Shadow Work Series – Part 2 | Inner Saboteur – Reading Time: 20 minutes
Tags: Inner Saboteur, Shadow Work, Self-Sabotage, The Watcher, Rewiring Lab, Contemplative Neuroscience, Self-sabotage patterns, The Watcher practice, Upper limit problem, Protective parts therapy, Internal Family Systems, Neuroplasticity and self-sabotage, Polyvagal theory self-sabotage
The Enemy Within Is Actually Trying to Save You
You’re on the edge of a breakthrough. The promotion is within reach. The relationship is deepening. The creative project is gaining momentum. The weight is finally coming off. Success feels close enough to taste.
And then you do it again—the thing you’ve done a hundred times before.
You procrastinate until the opportunity passes. You pick a fight that destroys the intimacy. You sabotage the project with perfectionism. You binge eat and skip the gym. You snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and you have no idea why.
You blame yourself. You decide you’re lazy, broken, or fundamentally flawed. You try harder, use more willpower, make stronger resolutions. But the pattern repeats. Always at the threshold. Always just before the breakthrough. Always in the same maddening way.
And underneath the frustration, there’s a deeper question you’re afraid to ask: What if some part of me doesn’t want to succeed?
This isn’t motivational deficit or character weakness. It’s self-sabotage—an unconscious protective mechanism that operates in the shadow, working tirelessly to prevent the very success you consciously desire.
And here’s the paradox that changes everything: Your inner saboteur isn’t your enemy. It’s a part of you that’s trying desperately to keep you safe, using the only strategy it knows—preventing change, even positive change, because change feels dangerous to the nervous system that learned survival through staying small.
The Watcher Discovers the Saboteur: Why You Can’t Fight What You Won’t See
Most people try to overcome self-sabotage through willpower. They try to force themselves to stop procrastinating, stop perfectionism, stop self-destructing. This fails for a crucial reason: Fighting the saboteur just creates more internal war. You cannot defeat a part of yourself. You can only understand it, update it, and integrate it.
This is where The Watcher becomes essential. The Watcher—your metacognitive awareness—can observe the saboteur without being controlled by it. It’s the consciousness that notices: “There’s the procrastination pattern activating. There’s the perfectionism preventing progress. There’s the self-destruction right before success.”
The Watcher doesn’t judge. It doesn’t fight. It simply observes with curiosity: “Why is this part of me working so hard to prevent what I consciously want? What is it protecting me from?”
The Neuroscience of Self-Sabotage
Dr. Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory reveals something crucial about the saboteur: The nervous system prioritizes survival over growth. When faced with novel situations—even positive ones like success or intimacy—the nervous system can interpret novelty as threat.
If your developmental history taught you that visibility is dangerous, achievement threatening, or love unreliable, your nervous system will trigger self-sabotage to return you to familiar territory. The autonomic nervous system doesn’t distinguish between “good” unfamiliar and “bad” unfamiliar. It only knows: Unfamiliar = potential threat = activate protection.
Dr. Bessel van der Kolk’s trauma research demonstrates this mechanism:
“The body keeps the score. If the memory of trauma is encoded in the viscera, in heartbreaking and gut-wrenching emotions, in autoimmune disorders and skeletal/muscular problems, then the body will sabotage any attempt at transformation unless we work with it directly.”
But here’s where The Watcher changes everything: When you observe the saboteur with compassionate curiosity rather than self-hatred, you activate the ventral vagal system—the part of the nervous system associated with safety and social engagement. The Watcher creates the internal safety that allows the saboteur to be seen, understood, and eventually updated.
What Ancient Wisdom Teaches About Self-Sabotage
The ancients understood the saboteur, though they called it by different names:
The Sufis identified the nafs al-ammara (the commanding ego)—the part that compels you toward self-destruction while claiming to protect you.
Rumi wrote:
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” The saboteur is one of those barriers.
The Buddhists recognized the klesha (mental afflictions)—patterns that arise from ignorance and create suffering while pretending to prevent it. The Buddha taught that these patterns operate unconsciously, which is why vipassana (clear seeing through The Watcher) is necessary to recognize them.
The Stoics understood what Marcus Aurelius called “the obstacle is the way”—that the very thing preventing your progress contains the key to your liberation. But first, you must see it clearly.
Epictetus taught:
“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”
The saboteur controls the reaction until The Watcher makes it conscious.
