There are six Sage tools you can use to be your most creative and effective: the Sage Perspective and the Five Sage Powers. The Sage power that I have found to be best for countering the negative effects of the most powerful Judge saboteur is the EXPLORE power. In this week’s post, I explain how the Explore power can counter the three dimensions of the Judge and how you can use it to reduce stress, improve self-confidence, get along better with others, and generate more creative solutions to problems and challenges you’re facing.
To refresh your memory about the Judge (the nastiest of all the Saboteurs), you can refer back to this earlier post.
For the purposes of this post, I invite you to think of Judge as the sabotaging influence that narrows your options and makes you feel stressed & cornered. If you agree with the premise that having more options can be beneficial, then you’ll appreciate in contrast how the Explore power can expand your possibilities and allow you to breathe more easily.
WHAT IS THE EXPLORE POWER?*
The Explore power is one of five Sage powers you have access to when utilizing the positive Sage parts of the brain. Positive emotions are the currency of this power, and once you’ve activated Empathy your use of the Explore power will be even more, well, powerful!
The Explore power involves stepping back from the tight hold your current circumstances have on you to look at your situation with a wider lens. Examine your beliefs and your situation from a curious, non-judgmental outside perspective. Perhaps you can think of this as the bird’s eye view or the neutral observer role.
HOW TO ACTIVATE THE EXPLORE POWER*
You must first be in Sage mode to effectively utilize the Explore power. Why? If your saboteurs’ negative emotions are controlling your mind, you will not be able to see options or points of view other than the narrow view of the Saboteur.
In the Positive Intelligence model of mental fitness, author Shirzad Chamine offers a useful “power guide” for the Explore power called the “Fascinated Anthropologist”. Once in Sage mode, you step back from your situation and look through the lens of the Fascinated Anthropologist to ask open questions, look for new and unexpected information, all in service to seeing what you previously could not see.
USE “EXPLORE” TO COUNTER JUDGING SELF
How often has your Judge saboteur said to you: “You can’t do that! You don’t know enough!” The next time your Judge says something similar to you in your own mind, first do some PQ reps to shift your brain to Sage mode, then practice self-empathy, then employ the lens of the Fascinated Anthropologist.
While I cannot predict exactly what your own Sage will say in response, here is a real-life example of what I myself have heard from Sage when utilizing the Fascinated Anthropologist as my power guide: “You may not have done this before, but you are a quick learner and you’ve been successful in the past.” “They want you to succeed.” “Take it one step at a time and follow your curiosity.”
USE “EXPLORE” TO COUNTER JUDGING OTHERS
I have learned that judgment of others’ opinions and situations serves me well when it is truly Sage discernment, not negative judgment. What is the difference? Negative judgment is rooted in negative emotions and the narrow-minded lens of the saboteurs. Sage discernment is grounded in empathy and curiosity.
How do you typically respond when you hear someone state a political point of view that is quite different from your own? If anger, frustration, sadness, or worry fuel your saboteur mind to state how obviously wrong they are and clearly how right you are, then your Judge is controlling your mind. If, instead, when you hear their opinion, you do some PQ reps and shift to Sage, you will first notice that you don’t feel the negative emotions as strongly. Instead, you will be aware of the difference in opinion the two of you hold. This is Sage discernment. What comes next is using the Explore power to be curious to learn more.
Put on the hat of the Fascinated Anthropologist and explore with open questions and curiosity:
What beliefs are behind their point of view?
What life experiences helped to shape their political views?
How strongly or consistently do they adhere to this viewpoint?
Why is it important to them that others also share their view?
What results will rarely be a conversion of you deciding to change your opinion. Instead, you may feel less negative and stressed and judgmental about them. You may have an understanding and appreciation of who they are and what they believe. And you may come to better understand yourself and what has helped to shape your own beliefs and opinions.
This example is about political points of view, but you can use the Explore power and the Fascinated Anthropologist as power guides to examine any situation in which you find yourself judging others.
