Written by Katherine Dreyer, Co-Founder of ChiRunning & ChiWalking
Founder of ChiLife Coaching
It’s incredibly frustrating. We strive for positive change but something takes over and causes us to behave in direct contradiction to our intentions.
We want to lose weight and find ourselves in the freezer gobbling spoonfuls of ice cream. We decide to get to bed early to wake early, but we keep watching just one more episode before bed. We choose to be more accepting of our partner’s annoying habits, and suddenly we derisively roll our eyes, once again.
What’s at play and how can we change it?
The Saboteur is a common label for this part (or partial self). I prefer calling it The Rebel because, from my experience, it is not trying to sabotage you. It is trying to take care of you, albeit not in the best way.
The Rebel thinks you don’t have enough of the fun stuff in life. It’s rebelling against being asked to be so good. It acts out to get your attention because it feels like you are not listening to it.
It believes you are under the influence of a different part, The Critic, a part that demands too much of you.
The Rebel has a teenage-rebellion kind of energy. It doesn’t act thoughtfully, but reactively and it has a superpower: It has volition.
It can take you over and do what it wants. When it does, it seems as if you have no power to stop it. You do, but it takes a special approach.
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The solution is to listen to it.
You can’t listen in a cursory way, It can spot you trying to get rid of it or manipulate it. It needs to feel you, separate from The Critic, giving it your full attention. It’s expecting The Critic to coerce it into doing the “right” things – eat right, exercise, meditate, get all your tasks done, ad infinitum.
The Rebel is willing to do some of it, but when it thinks it’s just too much, it blows raspberries at The Critic, because it’s sick of it. It’s trying to protect you from a very limited idea of what is best for you.
We need protection from The Critic which tells us exactly how we “should” be. It really is way too demanding. (And there are specific ways to transform the Critic within us as well).
The Rebel needs you to prove that you are truly interested in what it thinks, how it feels, and what it really wants for you. So, it requires some very focused attention.
When you become truly curious and listen attentively, amazing things can happen.
It reveals its true desires for you, which is always positive and life-affirming.
When listened to and acknowledged, The Rebel can become a very healthy partner and ally in creating a deeply fulfilling life, not one mandated by the voice of reason, the voice of authorities, or the limited ideas of what society says is best for you.
The Rebel establishes a connection between you and latent creative forces that may have been crushed or suppressed at some point. It points you towards the things that once captivated your heart and sparked your imagination, things that had an enigmatic resonance.
When this creative energy moves, who knows what might happen, but it will feel really good, just right for you, much better than ice cream or TV.
You might discover what life really wants for you.
