[Music] hello I'm Elizabeth and I am a recovering undercover serial self- sabure now as intriguing as that might sound it is not a very fun way to live I say self- sabure because like probably many of you I have self-sabotaged myself out of so much potential so many dreams I say serial because I do it over and over and over again my parents even enrolled me in a class when I was a teenager on how to overcome self- sabotage and I really wish that I would have paid more attention to those lessons because it would have saved me a lot of Ang anguish through the years and I also say undercover Because unless you live with me or you're in my inner circle you would have no clue that I do this to myself and I say recovering because I can see it so quickly now and nip it in the bud or I can if I do it then I can really bounce back much faster but I still fall back I mean I cannot tell you how many times I almost self-sabotaged myself out of this opportunity I rewrote this speech so many times and I kept layering layer layer layer on top of it simply because I was afraid of my deepest passion and my deepest fear would be that I have nothing to say and so I kept writing until someone a very beautiful and exquisite Soul said just stop stop what is the one gift you want to give your audience it is enough and you are enough and so I took about 24 hours I stepped back I started sloughing off all the layers all the layers until I got to that core message which was there the whole time I was just afraid that it wasn't enough but it's enough it's way more than enough and that is that I'm going to teach you how to turn yourself SA saage into your superpower so what is self-sabotage self-sabotage is when you take part in the behaviors that undermine your process your progress and your success and it stems from feeling undervalued underwhelmed fears of inadequacy fears of the the future and the unknown and it shows up in so many different ways one when it shows up in procrastination this is when you have things that you need to do but you put off you stress yourself out while you're not putting it off and then when you finally get to it you still stress yourself out and either you have an amazing result or a satisfactory result no matter what your confidence goes down another one is perfectionism this is where you set the bar so high you work towards it you get maybe right beneath it or maybe even h it and boom instantly you raise that bar higher and all that does is to diminish your self-belief and it reinforces your belief that you're not enough and the third one that I want to share with you today is self-medicating with drugs alcohol pulling out that credit card for that quick little hit this stems from wanting to avoid to to just really get away to numb out feelings of not enoughness so here we do here we are we stay in this little bubble of self-sabotage we're in pain we have both our foot on the accelerator and the break we stay in this pain place because our soul is so is hurting so much because it knows it is not fulfilling its Destiny so we stay in this pain simply to avoid a potential pain over here of really going for it and isn't that ironic and pretty tragic so I want to go back to 1975 I feel like I need to do that little from Wayne's World it's 1975 I'm four years old I'm in the basement of my parents home in Lincoln Nebraska and those of you who were raised in in the 70s and 80s will probably relate to my exuberance and my excitement it was Saturday morning cartoons I sat down on the basement floor I pulled my night gown over my knees because it was so comfy my parents always told me to stop doing that's going to stretch your shirt out but I still did it anyway because I loved it and I cannot say for certain if this is what I ate but it was one of my favorite breakfasts and that was grap nuts covered with a really thick layer of sugar and just enough milk to make that Sugar crispy and gooey just enough so here I was sitting on the sitting and watching TV on this auspicious Saturday morning eating probably my grape nuts and all of a sudden Fantasia from Disney came on so I'm sitting there watching and all of a sudden on the screen came this most amazing image of a dancer she was Exquisite and I was mesmerized and it was in that moment that I knew that everything in my life made sense I knew in that moment that I what my passion was and my purpose and all of a sudden I totally professed to everyone that was right there my mom and dad I am going to be a dancer and who was on that screen none other than hent the hippopotamus isn't she gorgeous her dancing was Exquisite she danced with such exuberance and joy and and authenticity and freedom you see at this point in my life at four years old I was deathly shy and all and when when I was shy during this time my parents would take me out and anytime anyone would come around I would hide behind them teachers sent notes home saying she's doing so well in school she gets along and is having a blast with her friends we just wish she would speak up and it was in this moment of seeing her dance that I found a way that I could connect I could communicate and I could express my full self without ever having to say a word it was brilliant and so I got to work I trained my body I pushed my limits and my dreams started coming true this is me when I was 12 years old in Germany doing my first pad fast forward and numerous years I had an amazing career where I where I was able to perform choreograph and teach I was able to perform at the Kennedy Center and DC and all throughout the United States as well as over into Europe and Scandinavia and it was a Priceless