USE “EXPLORE” TO COUNTER JUDGING CIRCUMSTANCES
Any circumstance can be judged through the saboteur lens: a weather event, change of plans, gain or loss of opportunity, change to a tax law, global pandemic, a long commute, anything. Any single circumstance or event is neutral until your mind assigns a qualitative judgment of the degree to which it is good or bad.
When you notice you are experiencing negative emotions due to a saboteur’s influence or your Judge’s interpretation, pause. Do some PQ reps and shift to Sage. Use that same Fascinated Anthropologist lens to examine your own beliefs about the circumstances, then invite in the Sage Perspective.
For example…
Why is a rain storm a bad thing? How might the circumstances of the rain storm be converted into a gift and opportunity?
How gifts and opportunities have unexpectedly come as a result of the conditions of the global pandemic?
What thoughts in your mind are causing you to feel stressed about today’s long commute? What’s truly important in this moment? What can you let go of?
To review: any time you experience a negative emotion related to your mind’s interpretation of an event or circumstances, you can shift to Sage and utilize the Explore power to expand your view point and shift your experience.
THE BENEFITS
When you utilize the Sage Explore power to counter one or more of the Judge saboteur’s three modes of operation, you shift from a narrow or fixed way of viewing things to a more expansive state of ease and flow. While there are numerous benefits you may experience, here are some that I have experienced most often:
Reduced stress
Improved self-confidence
Getting along better with others
Generating more creative solutions to problems and challenges
In the next few weeks, I’ll share about the remaining three Sage Powers to round out your understanding of what’s possible with using the Positive Intelligence mental fitness model and activating the full array of benefits that come from shifting to and staying in Sage throughout each day of your life.
Learn More
To read about the overall Positive Intelligence model and foundational mental fitness training program, I’ve included an overview of the model on my website. To read past blog posts about the Sage Perspective and the 10 Saboteurs, start here.
*Source: Shirzad Chamine and his Positive Intelligence mental fitness model. Erin is in the process of competing her certification with Shirzad and his team.
Not sure about your experience, but I have discovered that it’s hardest for me to empathize with others when I’m beating myself up. It turns out the foundation of empathy for others is having empathy for oneself. Who figured? (Not my saboteurs!)
This week I introduce you to the first of 5 Sage Powers that are central to the Positive Intelligence model of mental fitness. I first define empathy (hint: it’s not sympathy or pity). Then, I share how you can tap into it for yourself and for others.
Why bother spending another moment on this topic of empathy? To reduce your silent suffering and expand your capacity for love. If that sounds like a good enough reason to read on, please do.
Empathy Defined
It’s not about having sympathy for yourself or another. And it’s absolutely not about pity. Instead, empathy lives within the brain as part of a family of emotions that include compassion, gratitude and forgiveness. It is truly a powerful emotion. Empathy can be accessed once you’ve shifted out of saboteur mode into your Sage brain. If you’re hearing these terms for the first time, or would like a review, I invite you to read earlier posts on these topics.
Once you switch to the Sage brain, activate empathy, you then open the door to being able to use all the other Sage powers I’ll tell you about in the coming weeks. You can consider it a gateway to accessing all the positive emotions and the incredible power of the Sage brain.
How Easy is it to Activate and Access Empathy?
It turns out it’s not easy. Not easy at all. The Judge saboteur, in combination with one or more of your accomplice saboteurs, likes to shut down and block out any possibility of empathy. Why is that? Once you shift to Sage brain, you take the power away from your saboteurs. In other words, they’re hungry and when you shift to positive emotions, you stop feeding the anger, anxiety, self-doubt, shame, and other negative emotions. Those saboteurs don’t like that. And like anyone lucky enough to still be living in a rent-controlled apartment in Manhattan, your saboteurs fight like hell to hang on and not be kicked out.
What’s the Benefit of Accessing Empathy?
