Enter The Ninja

Welcome back! The Ed emerges blinking into the first sunshine of Spring….

Where were we? Ah yes – the last blog (gulp – in October!) talked about the Ten Saboteurs -- a stealth team of inner gremlins who throw ninja stars at your motivation.

How to combat them? Step forward – your Sage.

Imagine your mind as a quirky battlefield where your Sage is the cool, calm strategist facing off against the mischievous Saboteurs. While the Saboteurs are like psychological pranksters throwing mental chaos grenades, your Sage is the wisdom warrior – the inner Zen master who can disarm the Saboteur Squad with surgical precision and compassionate insight.

Think of the Sage as your brain's ultimate life coach—part Yoda, part Buddhist monk, part brilliant strategist. This isn't some fluffy, feel-good alter ego. The Sage is a powerhouse of perspective, armed with emotional intelligence and a laser-sharp ability to transform challenges into opportunities.

The Sage's Secret Weapons

1. Perspective Shifting: Where Saboteurs see walls, the Sage sees doors. When the Judge starts its relentless criticism, the Sage steps in with a gentle, "Let's look at this differently." It's like having an internal GPS that always finds the most constructive route.
2. Curiosity, not Criticism: Instead of the Hyper-Achiever's frantic drive or the Victim's self-pity, the Sage approaches challenges with genuine curiosity. "What can I learn from this?" becomes the default question, turning setbacks into growth opportunities.
3. Empathetic Reasoning: While Saboteurs operate from fear and limitation, the Sage navigates with compassion—both for yourself and others. It's the diplomatic negotiator that can calm down your inner emotional storms.

Practical Sage Strategies to Neutralise Saboteurs

The Sage Interrogation Technique

When a Saboteur starts its usual mind-hijacking routine, deploy the Sage's signature move: The Compassionate Interrogation.

• For the Judge: "Is this criticism actually helpful, or just harsh?"
• For the Pleaser: "Am I truly honouring my own needs?"
• For the Controller: "What can I genuinely influence, and what do I need to accept?"

These aren't just questions—they're precision-guided wisdom missiles aimed directly at your Saboteurs' weak spots.

Reframing: The Sage's Superpower

Reframing isn't about toxic positivity. It's about deliberately choosing a perspective that empowers rather than paralyses. When the Avoider wants to run from a challenge, the Sage steps in with, "This isn't a threat—it's an opportunity to grow."

Sage Training: Building Your Inner Wisdom Muscle

Developing your Sage isn't about perfection. It's a practice—a daily workout for your emotional and mental resilience.

• Mindfulness Meditation: Not the sit-and-float-away kind, but deliberate awareness training.
• Journalling: Your Sage loves reflection. Give it space to speak through writing.
• Compassionate Self-Talk: Speak to yourself like you'd speak to a dear friend facing a challenge.

The Ultimate Sage Wisdom

Your Saboteurs aren't enemies to be destroyed. They're misguided parts of yourself seeking protection. The Sage understands this. It doesn't wage war—it negotiates, transforms, and integrates.

Imagine your mind as a round table discussion. The Saboteurs are invited, but they don't get to drive. The Sage is the wise leader, listening to everyone but making decisions from a place of balance and growth.

This isn't about winning against your inner critics. It's about creating harmony, understanding, and a more compassionate relationship with yourself.

Your Sage is always there, waiting. Sometimes it whispers, sometimes it roars. But it's always, always on your side.

Moving on (at last, I (don’t) hear you cry…..) – here’s a few oddities you may have missed since we last met.

Heroes –

• Two alleged drug dealers in Portland, Oregon, for giving the police an easy life. The pair were pulled over in a stolen car with a bag labelled “Definitely Not a bag full of Drugs”…… Guess what was inside it?
• A dog that climbed right to the top of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Inevitably, it (the dog, not the pyramid – please keep up) was barking at birds….
• A colony of beavers which saved the Czech government almost £1m by completing a stalled dam project themselves. The nature restoration scheme in the Brdy region was on pause because of building permit issues, but eight of the industrious rodents (who presumably didn’t read the notices) felled trees in almost exactly the same places as the manmade barriers were planned. As Carol Midgley (always worth a read in The Times) said, “might they consider coming here to run the railways?”

….. and Villains --

• The builders who constructed a supposedly state-of-the-art fire station in Stadtallendorf, Germany, but didn’t bother putting in any fire alarms. The structure wasn’t legally required to have a fire alarm, in part because it was classified “not as a fire station but as a building that stored equipment” …. the €16m building went up in flames, along with all 10 fire engines inside
• Young mafiosi, according to old mafiosi, who say the new generation are a bunch of feckless turncoats. Giancarlo Romano, an alleged mafia don with Sicily’s Cosa Nostra, was recorded saying “the calibre these days is low, a miserable level”. >cue cod Italian/Yorkshire accent< young people today…..

• The maintenance team which is looking after Longships Lighthouse in Cornwall, which has been sounding its fog alarm every 13 seconds for over a week. The lighthouse has a fault in its fog-sensing mechanism, causing a high-pitched electronic bleep to sound all day and all night, even in clear skies. The National Coastwatch Institution told locals that engineers are waiting for a spare part to arrive, and that in the meantime “a set of earplugs might be a good investment”.

On to Columbo Corner, and a top tip which will change your life (as reported by Mr Adrian Brodkin in a letter to the Grauniad) -- 

“Remembering passwords needn’t be hell. Many times I have successfully done so by adopting the simple practice of changing a password to “incorrect” so that, whatever wrong password I use, I am always helpfully informed: “Your password is incorrect”….. Shimples!

Have a great rest of the week!

Cheers,
Tom

 

“War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography” (Ambrose Bierce)