experience and I do know how what a privilege it is and how fortunate I am that I knew what my purpose and my passion was from a very young age I knew in that moment as I was growing into BEC becoming a dancer and all throughout the years I knew that this was a way that I could fully express myself and I still cannot put into words what it feels like to dance it's when I feel most connected to God it's truly a spiritual experience it's where I can dare to fully unleash my full potential where I can leave it all out and I'm fully me unfortunately that shyness evolved into self-doubt feelings of unworthiness asking my myself questions I think I'm broken am I broken I am broken and so at various points in my career I self- betrayed I self-sabotaged and I self-medicated and my drug of choice was food and with that I would gain weight my G my weight would fluctuate and I purged I would not Purge sorry I did not Purge I binged never purged but I did binge I overate and so I could go out to dinner with friends come home to an empty apartment and eat an entire box of cereal all by myself physically I felt disgusting mentally I felt disgusted and disappointed in myself because once again I created more evidence that I did not have what it takes to thrive in an industry where skinny was the norm I blamed my weight for sometimes potentially not reaching my goals instead of really focusing in on my fear that maybe my talent wasn't enough and so I became a self-fulfilling prophecy I went on tour with a company in Finland we were in Helsinki performing at the theater where the Helsinki ballet performs and the director there pulled my director to the side and said H how are you letting her perform she's fat she doesn't deserve to be there I still feel those those words now what he said is indefensible but I was doing this to myself now you might think that night maybe that's when I probably quit dance I almost did it's a night of constant sobbing but that's what's kind of cool if you want to say it's cool about self- sabotage is it is not an end all Beall I still went on and had a very successful career as a soloist I went did my masters in dance anthropology and Analysis and another Masters and almost PhD in dance pedagogy and dance performance Theory and then I went on and was a professor at TCU so sabotaging doesn't have to end everything so I want to turn it back on to you where are you self-sabotaging in your life where are you possibly wanting to get fully healthy you're doing everything you need to do but at night you're sneaking the candy and self- betraying where are you maybe you have a promot that you really really want you know you were made for that position but instead of doing the self-work and everything that you need to do to really shine instead you sit back pull up that remote control and watch Netflix binge watching your favorite show all weekend so where are you doing that I want you to get really real with yourself right now you probably don't have to think much about it probably comes up really fast so I want to teach you something on how to turn your self- sabotage into your superpower so so I ask you to raise your left hand this hand represents your no one's watching you so don't worry see this this this hand represents your potential and the energy behind your potential now this hand is you putting your foot on the gas pedal towards your potential now press into each other now there's communication there there's a dance that be created there is communication like a said and also trust a little fear a little vulnerability it's in this moment where there's beauty that can happen now with this right hand visualize that self-sabotaging behavior coming in putting a break on it if you push right up against there's no movement right the thing is in this moment you can relax your hands at this moment this is a beautiful moment where you get to see and have an awareness of O this behavior is popping up I'm about to step into my potential I can now choose to either continue or I can release and yield a little bit and take the right action and allow that potential to take me on my way like for you to sit up please sit up on the edge of your seats feet flat sitting nice and Tall close your eyes I'll tell you when to open them not for very long hands down by your sides and get close your eyes breathe for a moment become very present with yourself think of that one self-sabotaging behavior that you do now visualize replacing that with just one small little step that is more empowering that self-sabotaging behavior popped up you become aware of it you make a mental note and you say I'm going to switch it to a better choice and now visualize the result of that maybe just you took that one step maybe you got the promotion whatever it is visualize that and feel what it's going to feel like to attain that you are attaining it right now now open your eyes it's in that moment I want you to now make a commitment that whenever that s sabotaging that little jolt comes in you take a mental note and you commit to making a choice to say I'm G to let that go I'm going to make a small choice to do something different it's going to be scary you're going to make mistakes you're going to fall you're going to fail it's okay that's where you learn embrace it because if you do this one thing so much can change because if this shy little four-year-old who choose CH who chose to dance so that she could communicate is now standing before you fulfilling a dream speaking my truth you can too take those small courageous steps so that you set yourself up to dare to fully unleash to your potential thank [Applause] you