The Demon Named Part X

To show my students the power of negative thinking, I tell them how I lost my first girlfriend. Convinced she was dissatisfied, I kept asking every ten minutes, “You’re leaving me, aren’t you?” or “Are you leaving me?” After three days of this, she finally did. My paranoia became prophecy, and I smugly congratulated myself: “Nothing gets past me!”

In Lessons for Living, therapist Phil Stutz explains how negative thinking snowballs into catastrophe, giving paranoia the illusion of truth. This is the self-fulfilling prophecy, the negative feedback loop. “Your mind is broken,” he writes. “If you bought an appliance that worked this poorly you would be at the store demanding a refund. But there is no return policy for your brain.”

Repair, Stutz insists, begins by naming your adversary: a virus lodged in your psyche he calls Part X. This “inner demon,” he writes, “is part of your psyche, and it has an agenda all its own.” Its goal is to stop you from living in reality, to trap you in stillness, fixation, and spiritual death. The universe is always in motion; Part X hates that. It wants stagnation, dullness, nihilism.

Here lies the trap: nihilism flatters you into thinking you’re special—outside the flux of life, aloof from change. You cling to helplessness, self-pity, resentment. The deeper you sink, the more Part X convinces you that your paralysis proves your uniqueness. You become skilled in negative thinking until, as Stutz puts it, “You no longer respond to the world, you merely react to what X tells you about the world. Spiritually blinded, you are totally alone.”

How to break free? Gratitude. “You must find a force in your soul that is even stronger than the power of negative thinking. The force is gratefulness.” Gratitude anchors you in reality; it cuts through the fever swamp of negativity. Addicts illustrate the opposite: whether it’s cocaine, alcohol, or endless Internet porn, their obsession isolates them from the universe and community. Addiction is the triumph of Part X. Negative thinking itself is a kind of addiction.

The antidote is connection—to reality, to others, to the larger universe. Gratitude means humility: admitting you’re not an island. Unlike “positive thinking,” which projects fantasies into the future, gratitude keeps you rooted in the present. Stutz urges immediacy: “Try this. For about thirty seconds, think of things for which you’re grateful. Not just the big things; focus on everyday things we often take for granted.”

I’m grateful for organic coffee beans, for my morning ritual of brewing coffee beside my radio tuned to classical music. I’m grateful I can digest my buckwheat groats and protein powder before my hour-long kettlebell workout, then shower, shave with fragrant cream, eat a clean lunch, and nap before “Part 2” of my day. These are not small things. They are the fabric of a life.

The more gratitude you practice, the stronger your defenses against Part X. Gratitude trains your mind into motion, aligned with the universe’s own flux. Stutz even calls it prayer: “Independent of your personal spiritual beliefs and practices, you have led the mind beyond itself, making it a bridge into a higher place.”

Here Stutz blends psychology with the language of religion—gratitude, humility, prayer, liberation from Jonah-like isolation inside the belly of the Leviathan. His message: escape the solitary prison of negative thought by opening yourself to a reality larger than you.

I write about Stutz with ambivalence. His wisdom feels real, his tools practical. Yet part of me suspects a New Age sleight of hand: a watered-down religion that borrows sin (Part X), prayer, and humility while dodging the harsher demands of faith—judgment, accountability, sacrifice. Is his system merely the good parts of religion without the bite? Or am I letting my own negative thinking sneak in through the back door, looking for reasons to resist his wisdom?