Some people might agree with you in that description, benewme.
Notice what attributes you're giving to negative programming. It "bubbles up" and then "protects itself."
"Negative programming" is just information in your mind. It does not have awareness, it does not move up or down, it does not protect itself.
The most compelling model for this sort of thing I have come across is what Edward de Bono describes in several of his books.
The mind is an environment in which information self-organizes. Some things "fit" together, some things don't. (Granted this is just another way of talking, information does not come in pieces of varying shapes.) When new information doesn't go in, you may have to reorganize your ideas so that it can fit, or perhaps view your ideas from a new perspective to see how things fit.
I don't agree, in general, with the conept of self-sabotage. You are not some kind of double agent. Rather, you may have a variety of forces working inside you, appetites, desires, beliefs, etc. Sometimes you want to move forward to get this, but then you also have a drive to move back to get that. Is that self-sabotage? No. It's just a situation where you need to be more informed about your drives and more intelligent about getting them satisfied.
Sometimes it's go back first, get this, then move forward and get that. Sometimes it's start back here, so both of them are on your path. Sometimes its find a different way to satisfy one so that its on the path to another.
This is just a way of talking about it. I think we get so caught up in our ways of understanding things that we think that things are actually that way. It's good to take different perspectives.
[This message has been edited by babayada (edited October 18, 2004).]