These weren’t philosophical concepts. They were precise observations about how the unconscious mind protects through destruction. The Watcher is how you bring these ancient insights into lived practice.
The Seven Faces of Self-Sabotage: How Protection Becomes Prison
The Watcher observes that self-sabotage doesn’t look the same in everyone. It adapts to your unique history, creating patterns that feel inevitable but are actually highly specific protective strategies. Here are the seven primary forms:
1. The Procrastinator: Avoiding Judgment Through Delay
The Pattern The Watcher Observes: You delay until the last minute, then either rush through with mediocre results or miss the deadline entirely.
The Saboteur’s Logic: If you never truly try, you never risk truly failing. Your procrastination protects your self-image: “I could have succeeded if I’d actually tried.” Performance under pressure prevents the devastating discovery that even your best isn’t good enough.
The Neuroscience: Dr. Timothy Pychyl’s research reveals that procrastination isn’t a time management problem—it’s an emotion regulation problem. His studies show that procrastinators are avoiding the anxiety, shame, or inadequacy feelings associated with the task, not the task itself. The saboteur uses delay to manage intolerable emotions.
The Watcher’s Question: “What feeling am I avoiding by procrastinating? What would I have to face if I actually completed this?”
Core Fear: Your best won’t be enough. If you give full effort and fail, you’ll have to face your inadequacy.
Origin The Watcher Discovers: Often develops when early achievements were met with criticism, impossibly high standards, or parental anxiety rather than celebration. You learned: Trying invites judgment; better to preserve the illusion of potential.
2. The Perfectionist: Avoiding Exposure Through Impossibility
The Pattern The Watcher Observes: You set standards so impossibly high that you guarantee failure, then use that failure as evidence you shouldn’t have tried.
The Saboteur’s Logic: Your perfectionism isn’t about excellence—it’s about creating a legitimate excuse to quit. If perfect is required and perfect is impossible, you’re protected from the vulnerability of actually being seen and evaluated.
The Neuroscience: Dr. Brené Brown’s research reveals perfectionism as a shame shield, not a self-improvement strategy. Her studies show that perfectionism correlates with depression, anxiety, addiction, and life paralysis. It’s armor protecting against judgment, but the armor is so heavy you can’t move.
The Watcher’s Question: “Am I using perfectionism to avoid being seen? What would happen if I allowed myself to be good enough instead of perfect?”
Core Fear: Being seen as flawed will result in rejection or abandonment.
Origin The Watcher Discovers: Typically emerges when love felt conditional on performance. You learned: Mistakes mean losing love; perfection is the price of belonging.
3. The Self-Betrayer: Avoiding Success Through Self-Destruction
The Pattern The Watcher Observes: Just as success arrives, you blow it up. You get drunk before the presentation. You cheat on the healthy relationship. You quit the job you finally enjoy. You sabotage at the exact moment of potential breakthrough.
The Saboteur’s Logic: If I destroy it first, I maintain control over the inevitable loss. Better to orchestrate the ending than to be blindsided by it.
The Neuroscience: Dr. Gabor Maté calls this “the realm of hungry ghosts”—compulsive self-destructive behavior driven by unprocessed trauma. His research shows that self-sabotage often represents a reenactment of early abandonment or betrayal, where the psyche maintains control by orchestrating the rejection rather than experiencing it as imposed from outside.
The Watcher’s Question: “What early loss am I trying to control by destroying this good thing? What abandonment am I reenacting?”
Core Fear: Good things always end in betrayal or loss. Destroying them yourself feels safer than waiting for the inevitable.
Origin The Watcher Discovers: Usually traces to early experiences of having good things taken away—sudden losses, parental inconsistency, or trauma that taught you: Don’t get attached; it will be ripped away.
4. The Underseller: Avoiding Visibility Through Diminishment
The Pattern The Watcher Observes: You downplay achievements, deflect compliments, and hide your light. When success comes, you attribute it to luck, timing, or other people. You’re terrified of “bragging” or seeming arrogant, so you make yourself invisible.
The Saboteur’s Logic: If I stay small, I avoid the danger that comes with being seen. Visibility brought pain before; invisibility feels safe.
The Neuroscience: Dr. Pauline Clance’s research on Impostor Syndrome shows that high achievers often feel fraudulent, attributing success to external factors while internalizing failures. Her studies reveal that this isn’t humility—it’s a protection pattern. The saboteur convinces you that your success is fake to prevent the vulnerability of owning it.
