It’s late. I didn’t write yesterday. I walked the dogs instead—and as usual, found myself caught in a mental loop, having imaginary arguments with people who weren’t there. I could feel my blood pressure rise with each furious internal retort. Definitely spent too much time online.
Somewhere in that scroll hole, I saw an Instagram meme suggesting you name your brain. The idea is that when a dark thought shows up—like today is going to be awful—you can talk back to it. One woman said she named her brain Becky. So when the spiral starts, she says, Becky, I love you, but we absolutely cannot be doing that today. It helps. It puts a little distance between you and the thought.
So, on this dog walk, I decided to try it. I named the part of my brain that rage-screams at imaginary adversaries: Sadie. Sadie is sad, and she’s also sadistic. She’s like Satan with a sassier haircut. Not today, Sadie.
Naming her reminded me of Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy and the parts work Martha Beck writes about in her book on anxiety. The basic idea? We aren’t one monolithic personality—we’re made of many parts. And Sadie is just one. She gets triggered by news, social media, and the general horror show of modern life, but she’s not all of me.
There are other parts, too. Like Serena. Serena is my yoga-teaching, meditating, nature-loving self. She’s the part who breathes deeply under tall trees and knows how to return to center. She’s named not just for serenity, but also for Serena Williams—because I see her as fierce. The problem is, she’s been bound and gagged. I haven’t been nurturing her. No meditation, no real yoga practice. I haven’t been watering her, so she’s more like a half-dead plant on the windowsill of my psyche.
When I asked Serena to speak up, all she could say was: Take a breath. Which is great advice, but she needs a more robust vocabulary if she’s going to be a match for Sadie’s nonstop monologue. So I’ve made myself a promise: Serena needs more airtime. More sunlight. More movement. She deserves it. I deserve it.
There’s also Wanda. Wanda doesn’t talk. Wanda watches. She’s the witness. She’s the wise one who zooms out to 30,000 feet and sees how tiny everything really is. Wanda remembers our mortality, and reminds me that even Trump, and all the mental chaos he inspires, will fade away. In the end, none of this ego-stuff matters much. All we can do is tend our little anthill, do our work, and try to leave things a little better than we found them—before someone comes along and pours boiling water on the whole thing.
So that’s what I’ve been thinking about over the last 24 hours. This morning? I fed Sadie. Again. Serena and Wanda barely got a wave.
But writing this down is my first step back. I want to keep working with these parts. I want to listen to Serena. I want to sit with Wanda. And when Sadie gets loud again—which she will—I want to smile and say, Not today, Sadie.
Inspiration Location 