It’s also important to avoid bad shoulder advisors. I’ve spent several years trying to reduce the influence of miniature copies of abusive family members on my thinking.
EDIT: The most effective counter I’ve found for this is to 1) Notice that the thought I just had is actually coming from a bad source, 2) Remind myself that that person wanted me to believe/act that way for selfish and narcissistic reasons, and I shouldn’t take their advice for the same reason I wouldn’t take moral suggestions from people who go around kicking puppies.
A model that pops up in several places (e.g. this book, this paper) is that these kinds of shoulder advisors show up as a kind of a preventative measure. If there are real people who would criticize or berate you for doing specific things, then your brain learns to predict when they would do that, and starts creating that criticism internally. That way, the inner critic may prevent you from doing the thing and thus spare you from being punished by the external critic who’s being modeled.
In that case, one approach is to simply try to talk to your inner critic and ask it what it’s trying to achieve and what it’s afraid would happen if it didn’t say the things it did. Sometimes it may be possible to get it to notice that e.g. avoiding the abusive family member’s judgment isn’t very important anymore, because you’re no longer living with that person, getting it to ease off.
I’ve done it twice, very explicitly. (Probably more implicitly.)
Here’s some thoughts, tuned specifically to the cases I had.
The individuals would bring very ‘defensible’ arguments forward. And they would stubbornly refuse to change their mind in response to my improved understanding of the world. I knew they’d never change my mind, so I was always stuck debating them, I could never move on.
They had a certain level of status in a community (e.g. one was a public figure who sells books and gives talks) that was not status I was giving them. It wasn’t like a friend I could just stop being friends with, they would continue to ‘be in the public environment’.
It took me a long while to go from “this person seems wrong and set in their ways around ideas and norms that I do not support” to “as best I can tell, in some important ways this person does not live out virtue and I do not want to consult them when I am trying to understand the world or take action”. Their arguments were always very ‘defensible’ in the given social context. To a significant extent I had to give up on that social context, give up being interested in getting status in that hierarchy, in order to stop caring what they had to say on an issue.
I suspect it helps to have an alternative social context to positively move one’s mind into. Instead of repeating to myself that I shouldn’t listen to person X, it helps to positively encourage myself to engage with person Y or social environment A, that’s different and that these individuals were not a part of.
After a while, my mind didn’t bring them into the conversation, and I also changed the conversations I was having in my mind. Much better for it, very glad to “just not care” what they thought.
Oh, I notice that I also have done this sort of thing with a bunch of recent tv/films/content.
There’s a habit of modern content that, when it gets politicized, will “mimic argument”. It will pretend to show sincere dialogue and debate, but it will fully swing the deck against one side and in favor of the other, and straightforwardly imply that the other side is unethical.
I can watch political art that I disagree with, I can even put up with good art that has bad political art inside of it, but when it attempts to distort what good faith dialogue is in order to win an argument, I just turn it off. I don’t want to simulate that character/perspective or have a dialogue with them/it in my head.[1]
I can immediately think of four times I’ve done this with shows/content I otherwise greatly enjoyed and admire. I just don’t want to learn to simulate them.
———
[1] Writing this out, I realize it’s straightforward darkside epistemology.
Maybe that is one way how entertainment manipulates public opinion: By creating memorable (=easily emulable) characters that become shoulder ‘influencers’ that promote the official narrative right in the heads of the populace.
Okay, because you asked AllAmericanBreakfast. Though I am not likely to follow-up discuss the specifics of each. Recent examples include the last season of Brooklyn Nine Nine and Bo Burnham’s “Inside”.
The “before” state you describe, where you find yourself having arguments with stubborn advisors who refuse to change their minds, reminds me strongly of rumination.
I say this because it’s something I’m working on to get out of. I’ll sometimes find myself engaged in a pretty adversarial discussion about what boils down to my boundaries and be unable to fall asleep for a few hours. And it’s usually the same cast of characters. I’ve found that I can consciously jump out of it by reminding myself that I’m merely burning energy without changing reality in any way. But I usually have to do this a few times before the “bad advisor” finally quiets down.
Do bad shoulder advisors feel like rumination to you?
Some general categories of strategy for working on that:
Setting up a dueling shoulder who’s specifically motivated to stand in your defense, or pick apart an irrational or abusive argument, or even just remind you to take a breath and broaden your focus.
Preparing a mantra-of-rebuttal, which could be directly addressed to the annoying advisor (“I do not have to listen to you”) or could be more general-purpose (“I will not allow toxic people to live rent-free in my thoughts”).
Using CBT-esque self-conditioning to simply cut the thoughts off, mid-stream, until your brain gets the point.
Doing some kind of internal double crux to find the nugget of truth or usefulness that you do reflexively believe the advisor has to offer (e.g. “What this ghost in my head is saying is wrong but at least it is worthwhile to remember that some people think this way” or “What this ghost in my head is saying is wrong but it does remind me to care about X”), and then whenever it pops up, thanking it for that one nugget and sort of firmly closing the door.