The Watcher’s Question: “What happened when I was visible before? What danger am I protecting against by hiding?”
Core Fear: Visibility leads to attack, envy, or abandonment. Better to be overlooked than targeted.
Origin The Watcher Discovers: Often emerges when early visibility brought negative attention—being bullied for standing out, parents threatened by your shine, or siblings’ jealousy creating family dysfunction.
5. The Relationship Saboteur: Avoiding Intimacy Through Distance
The Pattern The Watcher Observes: As relationships deepen, you pull away. You pick fights over nothing. You find fatal flaws in your partner. You create distance through criticism, withdrawal, or finding someone “better.”
The Saboteur’s Logic: Intimacy equals vulnerability. Vulnerability led to pain before. Creating distance feels safer than risking that pain again.
The Neuroscience: Dr. Sue Johnson’s attachment research reveals that relationship sabotage often reflects anxious or avoidant attachment patterns formed in childhood. When early caregivers were inconsistent or unavailable, the nervous system learned: Closeness = danger. The saboteur creates distance to prevent the abandonment it fears.
The Watcher’s Question: “What am I afraid will happen if I let this person truly close? What early intimacy wound am I protecting?”
Core Fear: If they truly know me, they’ll leave. Better to leave first or prevent real closeness entirely.
Origin The Watcher Discovers: Typically traces to inconsistent caregiving—parents who were sometimes loving, sometimes rejecting, teaching you that intimacy is unpredictable and dangerous.
6. The Upper Limit Contractor: Avoiding Expansion Through Problem Creation
The Pattern The Watcher Observes: When life gets really good—love is flowing, work is thriving, body feels healthy—you suddenly create a problem. You start a fight, get sick, create drama, or find something to worry about obsessively.
The Saboteur’s Logic: You have an unconscious thermostat for how much joy, success, and love you can tolerate. When you exceed it, the saboteur creates problems to bring you back down to familiar levels of struggle.
The Neuroscience: Dr. Gay Hendricks identified what he calls the “Upper Limit Problem”—the unconscious set point for wellbeing. His research with high achievers revealed a stunning pattern: Most people have an unconscious limit for how much positive experience they can tolerate before self-sabotage kicks in. Not consciously, not deliberately—automatically.
The Watcher’s Question: “What’s my upper limit for happiness/success/love? What happens in my body when I exceed it? What do I unconsciously believe I deserve?”
Core Fear: This much goodness can’t last. Something bad must be coming. Better to create a small problem than to be blindsided by disaster.
Origin The Watcher Discovers: Often emerges from families where happiness triggered parental anxiety, where your joy seemed like a betrayal of others’ suffering, or where good times always preceded bad times.
7. The Overcommitter: Avoiding Success Through Overwhelm
The Pattern The Watcher Observes: Just when one important thing needs your focus, you take on seventeen more. You say yes to everything, then collapse under the weight. Success in any area becomes impossible because you’re too scattered.
The Saboteur’s Logic: If I’m busy enough, I never have to test whether I could actually succeed at the thing that matters most. Overwhelm is the perfect excuse for never focusing.
The Watcher’s Question: “What am I avoiding by staying perpetually overwhelmed? What would I have to face if I actually focused on my priority?”
Core Fear: If I focus and still fail, I’ll have to admit I’m not capable. Better to stay so busy that failure is inevitable and blameless.
Origin The Watcher Discovers: Often develops when early focus brought pressure or when saying “no” meant withdrawal of love. You learned: busyness proves worthiness; focus invites crushing expectations.
The Watcher Meets the Protector: Understanding Saboteur’s Intent
Internal Family Systems therapy, developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz, offers a revolutionary framework that The Watcher uses to understand the saboteur. His research demonstrates that what we call “saboteur” is actually a protective part—often formed in childhood—whose job is to prevent the pain, rejection, or danger that the psyche associates with success, visibility, or vulnerability.
These parts aren’t malicious; they’re protective strategies that have outlived their usefulness but continue operating because no one has updated their job description.
The Watcher observes this truth: Every saboteur is protecting an exile—a younger, wounded part of you that experienced the very thing the saboteur is trying to prevent. The procrastinator protects the child who was shamed for imperfection. The perfectionist guards the child whose mistakes meant losing love. The self-betrayer shields the child who learned that good things always end in pain.
Dr. Tara Brach teaches:
“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change. When we bring compassionate attention to our protective parts, they naturally transform.”
