Book Day 24: An important exercise, introduction to roles, prerequisite to dom/sub stuff
I am tired. New Year’s Eve is tomorrow, and I am not even drinking yet. But I am extremely excited about this exercise.
I do not know what my plan is after the 30 days of writing this polybook. I will want to do a different kind of experiment. But the writing every day has been good.
Likely, I will go through my posts for the each 30 days, and recurse on them somehow, in a way that I write the actual book in earnest. The previous posts will become paywalled, as the new set becomes available. I am not sure how many iterations of this will be necessary for the final manuscript to be finished, and the final book released.
I don’t know how to intro this exercise, but it is so good. I got it from Supercycle.
Spend some time getting in touch with your personal versions of these three “inner characters” that are likely to be relevant for how things go over the next three months:
Inner critic (inner downer, inner doubter)
Inner cheerleader (inner encourager, inner affirmer)
Inner project manager (inner strategist, inner taskmaster)
What I love about this is that you can have all kinds of relationships to these three things.
It also helps think more straightforwardly and clearly when thinking about dom and sub dynamics.
For example, maybe your inner project manager, tells you to convince your partner to be the project manager. Then if the convincing doesn’t work, there is an ERROR ERROR, and also you don’t have a backup plan for the project management.
I am all into healthy dependency. Sometimes it helps to have a small backup plan. It can be painful to invest in a backup plan because that feels like a sign your plan isn’t working.
That’s why I like this exercise so much. When you read it, of course you have an inner critic. Of course you have an inner cheerleader. Of course you have an inner project manager.
Of course.
You already have these 3 things. The question is what they’re up to, what your relationship to them is.
You start being able to make constructions like this:
Your inner project manager would be annoyed and angry if the strategy it employs (convincing someone else to do some project management on your behalf) is not working.
Take another example. You come home, you just did something awesome at work. You want to tell your partner all about it, and share it.
You come home and they’re in a terrible mood. They’re very distracted, still working on some stuff.
You try to tell them about your good day, because you are all shiny and glittery, and they ignore you, are angry, are distracted.
What’s your inner cheerleader up to?
Probably a bit deflated. But hopefully not deflated all the way.
Because your inner cheerleader can have a desire to share its joy with another person, but if that other person isn’t available emotionally to accept the sharing, the good feelings don’t have to “go away” necessarily.
Your inner critic might need help from your inner cheerleader, your inner cheerleader might need help from your inner project manager, to execute when you have good feelings, so that the critic is not always active.
You can get help with each of these roles, but the are each always inside you. And if you are struggling with help with each of these from the outside world, you can turn to how they relate to each other inside of you.