Possibly just the act of installing supportive shoulder advisors would be helpful. The brain only has so much capacity for shoulder advisors, so earmarking some of that for positive advisors may “clog the channel” so to speak. Bear in mind that shoulder advisors can be more abstract than is discussed here. E.g., you could have a wordless, nameless shard of pure positivity and acceptance.
Also, I expect shoulder advisors have a global positivity parameter that you may be able to influence. When a bad advisor tries to say something bad, stop them and force them to say something good instead, while imagining that the advisor truly believes the good thing. If your shoulder advisor objects to this practice, “correct” their objection and imagine them encouraging you to “remove the maladaptive cognitive pattern my irrational and unwarranted hostility represents”, or something like that.
(I note a prediction that most people wouldn’t actually be able to make a wordless/nameless shard of pure positivity and acceptance work, and wouldn’t get much out of it if you did, but also I’d be stoked to hear someone’s experience with one that did work.)
It’s definitely possible, though perhaps shoulder advisor is the wrong phrase to use at that point. Maybe it would be better to describe such a practice as a nonverbal mental ritual, rather than using an “angenty” framing.
You picture an incredibly happy crystal that blazes with light and feelings of positivity and acceptance (for this step, it may be helpful to put a cartoonish smily face on the crystal or to imagine it dancing, hugging you, etc). Then let those feelings radiate out from the crystal and into you, until you primarily feel the emotion from yourself. Allow yourself to be happy for the crystal’s happiness. Your own mood should naturally reflect that of the crystal as you lean into emulating the crystal’s radiant positivity.
It may also help to picture the crystal as being delighted to share that happiness with you. In this framing, both you and the crystal are happy to share your own joy with the other. Alternate between you sharing happiness with the crystal and the crystal sharing happiness with, both delighted by the other’s joy.
Note that visualisations of the sun, moon, a star, a glowing cloud, etc also work well for this exercise. I find that picturing the light as an ever-shifting rainbow of colors helps add some texture and adds dynamism to the crystal’s emotions. I also have difficulty holding a static image in my head for a long time, and the rainbow effect helps with that.
It’s also important to avoid bad shoulder advisors. I’ve spent several years trying to reduce the influence of miniature copies of abusive family members on my thinking.
EDIT: The most effective counter I’ve found for this is to 1) Notice that the thought I just had is actually coming from a bad source, 2) Remind myself that that person wanted me to believe/act that way for selfish and narcissistic reasons, and I shouldn’t take their advice for the same reason I wouldn’t take moral suggestions from people who go around kicking puppies.
This was a significant lesson I learned between the ages of 13 and 23. I have repeatedly removed bad advisors from my shoulder.
I attempted to add some thoughts on how I’d go about this, but I’d love to hear a primer on your general method.
A model that pops up in several places (e.g. this book, this paper) is that these kinds of shoulder advisors show up as a kind of a preventative measure. If there are real people who would criticize or berate you for doing specific things, then your brain learns to predict when they would do that, and starts creating that criticism internally. That way, the inner critic may prevent you from doing the thing and thus spare you from being punished by the external critic who’s being modeled.
In that case, one approach is to simply try to talk to your inner critic and ask it what it’s trying to achieve and what it’s afraid would happen if it didn’t say the things it did. Sometimes it may be possible to get it to notice that e.g. avoiding the abusive family member’s judgment isn’t very important anymore, because you’re no longer living with that person, getting it to ease off.
I’ve done it twice, very explicitly. (Probably more implicitly.)
Here’s some thoughts, tuned specifically to the cases I had.
The individuals would bring very ‘defensible’ arguments forward. And they would stubbornly refuse to change their mind in response to my improved understanding of the world. I knew they’d never change my mind, so I was always stuck debating them, I could never move on.
They had a certain level of status in a community (e.g. one was a public figure who sells books and gives talks) that was not status I was giving them. It wasn’t like a friend I could just stop being friends with, they would continue to ‘be in the public environment’.
It took me a long while to go from “this person seems wrong and set in their ways around ideas and norms that I do not support” to “as best I can tell, in some important ways this person does not live out virtue and I do not want to consult them when I am trying to understand the world or take action”. Their arguments were always very ‘defensible’ in the given social context. To a significant extent I had to give up on that social context, give up being interested in getting status in that hierarchy, in order to stop caring what they had to say on an issue.
I suspect it helps to have an alternative social context to positively move one’s mind into. Instead of repeating to myself that I shouldn’t listen to person X, it helps to positively encourage myself to engage with person Y or social environment A, that’s different and that these individuals were not a part of.
After a while, my mind didn’t bring them into the conversation, and I also changed the conversations I was having in my mind. Much better for it, very glad to “just not care” what they thought.