When you feel empathy, you may at first notice the absence of the critical Judge voice. The manipulations of your stronger saboteurs fade away – perhaps still there as a faint voice in the background, but not influencing or controlling you. You remove the barriers between you and your ability to love yourself and others. You feel accepted, understood, worthy.
In other words, you wash away your silent suffering and you expand your capacity to love yourself and others.
How Can You Experience Empathy?
If you’ve read my prior posts, you are familiar with the practice of PQ reps. Last week, I shared how you can use breath, or rub your fingers together, or take a walk in nature as a type of PQ rep to shift your brain to the Sage perspective. So, you might be wondering if that’s how you activate empathy – by practicing PQ reps. It is possible, but usually not until after you’ve done the intensive work to rewire your brain, so that you can more easily and frequently shift to Sage.
In the beginning, and as a way of bringing your empathy back online when it is absent, there is a powerful exercise that Shirzad leads you through in the full Positive Intelligence mental fitness course. It is not possible to recreate that powerful guided exercise with words in a blog post. However, I will describe its basic approach here so you have an idea of what is involved.
Take yourself back to a time in childhood that was full of joy and freedom, absent from the pressures of academic performance and the adult world. Strip away the societal expectations, the parental expectations, the self-imposed restrictions for what was not possible in your life. Strip that all away and connect to the deeper, innocent, pure essence of who you were as a young child. Really tune into that underlying beautiful nature inside of you. See yourself as this child. Connect to the feeling underneath, and you will likely notice the spark of empathy.
For many people it’s not so easy to connect to this essence. But for you, it may be possible after reading the words above to have a sense of what is possible.
Once you connect with your childhood essence and activate empathy, stay there and experience how you view yourself, the world, and others quite differently – using the Sage brain.
Likewise, you can activate empathy for others by imaging them as a young child. See their own core essence. Connect to what their inner child wanted in the world, before their family and the world shaped their saboteurs.
As I shared above, this is not easy at first. But it is possible with practice. There is so much compassion and love that comes from activating this first Sage power that I want you too to experience how transformational it can be.
Learn More
To read about the overall Positive Intelligence model and foundational mental fitness training program, I’ve included an overview of the model on my website. To read past blog posts about the Sage Perspective and the 10 Saboteurs, start here.
*Source: Shirzad Chamine and his Positive Intelligence mental fitness model. Erin completed her certification with Shirzad and Positive Intelligence, Inc. in the spring of 2021 and is now a Certified Positive Intelligence mental fitness coach (CPQC).
Have you ever considered what professional athletes do and think about minutes before they compete or play a match? Most top athletes are trained in breathing techniques, visualization and affirming their goals prior to a game. They start by meditating or deep breathing to increase the flow of oxygen, feel connected to their body and quiet their mind. Then they imagine themselves winning the game, outperforming their opponent or scoring the winning shot/goal. Finally, they take that mental image one step further, and turn that visualization into an affirmation.
What is the Sage Perspective? It’s simple. It’s profound. And it the foundation for you using your Sage powers. In this week’s edition, I explain what is the Sage Perspective. And in the coming 5 weeks, you’ll learn about each of the five Sage powers. I invite you to read on to learn more!
Sage Perspective Defined
Any situation – no matter how difficult or challenging – can be converted into a gift and opportunity.
It’s that simple.
But, how can you view situations in this way when you’re overwhelmed by anxiety, grief, sadness, or other intense emotions?
You must first catch yourself and notice “I don’t feel right” – you don’t even need to know what the emotion is. If you feel a negative emotion, you’re in Saboteur mode. (To read about the Saboteurs, reference blog posts from the past three months here.)
Aren’t negative emotions useful?
As I’ve shared in past blog posts, yes. Absolutely. Negative emotions provide important data. But only for a second. As soon as you receive that data, consider it a signal to notify you that you’re in saboteur mode. Acknowledge that emotion, then…
Breathe. Or rub your fingers together. Or stand up, walk outside and look at the sky.
