Hello Seeking,
My first thought is, with your self-sabatoge and constantly finding little things to do, you're not sitting with your feelings. The distractions, the chores, the projects, all the stuff you're doing is kind of like when a kid crams their fingers in their ears and yells, "Lalalalalaaaaaaa" so they don't hear their parent getting onto them.
Waywards are conflict avoidant. We don't want to look at the problem. We distract ourselves from the issue. We reach for our vices. Be it other people, alcohol, gambling, whatever. One of the first things we need to do is slow down. Learn to sit. And feel uncomfortable. Feel those feelings. Remember the memories. Work thru the emotions.
It's wicked hard. I remember very clearly how miserable it was. However, when we learn to sit with those uncomfortable feelings, we then pick them up, we turn them over and over in our hands, we pick it apart, we find our peace with it, we set it down, we move on.
There are two vivid memories of me having to sit with some very uncomfortable memories. One, a WW here asked me a question like, "What are you holding onto so tightly that you can't let go of?" We had been sparring back and forth. I was indignant that I was FINE, leave me ALONE. But truth be told, I'd suffered a miscarriage between my two living children. I'd stuffed that time period in a box and walked away because the pain was just too tremendous to deal with. The inadequacy I felt within myself. It was my fault. I did something wrong. I wasn't enough. Not only that, but my husband had said some pretty nasty things to me in the days after losing it. I had literally felt the door of my heart slam shut in that moment. I knew I wouldn't be taking my pain to him ever again because he'd showed me that it wasn't safe to do so. I stuffed all my pain, my hurt, my worthlessness into a box and shoved it into the back of my mental closet so I wouldn't have to deal with it.
Only, I did have to deal with it. And boy was it was ugly. Ask anyone here. All the sudden, years of mourning came pouring out of me. I mourned that miscarriage like it had just happened yesterday. Bless these people, they gave me the space to do it too. It took much longer for me to bring this to my husband and for us to have a conversation and for us to work out our differences.
Super long story short, (sorry) checking boxes is great. But it goes much deeper than the surface, which you've discovered. The deeper box checking is much more difficult. We've got to unpack our mental closets. Brush out all the cobwebs, unpack the boxes. 1. Slow down. 2. Push the distractions away. 3. Learn to sit in the uncomfortable.
It's good that you are working with an IC. They can help you with that process. I think it's a good idea to create big and small goals. Big goals are fantastic but it can get extremely discouraging when we're working towards it and there's still SO MUCH to do. Create small ones so you have a sense of acomplishment in the middle of the heavy stuff.
[This message edited by Aubrie at 12:46 PM, October 4th (Friday)]