The Mountain Is You by Brianna Wiest
Understanding Self-Sabotage in a Different Way
Many people come to therapy feeling frustrated with themselves.
They might say things like:
“I know what I need to do, but I just can’t seem to do it”
“I keep repeating the same patterns”
“It feels like I’m stuck”
This is often described as self-sabotage. In The Mountain Is You, Brianna Wiest offers a helpful reframe. Rather than seeing these patterns as failure or lack of willpower, she suggests they are often forms of protection.
Why We Self-Sabotage
What we call self-sabotage usually develops for a reason. Patterns such as:
avoidance
procrastination
overthinking
emotional shutdown
people-pleasing
…often begin as ways of coping with stress, overwhelm, or difficult experiences.
Your nervous system is not trying to work against you- it is trying to keep you safe, even if the strategies it uses are no longer helpful.
The Shift: From Fighting Yourself to Understanding Yourself
A key message in the book is that change does not come from force. Trying to push yourself harder, criticise yourself, or “override” these patterns often leads to more frustration. Instead, change begins with:
awareness
curiosity
understanding
When you start to ask “what is this pattern trying to do for me?”, something begins to shift and this is where deeper, more sustainable change can happen.
A Therapeutic Perspective
In therapy, we often explore these patterns in a gentle and collaborative way. Rather than trying to get rid of parts of yourself, the work is about:
understanding your responses
recognising what your system has learned
developing new ways of responding that feel safer and more sustainable
This can include working with both thoughts and the body, especially where patterns are held at a nervous system level.
If you recognise yourself in these patterns, you are not alone, and you are not “failing”. These responses often made sense at one point in your life. Therapy can offer a space to:
explore these patterns safely
understand where they come from
begin to create change at your own pace
The Mountain Is You is a useful starting point for thinking about self-sabotage differently- not as something to fight, but as something to understand, because often, the “mountain” we are facing is not something to conquer, but something to learn from.
How Therapy Can Help:
Do you ever feel like you’re getting in your own way? You make plans, set goals… and then something pulls you off track.These patterns often begin as protection:
Avoidance, overthinking, shutting down, people-pleasing.
At some point, they helped you cope. The work is not about forcing change, it’s about understanding what those patterns are trying to do for you. When we slow down and listen, rather than push against ourselves, something begins to shift.
If this feels familiar, therapy can be a space to explore those patterns safely and at your own pace.