Any activity that takes only 10 seconds can be a useful tool to switch to Sage brain. These activities are called PQ reps. In other words, a rep (or activity) that builds your Positive Intelligence Quotient – your PQ.
Key Tools to Switch to Sage: PQ Reps
There are breath-focused PQ reps.
There are tactile PQ reps, like rubbing fingers together, or one at a time pressing each toe into the ground, or gliding the palms back and forth.
There are visual reps: look at any single thing and notice – really notice – every amazing detail about it – shadow, light, texture, depth, on and on.
There are auditory reps: listen as far away as you can and notice all aspects of that sound, then listen inside your body for your heart beat for 10 seconds – those are PQ reps.
These are the simpler kinds of PQ reps. If you’re wondering if the practices of meditation or mindfulness or yoga count as a specialized type of PQ reps, the answer is YES.
The Best Kind of PQ Reps
The best and most effective kind of PQ reps, in my humble opinion, are those that are completely portable and can be used in the middle of any conversation or situation. (It’s awkward and time-consuming to step away from a meeting and practice a series of yoga poses.) For example, I frequently do tactile reps while on Zoom calls, in the middle of parenting, and if I notice my body having a stress reaction while watching a movie.
Once you’ve caught yourself experiencing a negative emotion and used one or more PQ rep to reduce your heart rate, quiet your anxious thoughts, and settle into a clear kind of presence in your mind, you then ask yourself:
“What gift or opportunity might come from this situation?”
If your mind responds with angry, frustrated, judgmental statements, then that is a clear sign you’re not yet in Sage mode – your mind is still being controlled by one or more saboteurs. Try a longer session of PQ reps, perhaps for 5 minutes – or even 10 minutes – however long it takes for your nervous system to shift to a parasympathetic state.
Then ask yourself again: what gift or opportunity might come from this situation?
It might be a gift of knowledge. You might learn more about yourself or another person. You might build a skill or your leadership capacity. You might create something new that benefits just you, or grows into something that ultimately positive impacts hundreds of thousands of people – like the founder of Mothers Against Drunk Drivingdid after her daughter was tragically killed by a drunk driver.
How often can you apply the Sage Perspective?
Everyday. In numerous situations each day.
For example, these are actual situations that happened in my life in the last month, in which the Sage Perspective was applied:
The grocery store was out of our usual lime-flavored seltzer water, so my dad bought coconut-flavored seltzer water. That led to several fun drink experiments in the house: combining it with pure coconut water with pulp, as well as with mango juice (I preferred the latter). Thus, the gift was trying something new and (sort of) delicious. And I’m inspired to make more fun mocktails with this coconut-flavored seltzer water.
The gift idea I had saved on a list to purchase for my younger nephew’s birthday was out of stock by the time I decided to purchase it. That led to a fun sit-on-the-couch session with my younger son, talking about different ideas, and ultimately finding a couple gifts we otherwise would not have considered. And my nephew liked both gifts! In this case, the gift for me was seeing the joy in my nephew’s face. And for him, the gift was literally receiving new gifts that channel his love of building and creating new things.
A prospective client had a fit meeting with me and one other coach, and decided to work with the other coach. After learning the reasons behind her choice, I realized she would not have received the same benefit from working with me, and this gave me great satisfaction to know she was in excellent hands working with the other coach. The gift here was the joyous spaciousness I experience from non-attachment and knowing someone else is satisfied.
Get the idea?
Try it Out
For the rest of today and tomorrow, no matter what happens, ask yourself with curiosity: what gift or opportunity might come out of this situation? If the wifi crashes, how can you make the most of that? If you burn the toast, what might result that could turn out even better for your breakfast? And on and on…
To read about the overall Positive Intelligence model and foundational mental fitness training program, I’ve included an overview of the model on my website. To read past blog posts about the 10 Saboteurs, start here.
*Source: Shirzad Chamine and his Positive Intelligence mental fitness model. Erin completed her certification with Shirzad and Positive Intelligence, Inc. in the spring of 2021 and is now a Certified Positive Intelligence mental fitness coach (CPQC).
