There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.
John Lennon
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves: Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we’re liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
Marianne Williamson, `A Return to Love´
The war raging inside our mind between the Saboteurs and Sage is ultimately a war between the two primal forces that make life possible: fear and love.
Shirzad Chamine, `Positive Intelligence´
Human beings have, as far back as we can trace, been attempting to find the intelligible language to describe the titanic battle between the forces of fear and love; Good versus Evil, Heaven versus Hell, Saintliness versus Depravity, Character Defects versus Higher Power, Darth Vader versus the Inner Jedi, as represented by Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Luke Skywalker.
When it comes to the transformational shift from fear to love, many traditions have, throughout the ages, brought forth teachers and frameworks to assist us in the indispensable ongoing work. As any successful transformation inevitably comprises 20% insights and 80% practice, those initiatives based mainly on insights tend to fizzle out soon after an initial `flash in the pan´ phase of commitment and enthusiasm, leaving the student discouraged, despondent and perhaps even cynical.
One of the great advantages of the PQ Mental Fitness framework in which I have been engaging over the past fifteen months, is the PQ App which feeds insights and especially practice (in the form of mental muscle exercises) to me throughout each new day. This makes it easy to stay on the beam, to put in the work required for what can essentially be described as a `rewiring the brain´. My experience shows me that there can be no real transformation without consistent practice.
A second major achievement of the PQ Mental Fitness Programme is its accessibility, in the language of the 21st century, relating the simple concepts and easy-to-follow practices of fundamental importance for true transformation in clear, understandable language. It is this aspect of PQ that is described in detail below.
In PQ, the protagonists in the modern version of this epic struggle are referred to as Saboteurs and the Sage Powers. The chief Saboteur, the Judge, is one with which we are all familiar. It is the inner critic, the internalisation of all the criticism we have picked up from our earliest days, telling us that we will never achieve our dreams and are not cut out for reaching the goals that we have set. Not only does this critic attack us ourselves, but – to even things up, so to say, – it is equally vehement in attacking others, and the circumstances in which our lives are unfolding. Its major lie is that: `Right now, I do not have the necessary ingredients in my life to be happy´. In short: `I am not OK!´
When we look with empathy and compassion on our earliest years, we can see how such a Saboteur can so easily emerge in our psyche. None of us have had superhuman parents. The realisation of their human frailties would have been too much to handle for the helpless child, so we inevitably conclude that, since the perfect image of our parents must be upheld, it must be us who are at fault for missing out on those aspects of the care and attention we all needed but many of us did not receive, in order to thrive. Then, in order not to be alone in this predicament, we being to judge others, especially our peers.
While the Judge can be described as the Master Saboteur, universal to every living person, there are further flavours and variations of the saboteur energies which manifest to varying degrees in each of us, depending on our temperament, circumstances, and where we find ourselves on the trajectory of life’s path.
In his scientific research, Shirzad Chamine has identified the following nine Saboteur types (who, together with the Judge – repeatedly take us hostage in thought and action): Avoider, Controller, Hyper-Achiever, Hyper-Rational, Hyper-Vigilant, Pleaser, Restless, Stickler, and Victim. If you are curious about which of your saboteurs are particularly strong, you can find out with the PQ Saboteur Assessment Test here – Saboteur Review.
All Saboteurs are rooted in fear. Fear of abandonment, physical harm, being overlooked, ridicule, failure, poverty, fear of not mattering, and ultimately fear of death. They have their roots in the survival strategies we developed in our formative years. For the fact that these strategies worked, we can be truly grateful.
However, like runaway trains, they took on the dynamic of self-propulsion to the point that they crossed the line of usefulness by exaggerating the basic human capabilities from whence they emerged. Thus, discernment became judging, for example. The former helps us become and remain `a part of´ community and the natural world; the later will lead us to becoming `apart from´, the alienation now so widely experienced in our post-modern culture.
On the other hand, the Sage operates entirely on love. Empathy, Explore, Innovate, Navigate, and Activate are our so-called Sage Powers. They are all anchored in the Sage Perspective that says that everything can be turned into a gift and opportunity. This stance is based on love for the unfolding mystery of life and finding the gift(s) in whatever happens.
Of the five Sage Powers, Empathise is love for yourself and others. When I look at the photograph of me at around six months, I can see the pure essence at my core, a child radiating pure joy and insouciance. Then it occurs to me that this child lives within me, even today. The judging falls away and is replaced by an outpouring of love and appreciation for these qualities and the fact that, despite all the adversity that came my way throughout the years, they have remained intact and uncorrupted deep within.
In this realisation, it is easier to have the same empathy, compassion, and love for all those encountered on my journey, in the knowledge that they, too, struggled with their Saboteurs, generally doing the best they could under the given circumstances.
Explore is love for discovery. How I love this drive! Not long ago, I came to a fork in the path on one of my mountain bike tours and had to decide. Remembering that I had gone left on a previous occasion, I chose the right path. In that moment, my dear departed Dad, who left this world over forty years ago, came to mind. `In me he lives on´. In the few years we had together, his great love of exploration had so inspired me that I made it my own. These memories still fill me with gratitude.
Innovate is love for possibilities. It was perhaps my own experience of being overwhelmed while growing up in a small house with my parents and many siblings which led to the emergence of Saboteurs such as Restless, Stickler, and Hyper Achiever. These all have their roots in a drive to find new things to do and new ways of doing things.
I have never settled for arguments such as: `This is the way things are done around here´. That has certainly gotten me into trouble and led to me being fired on more than one occasion. Used in the spirit of love for possibilities, this capability continues to enrich my life to this day. When it comes to `thinking outside of the box´, I favour not getting into the box in the first place!
Navigate is love for meaning and purpose. Why are we here? What is this `life business´ all about? These are questions that informed even my earliest years. Perhaps from desperation at that time, which would have nurtured the development of Saboteurs such as Victim and Hyper Vigilant.
I have always had the inclination, however, to step back and look at the bigger picture. This helps in many activities: The formulation of strategy, in Organisational Development, in mediation, and in making decisions in line with deeply held values and passions. It is no accident that the tagline for my company logo reads: `Living the Lives we Love´! This is only possible when Navigate is mastered and cultivated.
Activate is love for making things happen. My first memories include the hours spent alone building Lego. The basic elements were quite simple in those days, and I revelled in the infinite possibilities afforded by my imagination, and my drive to create. Later in life, when managing Operations at Bell Labs, my reflection was that, while not an engineer by education, I am an engineer by inclination, with a great love of `making things happen´ and of shaping things to come. This continues to be true to this day. Many clients struggle to execute decisions they have made. With my ability to turn vision and ideas into action, I can help them `boldly go where they have never gone before´.
So, there we have the PQ Framework in a nutshell. In addition to the Saboteur Interceptor and the Sage Enhancer, the third component that needs to be trained is the Mind Command muscle, which enables us to switch, ideally in real time, from Saboteur to Sage. This can be trained using the regular mental muscle exercises in my daily feed and the many further options in my `Mental Fitness Studio´, the PQ App.
John Lennon was right when he said that: `When we love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance´. It is worth pointing out that we also experience less stress, more success, better relationships, restored physical health, and peace of mind. Being mentally fit helps in moving us ever closer to the goal of living the lives we love.