The Watcher creates the space for this acceptance. It observes the saboteur without hatred. It recognizes the protection without being controlled by it. It sees the wounded child the saboteur is trying to save.
This is the path: Not fighting. Not forcing. Not hating yourself for self-sabotaging. Observing. Understanding. Compassionately updating.
The 70-Day Watcher Saboteur Integration Protocol
This is laboratory work. You are the scientist. The Watcher is your instrument. The saboteur is your subject. Freedom is your result.
Weeks 1-2: Pattern Recognition Through The Watcher
Daily Practice (10 minutes):
- Establish Watcher Position: Place hand on heart. Three breaths. Activate observing consciousness.
- Sabotage Tracking: The Watcher documents every instance of self-sabotage without judgment:
- What was happening right before?
- What opportunity was present?
- What feeling arose?
- What specific behavior did you use to sabotage?
- Pattern Identification: The Watcher notices patterns. Which of the seven faces shows up most? When? Under what conditions?
- Origin Questions: The Watcher asks: “When did this pattern start? What was happening in my life around that age?”
- Journal: Document what The Watcher observed.
Neuroscience: You’re training the medial prefrontal cortex to recognize sabotage patterns as they emerge. Each observation creates space between stimulus (opportunity) and response (sabotage). This space is where freedom lives.
The Watcher’s Discovery: “My primary sabotage pattern is _______. It typically happens when _______. The pattern started around age _______ when _______.”
Weeks 3-4: Meeting the Protector Through The Watcher
Daily Practice (15 minutes):
- Watcher Awareness: Establish strong observing consciousness.
- Dialogue with Saboteur: The Watcher writes to your saboteur part. Ask with genuine curiosity:
- “What are you protecting me from?”
- “What do you think will happen if you don’t sabotage?”
- “What danger are you trying to prevent?”
- Listen for Response: Let the saboteur answer. Don’t judge what comes. The Watcher simply observes the response that emerges.
- Visualization: The Watcher helps you imagine your saboteur as a character. What does it look like? How old? What’s its facial expression? What’s it wearing? This visualization helps separate you (The Watcher) from the pattern (the saboteur).
- Build Relationship: The Watcher approaches with curiosity, not judgment. “I want to understand you. You’ve been working so hard to protect me.”
- Journal: Document the dialogue. What did The Watcher discover about the saboteur’s intent?
Neuroscience: You’re creating new neural pathways where the sabotage pattern connects to understanding rather than shame. The anterior cingulate cortex (conflict monitoring) begins to recognize the saboteur as a protective strategy rather than as “you being broken.”
The Watcher’s Discovery: “My saboteur is protecting me from _______. It believes that if it doesn’t sabotage, then _______.”
Weeks 5-6: Finding the Exile Through The Watcher
Daily Practice (15 minutes):
- Watcher Position: Establish observing awareness.
- Ask the Protector: The Watcher asks your saboteur: “What part of me are you protecting? Who are you trying to save?”
- Meet the Exile: Usually, the saboteur is protecting a younger, wounded part—the exile. The Watcher asks:
- “How old is this wounded part?”
- “What did this part experience that was so painful?”
- “What does this young one believe about themselves?”
- Witnessing Practice: The Watcher imagines your adult Self sitting with this young, wounded part. You don’t fix. You don’t rescue. You simply witness with compassion.
- What the Exile Needs: The Watcher asks: “What does this young one need to hear?” Speak to the exile from your adult, witnessing Self.
- Journal: Document what The Watcher discovered. “The wounded part of me that sabotage protects is the part that experienced _______. This part needed _______.”
Neuroscience: You’re creating integration between the limbic system (where trauma memories are stored) and the prefrontal cortex (where adult understanding lives). The hippocampus begins to contextualize the old wound: “That happened then. I’m safe now.” This is memory reconsolidation—literally updating the neural encoding of traumatic memories.
The Watcher’s Discovery: “The wounded part my saboteur protects experienced _______. This part believes _______. What this part truly needed was _______.”
Weeks 7-8: Updating the Protector Through The Watcher
Daily Practice (20 minutes):
- Watcher Consciousness: Establish strong observing awareness.
- Negotiation with Saboteur: The Watcher writes to your saboteur:
- “I appreciate your protection. I understand you’ve been trying to keep me safe.”
- “The danger you’re guarding against [has passed / I can now handle].”
- “Would you be willing to try a new strategy?”