What has this past year taken away from you — or gifted you? How you answer that question will tell me whether you have the Victim saboteur controlling your mind, or if you’ve found Sage moments to appreciate the unexpected gifts and opportunities that have come from having your prior reality unplugged and disrupted by the unfolding of life, including circumstances stemming from the pandemic.
Activating the Sage brain shifts us to seeing that even when a death occurs or we experience a health crisis, economic hardship, or a painful breakup — even then — we can turn those circumstances into a gift and opportunity.
For years I’ve taught clients about the Dreaded Drama Triangle and the TED (The Empowerment Dynamic)* framework, wherein the Victim looks at the world with this feeling that everything and everyone are doing their best to get in the way, make life difficult and prevent plans and dreams from coming true. Life is happening TO them, and they feel powerless to do anything about it. I learned these powerful frameworks initially from my friend and teacher Marilena Minucci when I completed my Quantum Coaching certification with her. Later on, Marilena and I both went to Dallas, Texas to take an intensive training program with the creator and teachers of these frameworks: David Emerald Womeldorff and Donna Zajonc. While I have not actively maintained my status as a practitioner of their approach, I do often think of and share TED model as well as their 3 Vital Questions with clients.
STEP ONE FOR YOUR REFLECTION
I invite you to pause now, choose one unexpected change or challenging event from this past year, and walk through them in your mind using these questions. Please note that I’ve adapted the wording of these questions to fit this reflection exercise. To learn more about the original questions and underlying approach, read this.
Where was your focus during an unexpected development or challenging event? In other words, did you experience negative emotions as you were triggered by what you perceived to be a problem? Or, were you feeling inspired to create positive or important outcomes that matter to you?
How were you relating to yourself, to others, and to your experience during your chosen unexpected development or challenging event? Was the way you were relating producing or perpetuating more negativity and drama? Or, were you relating in such a way that you inspired and empowered yourself and others to be more resourceful, resilient, and innovative?
What action (or inaction) resulted from your response to this unexpected development or challenging event? Did you shut down? Were your reactions knee-jerk and negative? Or, were you taking creative and generative action that supported your ultimate goal, dream, or desired outcome?
If you’ve been reading my email newsletters and blog posts this past year, you know that I’ve had many milestone moments on my own journey where I shifted from Victim mindset to Creator mindset. Using the 3 Vital Questions approach in the moment helps me to stay oriented toward my ultimate goal and let go of details and aspects of the process that ultimately do not matter.
In other words, using the vocabulary and orientation of Shirzad Chamine’s Positive Intelligence mental fitness model, I’ve learned how to shift from Saboteur brain to Sage brain. The reality is that I have a very low Victim score on my Saboteur assessment, which rings true for me: I rarely if ever forget to consider “hmmmm, what might I ultimately learn from this situation?”
How This Works in Everyday Situations
When I attempt to book a house on AirBnB and the app crashes or suddenly the days I want to book stop being available, I pause and consider: “hmmm, I wonder what other amazing place we’ll end up staying, or if the dates of our trip now need to change to accommodate a new experience?” Ultimately, what transpires reveals or results in a better outcome. Over time I have learned to let go of the frustration and “why is this happening to me” Victim mentality.
When a seemingly perfect prospective client chooses to work with another coach, I may experience a brief flash of disappointment, but I know that person’s whole life path is in some way tied to working with that other coach. It’s not about me. In addition, the space created in my own schedule often allows in a different client or opportunity that I otherwise would have been hard pressed to fit in.
When my laptop crashes and I lose the draft of an email it took me 45 minutes to write, yes, sure, of course, I get frustrated. But then I take a deep breath, walk away from my computer to take the dog for a walk, get a cup of tea, or do some meditation. When I come back, if my laptop is working again, I get curious: “I wonder why that email was not meant to be sent? What new realization or development will come to be, that helps me understand why it was not the right time or necessary at all?”
