It’s Not Your Fault: The Subconscious Reasons We Self-Sabotage and How To Stop

Trauma-informed life coach Connell hits on several trending topics, including blind spots, attachment styles, scapegoating, toxicity, and isolation in this guidebook for healing from self-sabotaging patterns. With advice about how to show up for oneself, build confidence, and strengthen relationships, Connell draws on work including Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score to explain how complex abuse, neglect, and PTSD become woven into individuals’ identities—and what it means to begin to understand how the traumatized brain works. Some of her advice is commonsensical, almost to the point of feeling banal (minimize device time, eat a healthy diet, journal), yet she makes a compelling case that such basic habits often seem out of reach when people feel unworthy, unlovable, or worthless. By focusing on core behaviors, it’s possible—she argues—to begin to unlearn those self-sabotaging patterns and behaviors. With research studies and clearly defined terms, including attachment styles, this book will help readers identify some of their own struggles so they’re better able to either inch toward change or lean into their strengths, rather than feeling defined by perceived limits.