Identifying Your Relationship Saboteur

We have all been guilty of self-sabotage at one time or another. The Saboteur can be hard to spot in our self, but easy to see in others! That being true, let’s look at the relationship history of the fictional Carrie Bradshaw for the common signs (lather, rinse, repeat) that the Saboteur is lurking in the shadows of love. I’m italicizing the pattern.

After breaking up with Big, Carrie gets together with and engaged to Aidan. Despite the fact that she doesn’t want to give up her apartment, she moves in with him, feels quite unlike her self and moves out.  Next, Carrie dates Berger, an aspiring but insecure writer, and Carrie’s success threatens him so he breaks up with her on a post-it note. Next, despite her reluctance, Carrie leaves her home in New York, to move to Paris with Petrovsky (where she feels so un-Carrie) to find out he has a daughter. Carrie returns to Big (and despite not wanting to give up her apartment) moves in with him after he proposes marriage. Next, Big, in a moment of overwhelm about the media attention and hoop-lah, chickens out at the altar. Long suffering and depressed Carrie won’t talk to Big for (painfully) a good portion of the first movie, but they get back together after she realizes that in her pain, she was blocking his attempts to communicate. They marry.

We all have a Saboteur and it's fairly consistent in it's behavior. There’s a trigger, which once discovered can alert us to impending self-sabotage. By examining those instances we could’ve made a more empowered choice, we can identify the sneaky Saboteur’s triggers. Carries triggers: moving in together before she's ready. When Carrie dates someone inequal to her in stature, power and independence -she loses power. When her pride is injured, her Saboteur locks people out. 

Saboteurs appear different but are motivated by one thing: insecurity. 

Astrologically, the Saboteur is aligned with the planet Mars as where Mars is located, we find what we are most fearful of. Planets in the Second House also describe how we might self-sabotage. If you have a cluster, focal planet in this house, or Mars strong in your birth chart, you should be alert to your insecurities & fears ‘taking the wheel’ from time to time, essentially driving your choices. 

Like Carrie, when we’re not aware that our Saboteur is driving our choices, we potentially keep making the same mistake, over and over. We might block our own chances for happiness. We might act in self-destructive ways or undermine others, albeit unconsciously. Reacting out of fear, neediness, neglect, unlovability or unworthiness gives the Saboteur opportunity to use these feelings and attitudes to reinforce a cycle of undermining behavior and poor decision making. 

Our Saboteur can become our ally. We can name the fears we give authority to in our life and examine any missed opportunities & relationships from listening to those fears.  The most empowering way to make your Saboteur your ally is to listen to your intuition -'hey, I'm about to make a mistake'. Right before we obey the orders of fear, the small still voice of intuition chimes in, alerting us to the possibility of self-sabotage. If we have that awareness, we have power.