Working Through the Superiority Pattern

This is the heavy session. Clear your schedule. Block out up to 60 minutes of uninterrupted time as your upper bound, a notebook, and the willingness to be more honest with yourself than is comfortable. The shift is what ends the session, not the clock.

You’re going to run four questions against your superiority pattern — the specific one you identified two lessons ago. Not a general concept. Your actual pattern, the one that landed with a thud.

The Practice

You’ll cycle through four questions. Not in strict rotation — use whichever one has weight, then move to the next when that weight reduces. But make sure you hit all four repeatedly across the session.

Question 1: “How does [your pattern] make me superior?”

Use your specific item. If your pattern is intelligence: “How does my intelligence make me superior?” If it’s moral righteousness: “How does my moral integrity make me superior?”

You’re looking for the mechanism. Not just “it makes me feel better than people” — how, specifically? In what situations? With which people? What do you get to feel about yourself when the superiority kicks in?

Question 2: “How could I use [the pattern] to make myself right?”

This is about rightness specifically. How does this pattern ensure you’re never wrong? How does it guarantee that in any disagreement, any conflict, any ambiguous situation — you come out on the correct side?

Question 3: “How could I use [the pattern] to make others wrong?”

The flip side. How do you use this to invalidate others? To dismiss their perspectives, minimize their contributions, undermine their confidence? Not just the dramatic instances — the daily, subtle ways you use this pattern to position others as less-than.

Question 4: “What is it about them that makes them so wrong?”

This one cuts deep. Pick the people your pattern most frequently targets — the ones you most consistently rank below you — and ask this question about them. What is it about them that your pattern seizes on? What makes them such easy targets?

The answer to this question often reveals what you’re most afraid of in yourself. The things you make others wrong for are frequently the things you refuse to acknowledge in your own makeup.

How to Run It

Start with Question 1. Answer it honestly, specifically, with real examples. When the answers start to thin, move to Question 2. Same approach. Then Question 3. Then Question 4.

After running through all four, go back to Question 1. You’ll find new material. The first pass clears the surface. The second pass reaches deeper. The third pass — if you get there — hits bedrock.

Write everything down. Don’t edit. Don’t cross things out. Don’t write things in code because you’re afraid someone will read your notebook. This is between you and the pattern.

What to Expect

The first round or two is usually manageable. You’re accessing material you’ve partially looked at before. You might feel clever for being so self-aware.

As you keep cycling, it gets harder. You’ll start accessing instances you’d rather not remember. Times you used the pattern against someone who didn’t deserve it. Times it cost you something you can’t get back. The emotional weight increases.

Eventually one of two things happens. Either the pattern starts to loosen — you feel a shift, a lightness, an “oh” moment where you see the whole mechanism clearly for the first time — or you hit a wall. A place where the work stops and everything goes flat or confused.

If you hit a wall, back up and run Question 1 again. The wall usually means you’ve brushed up against something the pattern is protecting, and the way through is to come at it from a different angle.

If you get the shift, stop. Don’t push for more. The work continues between sessions on its own. Going past the shift to “deepen it” is past-the-shift and can reverse what you just got.

After the Session

Sit quietly for a few minutes. Drink some water. Don’t immediately call someone to tell them about your breakthrough. Let the session settle.

Over the next few days, you may notice the pattern activating in real time — catching yourself mid-superiority in a way you never did before. That’s the sign it’s working. Awareness precedes change.

Today’s Practice

Run the four questions using your specific superiority pattern. Stop when the pattern shifts — when it feels lighter or you can see it clearly without weight. Set a 60-minute timer as an upper bound, not a target:

“How does [your pattern] make me superior?” “How could I use [the pattern] to make myself right?” “How could I use [the pattern] to make others wrong?” “What is it about them that makes them so wrong?”

Write everything. Push past the comfortable layer. Stay with it even when it’s uncomfortable — but when you feel the shift, that’s your endpoint. The discomfort is the pattern being seen, and patterns that are fully seen lose their automatic power.