Our must read this week is Angelo Vero’s column. After several weeks of silence, he is back with a personal story about insecurities and fighting an inner saboteur. Do you recognize this story?

There are moments like that when you feel completely empty and it seems like nothing makes sense. The past few weeks I have suffered from this enormously, fortunately that is now over.

Nothing holds you back more than your own insecurities

Both professionally and personally, I felt myself increasingly distancing myself from things I was previously much more involved in. And that was mainly due to myself. On the one hand I had bad ideas in my head about my own capacities and future prospects. On the other hand I let small annoyances build up until the moment it all became too much. I was stuck in a negative spiral. My inner saboteur had gone to work immensely. The more I thought about the fact that I wasn’t feeling well, the more I began to get annoyed with myself for letting myself go like this. And that only caused more problems. 

When I’m emotionally stuck, often nothing happens physically either. And I really mean that on every level. My body just doesn’t want to contribute anymore and has no energy to do things. Every task seems like an enormous task and even on a sexual level you don’t have to ask much of me at times like that. Of course, that only creates more problems. Because the more you start shutting yourself off, the more you start thinking about not doing certain things anymore. 

At times like that, you start putting ideas into your head of how the other person might think about you. Often these trains of thought are very irrational and out of proportion. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to break such thought patterns. Fortunately, it can be done!

The more you hold in, the worse you experience things

Only when you dare to speak out about certain things, then things can change. There were a lot of small things that could be fixed quickly. But the fact that I did not speak out and therefore did not let go of them made it all much worse. 

Until the moment that I bit the bullet and took the bull by the horns. What a relief that was. Not only did I realize in retrospect that many of those negative thoughts were just a big problem in my head, but I also realized that I could have solved it all much sooner. So I had put myself in this position and unnecessarily for a long time. 

Now things are better

Since expressing my feelings and frustrations, things have only gotten back better. Again, my emotional side has definitely played a role here. Because now that I feel happier again, I suddenly have much more energy to start and finish things. My inner saboteur seems to be sleeping again. Hopefully for a long time this time. 

Also physically and sexually, there is a huge pressure off my shoulders and things seem to be running at normal speed (or even better) again. I also genuinely feel a lot happier. Not only because I was able to shake off certain things, but also because I now know that I can vent things faster next time. That way I don’t have to hold them all until it explodes again. 

Do you sometimes find yourself battling with your inner saboteur? Or are you currently going through such a moment? Let’s feel free to talk about it. Then I’ll be happy to tell you some more tips and ideas. Feel free to talk to me on instagram.