Inner Saboteur Part 2: Getting it to Shut the Fuck Up

To recap: we all have an inner saboteur - a part of our brains that tries to discourage, disempower and devalue us. It stokes the flames of our insecurities and amplifies our anxieties. In the Tools Methodology we call this inner demon Part X. So now that you’ve read a bit about identifying your Part X and some of its patterns, I’m going to list some ways to diminish its impact upon your thought processes and eventually, your life. I’ve divided these ways to combat Part X into long form and short form methods. Long form methods are habits you must incorporate ritualistically at the beginning of your journey dealing with Part X, or whenever you feel like you’ve lost control over Part X during said journey. Short form methods are little things you can do when you start catching Part X in the moment and need to dismiss any ideas it fed you quickly.

Long form methods: starting to combat Part X with consistent habits.

• “Whose voice is that?” Caricature: If your Part X often repeats messages or criticisms you’ve heard from a young age, or messages that don’t conform to your values, you may be able to narrow it down to a person (often a parent or mentor), institution or aspect of society that informs this iteration of Part X. Notice how the messages Part X itself transmits creates kind of a caricature of these people or institutions, or if they’re frozen in time (or example, your Part X might sound like your mom or dad when you were 12, instead of who they are now.) Draw an extreme, exaggerated version of this Part X, and I mean actually draw it! (Remember to tell Part X to shut the fuck up if it critiques your drawing skills.) If Part X is mirroring society as a whole or a large institution, just draw a caricature of an individual emblematic of every extreme said institutions or aspects of society represent. Heighten every characteristic to an absurd degree. You now have something crude, ridiculous and accurate to picture when Part X tosses certain messages at you. If this method resonates, you will probably have to keep drawing new caricatures as new Part X thoughts or types of thought arise (if you can’t identify the ‘whose voice is that’ part, get creative! Whose voice would it be and what would they be like? Get as specific as possible with details.) Each new drawing will make you better at characterizing and ridiculing Part X.

• The Fluidity Tool : This tool is great for when you first identify a new Part X thought- but it’s very long, so it’s gonna be hard to do when that thought keeps cropping up. You may even want to isolate steps 1 and 2 and try step 3 as a separate meditation. (This is just what works for myself and some clients. Always modify the tools to fit what works for you. Practicing any tool may also just feel inorganic and weird at first, that’s normal.) This tool will help you begin to assert mastery over Part X. If you’re still working on identifying Part X as it may appear throughout your day, try doing this tool in the evenings. Think of any self sabotaging or deprecating thoughts you had during the day use this tool towards those thoughts until the tool becomes second nature. In that vein-

• Cosmic Rage is another tool you can use towards those thoughts each evening. And if the version of this tool I linked to doesn’t resonate, here’s a modified version:

  1. Visualize yourself standing alone. (perhaps in a spotlight) Imagine every negative thing, every shitty label, thought or judgment you apply to yourself, everything you're assuming others are thinking/judging as giant red labels or words with arrows pointing at you.

  2. Think about how singular and limiting these labels are and how they fail to capture the complexity of your being. Start to feel anger towards those labels in your chest. Really feel it physically until you conjure up an explosion of rage and passion inside yourself. When you let this explosion out, the words shatter into dust and blow away. (the spotlight also diffuses, now you are standing in a light, free expanse.)

  3. In a strong assured voice, declare "I am."

Short form methods: particularly helpful if you’re in the middle of something when you catch Part X acting up and can’t do a whole long ass ritual about it.

• “Shut up, Jeremy!”: Pick a first name you think is just dumb, not because you knew someone with that name or have baggage around it, but because it just sounds silly to you. Part X is now that name. Tell it to shut the fuck up whenever you catch it chiming in in real time. If you’re alone, do it out loud. Even if you have to repeat it over and over. DO NOT LET JEREMY WIN. HE SUCKS.

• Specific corrections for persistent Part X messages: Most likely Part X is telling you things that are untrue, uncertain or unknowable. If Part X keeps bringing up the same distortion or bias about your reality or identity, reply with a specific retort that is unbiased and true, like “I cannot predict the future.” Repeat it ‘till you believe it and Part X moves on. I wrote this in a similar vein, it might help.

• Physical action as misdirection: Try to do a small physical action like gripping your hands or deeply connect with one of your 5 senses whenever Part X is really hammering you in order to bring yourself back to reality. You may have to try a bunch of versions of this to figure out what really works, which senses are really grounding, which body movements to try, etc. But when you find it, it’ll be so worth it!

• Develop a short hand for any of the things I listed under “long form methods”: You can do this by simply practicing the tools I linked to in full at a specific time of day (I suggested evening because that’s when you’ll probably be free to go over your mental state throughout the day and figure out when & how Part X showed up, but it could be any time!) Do this until said tool feels instinctive and organic to you. You may even start organically developing a shorthand for each tool yourself that IS more useable the moment a Part X thought arises. If you’re creating a shorthand version of the caricature method, when a Part X thought or type of thought you’ve drawn and parodied arises in the moment, just picture your drawing, name it if you haven’t, and couple it with “Shut up, Jeremy!” (Of course, if the Part X thought is new, it’s time to draw a new caricature before this method can become shorthand once more.)