If you advance confidently in the direction of your dreams and endeavor to live the life you have imagined, you will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
Henry David Thoreau
When you follow the life your soul is calling you to live, success has a way of finding you. It will chase after you.
Wayne Dyer
Some of us tried to hold onto our old ideas but the result was nil, until we let go absolutely.
Big Book of AA (1939), Chapter 5
A miracle is a shift from fear to love.
Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love
Today we will look at a typical challenge which can be easily rectified by becoming mentally fit.
If, for example, you can only perform in the face of an imminent deadline, here are a few things that will shift you out of that pattern. This shift is achieved by means of awareness of your neural patterns and by consistent practice of somatic (body-based) exercises on a daily basis, with the effect of rewiring your brain.
Firstly, you need to understand that you don’t have a motivation problem. You have a brain that kicks you into action only under threat. That’s why you need the experience of panic before you can do anything. That is not laziness, it is a specific activation pattern, an „old idea“ (see quote above), if you will.
Your nervous system learned somewhere early on that it needs to fire only when there is a real threat and you become keenly aware of the pending consequence of remaining inactive. You’ve been running on that ever since.
Essentially, your brain is wired in a fear-driven mode. The Saboteurs are running the show. Hyper-vigilance can keep us in a state of incapacitation. The word „petrified“ means literally „turned to stone.“
It is possible to achieve short bursts of productivity or even great feats in Saboteur mode – but not for long. It is the equivalent of driving with the handbrake on. At some point the vehicle will sustain grave damage and the driver will burn out.
In addition, operating in Saboteur mode will inevitably alienate those on whose contributions we rely to achieve our common goals. This is as true in the business realm (leading teams, organisational development, etc.) as it is in our private lives (parenting, relations with our partner, family, circle of friends, etc.)
The first thing you can do on the back of this awareness, therefore, is to exercise compassion. Stop beating yourself up for not being disciplined. Instead, start understanding what’s actually happening in your brain and bring compassion to how that came about in the original context.
Until you see the pattern and learn to shift from fear to love (from Saboteur to Sage), you’ll keep thinking in terms of blame. Whose fault is it? Yes, you’ve guessed correctly. It is always your fault! Somebody’s fault! Anybody’s fault!
This is not a helpful conclusion, and far from the truth. The cause of the ever-recurring self-defeating behaviour is the current wiring of your brain which was laid down long ago. That needs to be changed. The good news is that, with practice, this is possible.
The primary Saboteur we all share is the Judge. Ergo the blame. The Judge is sometimes referred to as the „Inner Critic“.
Where does this Judge come from? A core issue for humanity is that many of us emerge into adulthood with a feeling of unworthiness. The pivotal moment in the emergence of this belief is when we, as young children, experience our adult caregivers as incompetent in terms of providing „good-enough“ parenting. There may be good reasons for this, but none will help the young child in the heat of the moment who is faced with an impossible dilemma.
Either my parent(s) are not up to the job of parenting (being utterly dependent on them for survival makes this prospect untenable) or there must be something wrong with me (the birth of the belief of unworthiness).
We are often encouraged by the adults around us, covertly or overtly, to arrive at the latter conclusion. Indeed, entire religious ideologies have emerged precisely in this mode, forever reminding us of our „original sin“ and the need for redemption.
This belief of unworthiness will manifest in various ways. It may present as a need for validation. It may be seen as possessiveness, jealousy, self-aggrandizement, and, often, the need to be right.
Where there is a need to be right, this is because we fear being wrong, the implication being that if you are wrong, you are not worthy. If you are jealous, it is because you fear you are not enough. If you are possessive, it is because you fear loss. However it manifests, it comes down to the core issue of worthiness.
This points us again to the importance of compassion once awareness has begun to germinate. The Saboteurs are both sly and powerful when it comes to maintaining their control over our lives. If we begin to beat ourselves up for the Saboteur pattern we have just discovered, we are right back in Saboteur mode again.
Here we need to learn to be like a discerning anthropologist. We look clearly at what is before us, to see it as it is, without judgement or evaluation. We simply ask: „What is going on here?“
Furthermore, with your brain wired for procrastination, every productivity system you’ve ever tried was designed for a brain that doesn’t work like yours. You tried the system, it didn’t work, and you blame yourself again. The problem was never your „sin“ of procrastination.