STEP TWO FOR YOUR REFLECTION
Pause now and refer back to those situations you examined above in Step One. Write down (or make a mental note about) how they ultimately turned into gifts. Or, instead, you can write down 3 to 5 everyday road blocks or frustrations or losses that ultimately turned out for the better — these could include what initially appeared to be computer/smart phone technology failures or meeting/event cancellations or power outages or even minor illnesses.
Stop Victim in Its Tracks
The Victim saboteur is often easier to spot in others than in yourself, no matter its numeric value (or strength) in your own Saboteur assessment result. To improve your ability to catch Victim in action and stop it in its tracks, I invite you to read on to learn the typical lies it tells you, its tell-tale characteristics and how you avoid its painful influence by shifting to Sage.
Negative Characteristics of the Victim Saboteur:*
Whether you’re thinking about another person’s Victim, or you’re becoming more aware of your own, keep in mind that someone with a strong Victim saboteur may embody one or two of these characteristics on a regular basis. You don’t need to see all of these in your saboteur behaviors to have a strong Victim.
If criticized or misunderstood, you tend to withdraw, pout, and sulk.
You are fairly dramatic and temperamental.
When things get tough, you want to crumble and give up.
You have repressed rage that results in depression, apathy, and constant fatigue.
Your attachment to having difficulties is subconscious.
Having emotional problems, or being temperamental and sullen, is a common way you seek attention from others.
Any of the above sound familiar, within you, or within another person you know? As painful as it may seem, being able to see and name these traits are a critical step in beginning to weaken the negative influence Victim has on you. Let’s look next at the common thoughts the Victim voice tells you.
Common Words the Victim Voice Whispers (or Shouts) in Your Ear*
How can you catch Victim trying to control your mind and actions? Listen for words like these in your mind. And if you really want to get into character with Victim, cross your arms across your chest, make a pouty expression with your face, furrow your brow, and adopt a whining quality of voice as you read these words in your mind.
“No one understands me!”
“Poor me.”
“Terrible things always happen to me.”
“I’m different! No one’s as disadvantaged or flawed as I am.”
“I wish someone would rescue me from this dreary mess.”
Victim also truly believes “I am what I feel.”
How Victim makes you feel*
You tend to brood over negative feelings for a long time.
You feel alone and lonely, even when you’re around people you are close to.
Regularly, you experience feelings of melancholy and abandonment.
Envy is a common emotion, and you frequently make negative comparisons between you and your circumstances and others.
As the Victim saboteur is “sometimes associated with a childhood experience of not feeling seen and accepted”, it often develops “a strategy to squeeze out some affection from those who would otherwise not be paying attention” to you.* With this type of developmental background and influence over you, it can be a particularly tough saboteur to weaken. It is quite slippery, so read on to become aware of what it will say to you to justify its sabotaging behaviors as a perceived necessity for your survival.
Victim’s Slippery and Damaging Justifications*
“Maybe this way I get some of the love and attention that I deserve.”
“Sadness is a noble and sophisticated thing that shows I have exceptional depth, insight, and sensitivity.”
The negative impact of Victim on your own well-being, as well as the damage it causes to your relationships can be profound. Let’s look into this further so you can more easily catch this saboteur in the act and stop it in its tracks.
Victim’s Impact on You and Others*
It wastes vitality by focusing on internal processing and brooding.
It backfires by pushing people away.
Others feel frustrated, helpless, or guilty that they can’t put more than a temporary BandAid on the Victim’s pain.
It may be difficult to imagine that underlying all these troubling traits and painful impacts, the Victim has some incredible strengths. In the words of this model’s creator, Shirzad Chamine, “a saboteur is the price you pay for overusing your greatest strengths.”
Strengths of the Victim*
If you work with, or are part of an intimate family or friend relationship with a Victim, supporting them in activating their beautiful Sage brain will allow them to strategically utilize these important gifts:
Sensitive to one’s own and others’ emotions: feels them deeply and clearly, including “difficult” emotions.