- Propose Alternatives: The Watcher offers the saboteur updated strategies:
- For Procrastinator: “Instead of avoiding through delay, could you help me notice anxiety early and address it directly?”
- For Perfectionist: “Instead of preventing action through impossible standards, could you help me celebrate good enough?”
- For Self-Betrayer: “Instead of destroying before loss, could you help me trust this goodness while staying present?”
- For Underseller: “Instead of hiding to stay safe, could you help me be visible in small, manageable doses?”
- For Relationship Saboteur: “Instead of creating distance, could you help me communicate fears directly?”
- For Upper Limit Contractor: “Instead of creating problems when life is good, could you help me expand my capacity to tolerate joy?”
- For Overcommitter: “Instead of overwhelming to avoid focus, could you help me say no to protect my priority?”
- Small Experiments: The Watcher guides small tests. Choose one small area to experiment with not sabotaging. Notice:
- Does the catastrophe happen?
- How does the protector react?
- What do you discover?
- Journal: Document what The Watcher observed during experiments.
Neuroscience: You’re creating competing neural pathways. Previously: opportunity → sabotage → relief. Now: opportunity → pause (Watcher) → new response → safety. With repetition, the new pathway strengthens through Hebbian learning: neurons that fire together (opportunity + safety) wire together.
Weeks 9-10: Expanding Capacity Through The Watcher
Daily Practice (20 minutes):
- Watcher Awareness: Establish observing consciousness.
- Upper Limit Training: When The Watcher notices you hitting an upper limit (worrying during success, creating problems during happiness), pause. The Watcher says:
- “I’m noticing my upper limit.”
- “I’m expanding my capacity to tolerate positive experience.”
- “This joy/success/love is safe.”
- Somatic Practice: Success and positive experience create physiological sensations—excitement, expansiveness, energy. The Watcher helps you practice tolerating these in your body without needing to discharge them through sabotage.
- Notice the sensation in your body when good things happen
- The Watcher observes: “This is just energy, not danger”
- Breathe and stay present with the sensation
- Don’t sabotage to make it go away
- Daily Wins Journal: The Watcher documents small victories:
- Times you didn’t procrastinate
- Moments you let good enough be enough
- Instances you stayed present with joy
- Occasions you didn’t create distance or drama
- Celebrate Without Sabotaging: The Watcher helps you notice wins without immediately undercutting them. Practice: “I did well. I’m allowed to feel good about this.”
Neuroscience: You’re training the autonomic nervous system to associate positive experience with safety rather than threat. The ventral vagal system (rest and connection) becomes more active, while the dorsal vagal system (shutdown) and sympathetic system (fight/flight) become less reactive to success.
By Day 70, The Watcher observes these changes:
- Earlier recognition of sabotage patterns
- Decreased automatic reactivity
- Ability to dialogue with protector parts before they act
- Understanding of protective intent behind sabotage
- Increased capacity for positive experience
- Emerging trust that you can handle what your saboteur has been protecting you from
The Watcher’s Way: Living as Witness to Shadow and Saboteur
After sustained practice, something shifts. The shadow qualities don’t disappear—they integrate. The saboteur patterns don’t vanish—they transform. And you discover a new way of being.
You become the Watcher living through an integrated psyche.
You notice when dark shadow wants expression, and you can choose: “Is this anger appropriate here? Yes. I’ll express it cleanly.” Not suppression. Not explosion. Conscious choice.
You notice when golden shadow wants to shine, and you can choose: “Is this the time to be visible? Yes. I’ll own my brilliance.” Not hiding. Not performing. Authentic radiance.
You notice when saboteur activates, and you can choose: “This protective pattern is arising. Do I need it? What’s it protecting me from? Is that danger real now?” Not automatic obedience. Not self-hatred. Conscious negotiation.
This is freedom: Not the absence of shadow or saboteur, but the presence of The Watcher who sees both, understands both, and chooses consciously how to work with both.
Jung understood: “I’d rather be whole than good.”
The Sufis taught: “Know thyself, and you will know your Lord.”
The Buddhists discovered: “When you realize that all suffering arises from ignorance, compassion arises naturally.”
The Watcher is the path to this realization. Through observation, shadow integrates. Through understanding, saboteur transforms. Through practice, freedom emerges.