The Positive Intelligence (PQ) Mental Fitness modality doesn’t stay stuck in theory, nor does it give you just another „To Do“ list. It illuminates why our brain works the way it does, leaning more into anxiety and peril than towards opportunity, abundance, and love.
Cognizant of the fact that any transformation process, in order to be successful, is made up of 20% insights and 80% practice, PQ then builds a plan around strengthening the three mental muscles critical for Mental Fitness. These are the „Saboteur Interceptor“, the „Sage Enhancer“, and the „Mind Command“ muscles.
We have already met two Saboteurs: The Primary Saboteur we all share is the Judge. Accomplice Saboteurs include the Hyper-vigilant. Further accomplices are the Controller, Hyper-rational, Victim, Pleaser, Hyper-Achiever, Restless, Controller, and Avoider.
Each of these emerged to meet a specific survival need early in life but went on to become a self-perpetuating „runaway train“. They no longer serve us in growing and achieving our potential.
They each have a basic lie at their root. The Controller, for example, says: „We are either in full control or out of control.“ This ignores all the space in between. The more we try to control every aspect of life, the more out-of-control our life becomes.
The Saboteurs, through their lies, lead us to the irony that they produce exactly the opposite of what they promise. When indulged, for example, the Pleaser („Life is only safe in the absence of conflict“) leads us to even more conflict in the long run.
The one Sage Power we have already encountered is „Empathise“ (which I call „Compassion“). The four remaining Sage Powers are: „Explore“, „Navigate“, „Innovate“, and „Activate“. We learn to become stronger in each of these areas by training them in short bursts throughout the day, every day.
The prerequisite for such workouts is that we momentarily step out of our incessant mind chatter, referred to in recovery circles as „stinking thinking“. We achieve this by delving into our body sensations for short periods, using our senses.
One well-known example is to take three deep breaths.
Other examples are to concentrate on the difference in temperature of the air entering your nostrils and the air leaving your nostrils. Or we could simply concentrate on the felt sense of the weight of our seat in the chair, our feet on the ground, etc.
There is no limit to the creativity we can apply in creating our own so-called „PQ Reps“. On of my personal favourites is to walk barefoot on the strand while concentrating on the pressure points of my feet as they meet the surface below them. Right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot, etc.
Typically, we will find that our mind begins to wander again, back to the carousel of thinking. It is the act of reeling it in by refocussing on the somatic felt sense that strengthens the Mind Command muscle.
Very soon we develop a passion for leading the dance of the mind. It is not that we wish to destroy or suppress the Saboteurs. We simply want to turn down the volume from, say 10, to 2. This requires us to enter into a dance with them, taking care that our conscious, aware faculties are leading that dance.
We begin to recognise and intercept the Saboteurs before they can hijack us. By using their presence as a prompt to do PQ Reps, we can then consciously shift to Sage. We ask: „Which of the five Sage Powers, or which combination in what sequence, would be most beneficial in developing a response to the current challenge rather than simply a reaction?“
The five Sage Powers reside in what we call the Sage Perspective which states that: „Every situation brings with it gifts and opportunities.“ When we shift to Sage we can identify, unwrap, and use such gifts in meeting our everyday challenges.
Just an hour ago, I found myself waiting in line at airport security. My mind scanned the situation and was about to compile a report on all the examples of incompetence (both individual and systemic) readily visible from where I stood.
Instead of taking the bait, I did a few PQ Reps and discovered that this waiting time could be put to very good use, namely in doing stretch exercises which I has skipped after my workout in the gym a few hours earlier. In the end, I was grateful for the opportunity, the airport staff worked through the backlog, and my body felt a lot better as I headed for the departure gate.
I am now passionate about developing and maintaining Mental Fitness, mine, and that of my clients. With this new fitness, no longer dancing to the tune of our Saboteurs, we can put the mind to work for us.
I see it as a great foundation on which Emotional Sobriety can be established and cultivated. In the wake of my passion, unexpected opportunities have begun to take me by surprise. I am carried along on a wave of trust that the Universe will continue to provide well for me as long as I offer myself as a channel for her life-affirming, loving Sage energies.
