Are You Driven by Your Saboteurs or Your Sage?

Profound Changes After Just a Few Weeks of Daily "PQ Practice"

The journey started with a claim that had “grant” in the title.

This wasn’t the first time I had been invited. A couple years ago, I’d talked with other coaches about this “PQ” program (aka: Postive Intelligence). It offered a way of increasing our mental fitness and our ability to thrive in our wellbeing, performance and relationships.

“But it’s free?” I asked? “What’s the catch?”

One catch: we needed to the enter the program with at least two other coaches to form a “pod” for weekly accountability. At the time, the coaches I knew either had their own growing practices, or had already completed the program.

Well, pass then.

This time around, a colleague who I met through Inclusive Leadership in a Virtual World raved about the program. We were doing a phone networking session as she launched her new podcast. (It’s excellent, by the way, Stories We Haven’t Shared. Way to go Shanti!)

She asked if I’d heard PQ and I said yes. I told her I doubted I could recruit two participants. I could imagine getting one coach friend to join me, but not two. She had a name for me! Huzzah! All I needed to do was find one.

I asked two friends, and one was available to try it out. I’m in!

First we did the online Saboteur Assessment to find out which tendencies we might have that pair up with our Judge (aka: inner critic) and hold us back. Gulp.

Avoider was number #1. 🙃

Oy. (Shrinking down in my seat.)

Avoiders have a tendency to focus on the positive and pleasant in an extreme way. They avoid difficult and unpleasant tasks and projects.

Yikes, that’s me.

If I can avoid negative emotions, I usually do. However, the problem comes when I do this too much, and don’t end up working through the discomfort of things that might be more challenging.

The worst part of avoider behavior is that you still feel guilty and ashamed while you procrastinating on the things your wiser self wants to do! Yet it has become a habit, and these saboteurs are quite sneaky! 👹

It turns out all humans have an internal Judge voice that sabotages them, as well as a variety of “accomplice” saboteurs. If you’re familiar with Internal Family Systems, these are also known as our “parts.”

Typically parts or saboteurs first develop when we are 3-5 years old and learning how to survive within our families of origin. They use the strengths we may have naturally, and then grow to unconscious patterns and habits. While they were useful to us to help receive care and nurturing, they aren’t always as helpful when we reach adulthood.

Also we begin to overuse these strengths. Then they hold us back from fully self-actualizing, and maximizing our potential gifts.

Fortunately, we also have what Shirzad Chamine (creator of the program) describes as our Sage. The Sage occupies a different part of our neural wiring, tapping into the more present, intuitive, and wiser Self (in IFS this is known as Fully Embodied Self).

While I’d done one much internal work with my IFS parts, I had no way to tie this new awareness to consistent daily practices to help interrupt the automatic behavior. This is where the PQ program was different from other coaching or even therapy I’d experienced.

Not only did I become aware of the areas where I tend to sabotage my own efforts, the app delivered reminders and short practices to reinforce the habit. With a morning daily focus of 5 minutes and then two more short “refresh sessions” at lunch and at the end of the day, I could feel this Sage muscle growing.

The Sage is where our true wise and discerning power resides. Its five main powers are to explore, empathize, navigate, innovate, and activate.

Even though I’ve been meditating daily for seven plus years, I didn’t have the right tool to make sure I came back regularly to interrupt the autopilot saboteurs.

Practicing with the PQ app got me to overcome resistance to many activities I had put off. For example:

• 1) Coming back to editing my second book manuscript;

• 2) Sitting down to do weekly “financial awareness” sessions;

• 3) Overcoming resistance to making uncomfortable phone calls.

This was just the start. When I first hard about this program, I was skeptical. But I knew I wanted to start facing the activities that I was avoiding. By doing “PQ reps” and activating my Sage powers, I started taking small steps that kept moving me more consistently forward.

I was also able to see where my “pleaser” and “restless” saboteurs were making my relationships harder. I had more self-compassion and patience with myself and others. When family members started to bother me, I realized it was my own internal judge getting in the way of our relationship, not their behavior.

I’ve studied these concepts for years. But breaking old habits is not easy until we learn effective ways to “install” new habits into our neural architecture.

What I love most about this program is that there are tactile options, not just guided contemplations. For those of us with busy minds 🙋🏻‍♀️ it’s not always easy to make this shift. Using tactile ways of engaging our senses facilitates this shift. And it can happen in as little as 2-5 minutes.

It’s a micropractice that doesn’t require an hour of meditation, or even 30 minutes. 🙀

Yay! Real people can fit this into their lives.

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I’m on a journey with this, so you’re likely to read more about it in coming months. I may even do some podcasts on this one. It’s that astonishing to me. 🎉

If you might be interested in a free saboteur discovery session, hit me up. No obligation, totally free.