What The Watcher Knows
After this work, The Watcher has discovered several truths:
About Shadow:
- Every rejected quality is still operating—unconsciously
- Dark shadow and golden shadow both require integration
- Projection stops when you own your full spectrum
- Wholeness requires everything, not sanitized perfection
- The qualities you feared most held the power you needed most
About Saboteur:
- Every sabotage pattern is protecting something
- Fighting the saboteur creates more internal war
- Understanding changes what fighting cannot
- The saboteur doesn’t need to be defeated—it needs to be updated
- Your capacity expands when protection relaxes
About Integration:
- You can’t think your way to freedom—you can only observe your way there
- Willpower fails where awareness succeeds
- Neuroplasticity is real—patterns can change
- The body must feel safe before the mind can transform
- Ancient wisdom and modern neuroscience point to the same practice: Witness consciousness
The Deepest Truth The Watcher Reveals:
You are not broken. You are not your shadow. You are not your saboteur. You are the awareness that can observe both, understand both, and integrate both.
Every quality you rejected was trying to serve you. Every pattern you hate was trying to protect you. The work isn’t elimination. The work is integration through observation.
The shadow isn’t your enemy. It’s your buried treasure.
The saboteur isn’t your opponent. It’s your exhausted guardian.
The Watcher isn’t a technique. It’s your true nature—awareness itself, capable of witnessing everything and being imprisoned by nothing.
Continue Your Practice
This completes The Grey Hour Shadow Work Series.
You now have the complete integration protocol:
- Part 1: Shadow work (60 days)
- Part 2: Saboteur work (70 days)
- Combined Practice: Complete integration (90 days) – coming soon
For additional Watcher protocols and systematic rewiring practices, visit The Rewiring Lab where ancient wisdom meets modern neuroscience.
The 2-Minute Watcher Reset – visit the practice Guide provides daily practice for establishing observing consciousness.
The complete Watcher Protocol includes 7 practices for different applications of metacognitive awareness.
The 12 Pattern Rewiring System – coming soon- uses The Watcher to break people-pleasing, perfectionism, comparison addiction, approval-seeking, control compulsion, scarcity thinking, victim stance, busy-badge wearing, hiding, shame cycles, grudge-holding, and “not enough” thinking.
Follow @owl.daze for daily Watcher wisdom and contemplative practices.
The Work Continues
The first two protocols are complete. The practice is clear. The neuroscience is validated. The ancient wisdom confirms it.
Now comes the laboratory work.
You are the scientist. The Watcher is your instrument. Your shadow is your subject. Your saboteur is your data. Your integrated psyche is your result.
The observation creates the transformation.
The patterns are waiting to be seen. The Watcher is ready to observe. The freedom is available right now—not someday, not when you’re “healed,” but in this moment when awareness meets what you’ve been avoiding.
All that’s required is the courage to watch.
The Watcher is waiting. Your shadow is calling. Your saboteur is protecting. And your freedom lives in the space between what you’ve been and what you’re becoming.
That space is where The Watcher lives.
That space is where transformation happens.
That space is available right now.
“The enemy within is actually trying to save you”….reading that made me pause, Nizar. So many of us spend years fighting ourselves, calling ourselves lazy, broken, weak, when in reality some part of us is just trying to prevent pain the only way it knows how.
When you described sabotaging “always at the threshold, always right before the breakthrough,” I felt that on a personal level. That moment when things are going well and suddenly you start to procrastinate, pick a fight, overthink, or create a problem out of nowhere. I’ve seen that pattern in my own life for many years.
Your breakdown of the seven faces was so clear and grounding. The procrastinator avoiding judgment, the perfectionist as a shame shield, the self-betrayer destroying first to stay in control. “Better to orchestrate the ending than be blindsided by it.” That’s such an honest and an eye-opening line, Nizar. And I really appreciate how you didn’t position the saboteur as something to defeat. The way you described The Watcher, not fighting, not shaming, just observing with care, feels so much more humane. It’s relieving, to be honest.
You bridged theory, trauma research, Sufi wisdom, Jung and neuroscience, without it feeling heavy or complicated, and this is something I admire about your writing here and on Instagram. It feels grounded, spiritual and simply human at the same time. I love that you keep coming back to the same truth that we’re not broken. We just haven’t updated the parts of us that learned to survive.
Really powerful piece, Nizar. I’m proud of you! Congratulations!
I have read this and find it amazing, really valuable information, I want to try the practice, and i do beleive in the power of observation though, i also related to some of those shadow patterns. thank you fo such valuable information.