivolous remark that might get a short-term laugh but a long-term detriment to the external perception of my character.

I know what I should do. Yet I don’t do them. I know what I shouldn’t be doing. Yet I do them. This is a vicious cycle with the everlasting state of paralysis not being the only thing all these examples have in common. They also represent the desire – no, the intentionality – of my own stagnation. Of my own sabotage.

Have you heard of the Ouroboros? You’ve probably seen it before. It is a symbol of a snake eating its own tail. The Ouroboros is symbolic for many things, but what I want to focus on is how it reflects the concept of self-enemy.

The snake thinks he is helping himself, but he is feeding himself his own body: hurting more than helping. To me, the Ouroboros represents the notion of being your own enemy – of being the cause of your own downfall. The snake could be doing anything, yet he’s choosing to consume himself. No one asked him to, no one forced him to, no one is making him do this. He’s doing it all on his own. He will be the cause of his own demise.

I think this image powerfully reflects how I act sometimes. I can be my own worst enemy. I know I should break bad habits, I know that I should leave earlier or plan better, I know that I don’t need to share every joke that pops into my head. Yet I do. Why?

It is almost as if I want to. As if I cannot let a good moment be a good moment. As if I am seeking out my own ruin.

Because when you take a step back and look at this whole process, a clear pattern emerges. I do (or don’t do) something, a negative but expected outcome occurs, and then I overanalyze, beat myself up, lament, and cozy up in a pit of frustration because that negative – but expected – outcome occurred.

But after 26 years of life, you’d think I could break this pattern. So perhaps, the answer is that I want this pattern. Maybe I am actively choosing this. Maybe I need to reframe my thinking from “these things passively happen to me” to “these things actively happen because of me.”

But I suppose that is scary. Because if I remove the barrier – the reason – for my shortcomings or failures, and something still goes awry, then there is no safe explanation. There is nothing else to blame (which, now that I am writing this, I realize the irony because even in my self-sabotaging behavior, I blame myself).

So I guess, if someone doesn’t like me or if my application gets rejected or if I fail at something or if I don’t get included in something, instead of this being an umbrage to my character, my appearance, my heart, my pure self, I can chalk it up to one of my never-ending self-sabotaging behaviors. And offload the responsibility.

So what this behavior really is is insurance. It is me planning for my failure. It is me telling myself no, counting myself out, rejecting myself before anyone else can. I use these destructive mechanisms because knowing I didn’t really fail, it was “just because of xyz,” is a much more comfortable and safe version of the story. It is much easier to live with than actually doing the work, showing up, and being the best version of myself…and still failing. And now that I write this all out and am reading and re-reading it, I am realizing how odd my behavior is.

Why am I my own worst enemy? Don’t I love myself? Or am I just so dubious by the thought of external inclusion and acceptance that I actively provide my peers ways for them to see my flawed self? Am I eating my own tail?

I think I am. I think it is time I break the pattern. I think it’s time that I stop reveling in my own disappointment and pity, and be the change that I want to be in my own life. Because I am tired of playing the blame game. I am tired of my passive ignorance. And I am tired of eating my own tail.

Thank you for listening to me!
If you’d like to follow along in my journey here in Zlín, I’d love for you to czech out my Instagram account: @amilinzlin!

You know the drill: everything I write here is something I am actively working on improving and implementing within myself. Writing them out also helps me to visualize what to work on and how to do it. And having you as my audience holds me accountable.

If you have any thoughts, comments, or feedback, please dish it to me! I’d love to know how I can improve. I am glad to have you here on my VasaVita journey.

If you want to talk more about anything I discussed in my newsletters, or want to learn more about VasaVita, check out my website below!

See you this month!

You all know the drill: in the sprit of transparency and holding myself accountable, I include my audience count here to keep you apprised of my growth. No new subscribers in January ☹
If you have any ideas or tips, please do share!