A Pig Dog, a Recharger, and an Achiever Walk into a Bar
Parts of myself awoken while preparing for something new
For a few weeks now, I’ve been writing an application to join a business accelerator. Though the application is quite simple - just a 300-word text about myself and an optional slide deck - I’ve found myself, as usual, spending long hours overthinking and overworking it.
After a few rounds of feedback from dear friends, I was nearly ready to send it in yesterday. But a last run-through gave me pause, and I realized I still wanted to tweak it. It was already midnight, and I promised myself that I would hit it again the next morning after sleep.
What happened next was that Ilja and I stayed up until 3 am marveling over Life on Our Planet on Netflix. I didn’t set an alarm, and when we finally got out of bed, it was nearly 1 pm. As I caught onto how much of the day had already slipped by, I realized that this was probably no accident. There seemed to be a part of me that was lulling me into rest and recharge mode, despite my stated intention to finish the application.
In German, you might call this my ‘Innerer Schweinehund’ - my Inner Pig Dog that keeps me from doing the things I want to do by appealing to inertia. Today, instead of painting this part of myself so grotesquely, I got curious. Why was it that there was some part of me that was diverting my attention from working on the thing I wanted?
I renamed this part the Recharger. The Recharger just wanted me to rest. It wanted me to have all the time in the world to do what my body needed, and it didn’t have any qualms if I stayed in bed without an alarm. The Recharger wanted me to feel spacious, expansive, and free - qualities that have not always been easy for me to embody. Mostly, the Recharger wanted to protect me from burnout. It saw the self that wanted to get back to the application on Sunday morning, after several days of working continuously in a tunnel, and it got worried. It started to fear that I was becoming the Burner again.
The Burner was a familiar self, not because it was a self I wanted to embody, but because I couldn’t help it. The Burner was the one who worked 2–3 hours overtime every day with no extra pay, who was glued to the computer, and who just didn’t know how to stop when everyone else did. The Burner was working for external validation, driven by a stringent work ethic impressed into her through a strict childhood.
So when the Recharger saw these familiar patterns appear while working on my application, it acted through me in barely conscious ways to keep me away from this path again.
*
At this point, I got a bit more curious. Was I really acting from my Burner? Had anything changed from the several burnouts I’d already experienced? Even though I was pushing a bit on the computer over the last few days, was that an indication that I was already headed down Burnout Lane?
I started talking to the self that had been driving me into the application. Did it really want to take us down familiar, singed roads leading to the grinding and meaningless psychological exhaustion of burnout? Somehow I doubted this.
This part of me spoke back. I am not the Burner, it says. I am the Achiever. The one you left behind a while ago, in favor of survival.
It continued speaking to me.
I am here to actualize your potential, for you and the world to see that we are valuable and can do great things. I am here to show you that our future is bright and exciting, and there for us to claim if we step up to it. And I want us to have a really great time doing it.
The Achiever was quite clear that it was also done with burnout, and had no interest in ever going down that path again. It now addressed the Recharger, and said:
I am also really into rest! I also want us to be well nourished, and take in everything we need to be well and release everything that doesn’t serve us. I don’t want to grind. I don’t want to squeeze us into uncomfortable, unnatural shapes that are not good for us, especially if they are not serving our wellness.
*
What came next was a piece of clarity. The Achiever then said:
I am here to serve our long-term interests. I am the power and the force that is here to make sure we are all well and have our needs met in the future. I am here to take care of all our Future Selves, by working now to create good options for us.
*
So the Recharger and the Achiever who previously seemed to have opposing interests (Rest now! vs. Work now!), were, in fact, not at odds with each other. They both have the goal and the role of taking care of Big Me (and all my little parts) and making sure all of us got what we needed to be well. They were each very good at their job, and they could also be a good team, as long as they remembered they were on the same side.
This meant that they did not need to compromise or negotiate with each other over when each of them would drive Big Me. They were on the same team, just acting on different parts of the process.
It becomes much less a question of self-curtailing restraint and forcing one part to give way to the other, and more about both these parts understanding that they are there to help each other serve the goal of keeping Big Me well.
*
Having this realization was deeply relieving. Recharger me didn’t need to be afraid of Achiever me driving us off a burning cliff and therefore didn’t need to put up resistance to it. Achiever me didn’t need to shame Recharger me for being an unmotivated pig dog. Big Me could get back on track with her application, knowing that these parts of herself both had her best interest in mind and now understood each other better too.
*
So, after a good night of recharging, and a morning of listening to the Achiever, this application will go out tomorrow.
All this stuff about parts comes in part from Internal Family Systems, in part from Rainbow of Desire / Cop in the Head, in part from the work of Elizabeth Gilbert. It’s wild to have conversations with all the parts in yourself. Give it a try!