Stuck arguing with your own mind? This ACT chessboard metaphor might help.
After years working in mental health, I have lost count of the metaphors that have crossed my path. Some land, most don't, and a few stay with you for good. The chessboard is one of the ones that stayed.
It comes from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and it is the tool I reach for most often when someone tells me they have been arguing with their own mind for years and losing.
The argument that never seems to end
Think of a thought that you get stuck on. Something like "I am not good enough."
Most of us respond the way we have been taught to: we fight it. We find the opposite thought and send it in. "No, I am good enough."
And your brain, which is very good at this, comes straight back. "What about that presentation where you forgot every one of your lines?"
So you counter. "Fair, but the report I handed in that same week was good."
"Sure, but you only got it in because someone else covered for you."
On it goes. You may have been at this particular argument for what feels like years.
How the ACT chessboard metaphor fits
Now put it on a chessboard.
The black pieces are the thoughts and feelings you would rather not have. The doubt, the shame, the overthinking at two in the morning. The white pieces are everything you send in to fight them. The reassurance, the evidence, the reasoning, the coping strategies, the pep talks.
They are lined up against each other and they are evenly matched, because both sides are you. You are the black pieces and you are the white ones. This is why the game never ends. Winning would mean one part of you finally defeating another part of you, and with certain stuck thoughts... that win feels like it never comes so long as you stay stuck within the confines of your own mind.
Now consider what it would be like to imagine yourself as the chessboard instead of the peices.
Be the board
The chessboard holds every piece on it. It has no side in the fight and nothing to prove, and it is not damaged by the game happening on top of it. It is in contact with all of it and it is not any of it at the same time.
The board can get up and move in a direction with the whole game still going on top of it.
You can go to the interview with "I am not good enough" still sitting there. You can text the friend you have been avoiding while your mind runs its case for why you have left it too long. You can sit down with your family for dinner without first requiring your brain to be quiet and cooperative. You can eat the bowl of ice cream covered in chocolate sauce while your brain says your are not allowed. The pieces come along. They just stop deciding where you go.
What this changes in a therapy session
When someone comes in exhausted from fighting their brain, the useful question is usually not "how do we get rid of this thought."
It is "what can you do today even if this thought came along for the ride?"
That is a very different conversation. It moves us off the board, where nothing has worked, and onto the question of what you actually want your life to look like. Often people already know the answer. We stop waiting to win the argument and try to find the path that has us acting in alignment with the life we want starting now.
Sometimes it is enough to notice the game is happening, without the pressure to make it stop. To reconnect with what is in front of you. To talk about the worry with someone instead of debating it alone. Occasionally, to laugh at the persistence of a brain that will run the same argument again and again.
For those who have worked with me in eating disorder treatment, this example reminds me of one our favourite phrases - "Feel the fear and do it anyways".
Letting your thoughts happen, and choosing to be in your life anyways can be a radical decision when you've been stuck in your mind waiting for permission for way too long.
The chessboard metaphor comes from the original ACT work of Steven Hayes, Kirk Strosahl and Kelly Wilson. Russ Harris has a short video explaining it beautifully, which is well worth a few minutes if you would like to see it laid out visually.
If any of this sounds like the loop you have been stuck in, this is the kind of work I do with clients in person and online. You are welcome to get in touch by submitting a contact form here.