Over the last few years, we have seen some of the worst sides of humans. Things are shifting back to normal for some people and for others not so much. I’ve had tons of conversations with people over this year about the discoveries we’ve had since our world got flipped upside down. No, not that upside down, thank goodness. Although it felt like we might be living in Hawkins some days. (Yes, I’m a total Stranger Things geek). A topic that has become far more visible in the public eye as of late is the level of joy and fulfillment in our lives. Now, it’s not like this wasn’t a topic of conversation for centuries or anything. This is an ongoing deep dive for some and a complete waste of time for others. What I continue to find as I work with clients is that their misery always comes from the same place — themselves. 

We all have our demons, our skeletons, and our spirits that haunt us from our past, our present, and sometimes even our future that hasn’t even happened yet. Wait, what?! Think about it. How many times have you fallen into a spiral about the upcoming sales call with a new client, a presentation you have to give, a pitch of a new design for a client, or several stakeholders? You start to hear that little voice in your head that has quite a loud mouth and can sometimes seem like there’s no volume knob in sight. That little voice is our judge, the master saboteur, and his nine accomplice saboteur buddies: the stickler, the avoider, the victim, the restless, the controller, the hyper-achiever, the hyper-rational, the hyper-vigilant, and the pleaser. Sometimes they show up as a gang and sometimes they show up really sneaky-like because they seem like they are protecting you or making you feel good. The thing is, they are only providing a false sense of comfort and usually for a very short amount of time, if at all. 

As many of us have learned as we’ve gotten older, a lot of our trauma and issues started when we were young. Parents, family members, and friends are often culprits in the deeper, more repeated scars we’ve been harboring for years. Scars that fester and contribute to our generational trauma and defense mechanisms we’ve perfected because we engaged with them so much and for so long. Some of your demons might not have even been your demons. They could have been passed down from one or both of your parents or guardians as they were from their parents and so on and so forth. Sometimes we have our own personal journeys where we’ve built up our dependence on our saboteurs because they momentarily helped protect us against the attacks by others as we grew up. I know I had several saboteurs that would step up to run the show and were sitting at the head of the table for a long time, particularly the stickler, the pleaser, and the restless. They roll deep and sometimes gang up on me together so I can have crippling procrastination, perfectionism, and shiny object syndrome. 

Many of these same dilemmas are common in creatives and entrepreneurs. By having more of an understanding of our saboteurs, we can use that knowledge to take back our power from them. I’ve been learning about my judge and his accomplice saboteurs from Shirzad Chamine. You can learn more on his website, positiveintelligence.com. You can even take a free assessment test to learn about your saboteurs. Thanks to my coach, Jude Schweppe, I’ve been learning more about my saboteurs and ways to rewire my brain, based on this powerful work Shirzad is doing to help humans build mental fitness so they can fulfill their true potential for both happiness and contribution. 

There are a few methods you can use to redirect from the pathway of your saboteur to the pathway of your sage, the part of the brain that allows us to come from a place of discernment rather than judgment. You can do what is called “PQ reps”, short for Positive Intelligence (like IQ). PQ reps are akin to very common mindfulness practices. For example, you can use the sense of touch and simply rub a couple of your fingertips together. The goal is to be so focused on rubbing your fingertips together that you can feel the ridges of your fingers. You can also do things like finding all of your toes by wiggling them all. It adds a bit more playfulness to the exercise, which is also helpful when you need a bit of levity. A second method is to use your sense of hearing. You can focus on sounds that are farthest away, then focus on closer sounds, and then sounds that are closest, like your own breathing. The third method is to use your sense of sight and to look at something with such detail that you notice shapes, colors, and textures that you might not normally notice. You can also use more of a soft focus instead as another option. 

The knowledge of my saboteurs and how they can hijack me has made such a powerful impact on my life. Using PQ reps to connect to my body, and redirect my pathway from saboteur to sage, and from judgment to discernment is life-changing. We’ve been going through some growing pains over the past few years and not everyone has been happy about them and the subsequent evolution occurring because of it. Some people want to keep things the way they were. However, there are a growing number of people who recognize and are supporting this consciousness shift regardless of liking it or not. The younger generations are living the example with such ease and prowess that it’s hard to miss. Did you see that speech by Greta Thunberg condemning older generations for forcing her to step us as a child to save our planet. How about Emma Gonzalez’s powerful March for Our Lives speech after the Parkland High School shooting? Many people don’t like change but as they say, change is the only constant. Too many people have been hurting for too long for things to stay the way they were. 

So, you wanna know why you’re miserable? It’s not what you think. It’s not your boss. It’s not your partner. It’s not your coworkers. It’s not the seven-figure business owner that has more money than he knows what to do with it. It’s not that celebrity or influencer you keep seeing in your feed. You know what? It’s not even YOU. It’s your judge and his little saboteur buddies that have been hijacking you in various situations for years acting as if they are your saviors. Well, there is a sage inside of you too. And the pathway to your sage is your pathway to joy, fulfillment, freedom, and more importantly, forgiveness. It’s a pathway that needs to be worked like a muscle as you strengthen it and your ability to discern situations rather than judge them. Your sage allows you to discern between what happened and what you learned from that experience rather than beating yourself up, or worse yet, someone else because of your judge and his saboteur gang. 

My invitation to you is to take the assessment, get to know your saboteurs, and use the tools you now know about to help you NOT be miserable. The choice is literally in your hands. When you have a stressful presentation coming up or when you have a difficult conversation that needs to happen or when you feel overwhelmed and start beating yourself up because your judge is rearing his ugly head, do a few PQ reps, close your eyes, focus on your breathing, rub your fingertips together so you feel the ridges for just a couple of minutes. Connect to your body. Connect to yourself. Disconnect from the judge that’s been causing your misery all the years. Rewire your brain and take back the CEO chair in your mind and inevitably your life.