End Self Sabotage ... The Power of Secondary Gain

 

(this is a re-post of an article from, we have had a number of requests for info on self sabotage so here it is again...)  {The Mind Academy Newsletter}


So you've been trying to make a change for a while, and it doesn't matter what your doing or what you have done, the change you want is not happening…

You want to get to the next level with your finances but keep on 'sabotaging' yourself.

You want to recover from a long standing illness, yet it still lingers.

You what to stop attracting a certain kind of person in your life, but they keep on turning up.

That weight that you have been trying to shed for the last 5 years just doesn't seem to budge.

You keep on making life decisions that increase your burdens rather than relieves them

Why?

Some might say that self sabotage is at play, but that doesn't help us very much. So let's take a look at a major factor that prevents lasting change from happening that often appears to be 'self sabotage'.

An answer to making a change permanent might be easier than we think when we understand a psychological principle called 'Secondary Gains'.


Secondary Gains. AKA Hidden Benefits.

In simple, lay terms a secondary gain is "a hidden or unacknowledged benefit that is derived from having the presenting problem".

At The Mind Academy we use the concept of Secondary Gains across all of the modalities we teach, in fact we see it as one of the integrating principles of almost all change work and the first place we look if an issue does not resolve itself rapidly with a simple intervention or if a change only 'half occurs' or a change happens but then appears to be replaced by a new problem behavior.


Let's Take a Look At Some Examples:

1. An elderly woman with a chronic illness that should have responded well to a simple nutritional regime change,yet made little to no progress, this meant that her son and daughter needed to spend time helping her around the house during the week. She had been lonely before the illness and when asked what she stood to lose if she got well, she caught her self saying almost immediately 'I would be lonely again'.

Given the choice between being ill and lonely, she unconsciously chose the illness. Not being lonely was the hidden benefit.


2. A woman with a severe phobia of spiders was not responding to the normally very effective and simple phobia elimination solutions of NLP and Hypnosis. When asked what would change in her life or relationships if she lost the phobia, she responded that it was the one area in her life that her husband really took the time to make sure that she was OK.

No phobia, no check in from husband… translates to the unconscious as 'I'll keep the phobia, thanks !'


3. A woman broke her leg on the ski slopes, had a full cast and was immobile for a few weeks, the kids and husband did more around the house and treated her with greater care. When the cast came off, she started having 'phantom' leg pain. It would often get so bad she couldn't move.  After a year of this she ends up at he hypnotherapists office. The secondary gain was identified.  Leg pain equals the desire for fairness in house duties. Once she took charge and set boundaries around the house, the leg pain disappeared.

Here are a few more:

If my back was fixed, I'd have to go to work.

If my rash/headaches cleared up, I'll have to be intimate with my husband/wife again

If my depression went, I'd have to take full responsibility for my life


It can be incredibly revealing, healing, helpful, life changing or just plain old informative to identify how secondary gains are affecting our lives and
preventing the changes we want from happening.

You might find it useful to identify a long running issue in your life and ask a few questions to see if you can pinpoint any secondary gains connected to it.

Here are a few questions (some have an unusual linguistic structure) that will help you unravel the secondary gains/hidden benefits of an issue you may have.

Secondary Gain Questions:

What do you gain, how do you benefit from having this problem?

How would not having this problem change your life/relationships for the negative?

How does having this problem benefit you?

What do you not gain by having this problem?

What don't you gain by having this problem?

What don't you not gain by having this problem?

What would you lose if you didn't have this problem?

What wouldn't you not lose if you didn't have this problem?


It can also be useful to go back into your past to where the problem first started and became habitualised or normalised as a response and see what possible resources, needs or benefits you can find in starting the problem back then.

For example did it help to protect you or keep you safe in some way? Was it an attempt to get some control or perhaps the approval or acknowledgment of someone or some group? Let your mind really explore all possibilities, sometimes they are obvious and sometimes revealing the true hidden benefits of having or maintaining a problem can require a little digging.

Quite literally 9 out of ten times if an issue is being stubborn or self sabotage appears to be involved then a secondary gain/hidden benefit will be at play in some way.