Oh, I notice that I also have done this sort of thing with a bunch of recent tv/films/content.
There’s a habit of modern content that, when it gets politicized, will “mimic argument”. It will pretend to show sincere dialogue and debate, but it will fully swing the deck against one side and in favor of the other, and straightforwardly imply that the other side is unethical.
I can watch political art that I disagree with, I can even put up with good art that has bad political art inside of it, but when it attempts to distort what good faith dialogue is in order to win an argument, I just turn it off. I don’t want to simulate that character/perspective or have a dialogue with them/it in my head.[1]
I can immediately think of four times I’ve done this with shows/content I otherwise greatly enjoyed and admire. I just don’t want to learn to simulate them.
———
[1] Writing this out, I realize it’s straightforward darkside epistemology.
Maybe that is one way how entertainment manipulates public opinion: By creating memorable (=easily emulable) characters that become shoulder ‘influencers’ that promote the official narrative right in the heads of the populace.
I would love an example, though I realize there are several reasons you might not want to put one out there!
Okay, because you asked AllAmericanBreakfast. Though I am not likely to follow-up discuss the specifics of each. Recent examples include the last season of Brooklyn Nine Nine and Bo Burnham’s “Inside”.
Thanks!
The “before” state you describe, where you find yourself having arguments with stubborn advisors who refuse to change their minds, reminds me strongly of rumination.
I say this because it’s something I’m working on to get out of. I’ll sometimes find myself engaged in a pretty adversarial discussion about what boils down to my boundaries and be unable to fall asleep for a few hours. And it’s usually the same cast of characters. I’ve found that I can consciously jump out of it by reminding myself that I’m merely burning energy without changing reality in any way. But I usually have to do this a few times before the “bad advisor” finally quiets down.
Do bad shoulder advisors feel like rumination to you?
That sounds right.
Strong agree (and strong upvote).
Some general categories of strategy for working on that:
Setting up a dueling shoulder who’s specifically motivated to stand in your defense, or pick apart an irrational or abusive argument, or even just remind you to take a breath and broaden your focus.
Preparing a mantra-of-rebuttal, which could be directly addressed to the annoying advisor (“I do not have to listen to you”) or could be more general-purpose (“I will not allow toxic people to live rent-free in my thoughts”).
Using CBT-esque self-conditioning to simply cut the thoughts off, mid-stream, until your brain gets the point.
Doing some kind of internal double crux to find the nugget of truth or usefulness that you do reflexively believe the advisor has to offer (e.g. “What this ghost in my head is saying is wrong but at least it is worthwhile to remember that some people think this way” or “What this ghost in my head is saying is wrong but it does remind me to care about X”), and then whenever it pops up, thanking it for that one nugget and sort of firmly closing the door.
Possibly just the act of installing supportive shoulder advisors would be helpful. The brain only has so much capacity for shoulder advisors, so earmarking some of that for positive advisors may “clog the channel” so to speak. Bear in mind that shoulder advisors can be more abstract than is discussed here. E.g., you could have a wordless, nameless shard of pure positivity and acceptance.
Also, I expect shoulder advisors have a global positivity parameter that you may be able to influence. When a bad advisor tries to say something bad, stop them and force them to say something good instead, while imagining that the advisor truly believes the good thing. If your shoulder advisor objects to this practice, “correct” their objection and imagine them encouraging you to “remove the maladaptive cognitive pattern my irrational and unwarranted hostility represents”, or something like that.
(I note a prediction that most people wouldn’t actually be able to make a wordless/nameless shard of pure positivity and acceptance work, and wouldn’t get much out of it if you did, but also I’d be stoked to hear someone’s experience with one that did work.)
Maybe imagine a dog?
It’s definitely possible, though perhaps shoulder advisor is the wrong phrase to use at that point. Maybe it would be better to describe such a practice as a nonverbal mental ritual, rather than using an “angenty” framing.
You picture an incredibly happy crystal that blazes with light and feelings of positivity and acceptance (for this step, it may be helpful to put a cartoonish smily face on the crystal or to imagine it dancing, hugging you, etc). Then let those feelings radiate out from the crystal and into you, until you primarily feel the emotion from yourself. Allow yourself to be happy for the crystal’s happiness. Your own mood should naturally reflect that of the crystal as you lean into emulating the crystal’s radiant positivity.
It may also help to picture the crystal as being delighted to share that happiness with you. In this framing, both you and the crystal are happy to share your own joy with the other. Alternate between you sharing happiness with the crystal and the crystal sharing happiness with, both delighted by the other’s joy.
Note that visualisations of the sun, moon, a star, a glowing cloud, etc also work well for this exercise. I find that picturing the light as an ever-shifting rainbow of colors helps add some texture and adds dynamism to the crystal’s emotions. I also have difficulty holding a static image in my head for a long time, and the rainbow effect helps with that.