Why do I sabotage good things when they start to happen to me?

Your inner child learned early: maybe good things aren't safe, or you don't deserve them, or they'll be taken away so why try. That's not a character flaw—it's a survival strategy that made sense once. Patanjali teaches that we live according to our deepest beliefs about ourselves, whether we know we hold them or not. The sabotage isn't conscious rebellion; it's your younger self protecting you from disappointment the way it learned to. When success arrives and you suddenly feel the urge to blow it up, that's worth listening to. What belief is activating? "I'm not good enough"? "I'll be abandoned if I'm too happy"? "Happiness means something bad will follow"? The reparenting work here is direct: you get to tell that part of yourself that those old rules don't apply anymore. You can handle good things. You deserve them. Disappointment might come, but you're not that fragile child anymore—you can survive it. This isn't positive thinking; it's speaking directly to the fear underneath the sabotage. Practice noticing the impulse to self-destruct, pause, and ask what your inner child is afraid of. Then reassure her. That conversation, repeated, rewires the pattern.