Introspective: Capable of deep and courageous introspection and self-discovery.
Individualistic: appreciates the uniqueness of oneself and others.
Perceptive of nuanced inner workings of the mind and capable of using that to connect, teach, inspire, or heal.
This last strength really resonates with me, because the world needs MORE people who are present enough to do this important work of connecting, teaching, and healing. Don’t you agree?
STEP THREE FOR YOUR REFLECTION: IDENTIFY AN ARCHETYPAL VICTIM
I’ve found that if I can think of a real life person I know who regularly behaves in the way of a particular saboteur, it helps me to remember what I need to watch out for. For you, in this moment, I encourage you to pause and consider who you know who is often thinking like, acting like, and all around living life like the Victim saboteur. This could be a friend, colleague, family member… or a person in the public eye such as a musical artist, actor, Youtuber, news anchor, politician… even an historical figure who is no longer living.
Who do you know who truly embodies the Victim saboteur?
Preempt Your Victim Saboteur
Ultimately, once you know enough about how Victim shows up for you, you can preempt its negative influence. If you’ve already taken the Saboteur assessment and followed the steps above, skip to step 5 below to preempt the Victim saboteur.
Steps to Weaken Your VICTIM saboteur:
First, confirm how weak or strong your Victim truly is: take the 5-minute saboteur assessment here
Then, read the detailed online assessment report to build awareness of the full picture of saboteurs that are strongest for you so you can catch the negative thoughts and feelings to intercept the saboteur and stop it in its tracks
If you want a more personalized analysis of the report, I invite you to meet with me for a Saboteur Diagnosis session at no cost. SCHEDULE HERE
Pre-empt your Victim in this way: Imagine a situation in the next 24 to 48 hours of your life in which your Victim might spring to life and try to manipulate you. Hear in your mind what the Victim voice might say to you, then pause. Take 3 deep breaths, each with a 5 second inhale and a 5 second exhale. Then, visualize in your mind a more positive and creative way to respond in that situation. In this way, you are pre-training your brain how to respond to those circumstances using the Sage brain.
Let’s come back to the very first question I asked you in this post: What has this past year taken away from you — or gifted you? Now that you’ve learned more about the Victim saboteur and reflected on your own situation, what would you say? And by swapping out a critical word in the question “why is this happening TO me”, you can now ask yourself: “Why is this happening FOR me?”
It takes guided, dedicated work in the beginning
As I wrote about in my previous post, the research conducted by the Positive Intelligence team revealed that it takes 6 to 8 weeks of intensive practice at least 15 minutes a day to increase the gray matter in the Sage parts of the brain and decrease the gray matter in the Saboteur parts of the brain. The good news: this work to weaken your saboteurs literally changes your brain. Taking the assessment and building awareness of how the saboteurs show up in your own behavior are important foundational work. But if you want real change and the ripple effect of cascading benefits that come from this shift, you must take the foundational mental fitness course and continue this practice to build the strength of your mental muscles.
How will you benefit from weakening the Victim saboteur?
When you use your Sage brain and the strength side of your Victim, you love yourself unconditionally, you stop judging yourself and others, and you experience your highest level of performance, much greater creativity, and sustained happiness. Don’t believe me? Check out the research led by my teacher Shirzad Chamine and his team at Positive Intelligence that was done with more than a half a million people in 50 countries that is the foundation of this model.
To read about the overall Positive Intelligence model and foundational mental fitness training program, I’ve included an overview of the model on my website. To read past blog posts about the other 9 saboteurs in the model, click on one of the links below. Moving forward, I’ll teach you about the Sage perspective and each of the five Sage powers – what you must strengthen to experience sustained happiness and to realize your highest level of success and performance.
*Source: Shirzad Chamine and his Positive Intelligence mental fitness model. Erin completed her certification with Shirzad and Positive Intelligence, Inc. in the spring of 2021 and is now a Certified Positive Intelligence mental fitness coach (CPQC).
