Evolution of Self Mastery
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by James Rick
In my quest for self mastery I have observed that you become a master of the self, level by level. By knowing them in advance, you can save yourself the frustration of trying to master a level before you are ready. Imagine if you tried to break a stack of bricks with your forehead before you could successfully chop one brick with your hand- painful indeed (And unnecessary).
Although I have observed these principles with great clarity I am by no means a ‘master’ of all of them. I have experienced the benefit of each and I now strive to maintain consistency. Consistency is the holy grail of self mastery, requiring great effort but yielding even greater rewards.
Here’s my disclaimer. Some of the exercises I may present to you might seem a little ridiculous. Try to look past the ridiculousness and see the power in them. Do them with the understanding you’re now about to receive and see if you feel differently. I encourage you to observe and experiment with the following exercises for at least the next seven days to build on consistency.
WHY DO YOU HAVE TO DEMONSTRATE POWER?
How can you demonstrate power in a situation where you have no power? That’s the key to making this work. When you repeatedly demonstrate power over your self, you are master.
You’ll notice I use the word over your self. That’s because the self I speak of is your temporary body and brain. It has been using you for its own desires, programmed over millions of years and disillusioned by a man made reality. This is what’s known as living in ignorance. Most people have been living in the back seat of the horse carriage – experiencing one wild ride. It stops when they first become aware.
It’s like the *Observer suddenly looks over at the Ego driving the horses and says, “What the heck are you doing?”
The Ego shrugs its shoulders.
The Observer grabs the reigns and says, “Give me that!”
This is of course an elementary metaphor for the process of self mastery. I dive into it much deeper in my other work. But that basic description should suffice for this post. The
(*the Observer represents Soul, Prana, Chi, Life Force, and Spirit – whatever you want to call it.)
LEVEL 1: DEMONSTRATE POWER OVER THE SENSES
This is the most basic level of self mastery. Anyone can do this – no matter how lazy they are. That’s the point! You have to start your demonstration of power where you have power. These demonstrations of power over the senses will appear most basic and perhaps ridiculous. Do them anyway.
Level 1 Exercise: Touch the wall
Reach out and touch the wall next to you. Every time you touch the wall for no apparent reason – you’ll throw your brain for a loop.
“Why did you do that?” Your brain asks logically.
Because “I am in control” you say. I touch the wall even when there is no need to touch the wall because I am exercising the control I have over my arm and finger.
“Why in the world would you need to do that?” Your brain asks logically.
Because this prepares me for controlling my body during the times when you don’t want to cooperate! You respond back playfully.
Key point: This silly exercise prepares your body to be controlled by the ‘true you’, during those times that the brain doesn’t desire to cooperate, or is tempted to do something you (the Observer) know isn’t best for your self.
Other exercises at Level 1 may include:
- Stand straight and tall, smiling in the mirror for five full minutes. Do this for one week. This not only disciplines your entire body and mind but has dramatic physiological effects as well. (It’s impossible not to feel better.)
- Take a cold shower. This time you feel your body resist the cold water before you turn it on. Now you are acting with pure conscious intention. Your body desires the water to be warm but you act with will power to turn it on cold. Turn on the cold water anyway and say, “I’m in charge.” At first it will feel uncomfortable – but recognize that cold water is nothing more than an electrical impulse playing out on your body’s nervous system being represented in your mind as a ‘cold’ experience. Play with this idea. (One disclaimer: Don’t do any stupid or dangerous exercises. The point at this level is to demonstrate control over your brain or body’s desires with simple exercises. This is not to turn you into a masochist. This is also not meant to be a proving ground for your Ego to impress others. In fact keep these experiments private to resist the temptation to bring Ego into the picture – otherwise your intention to master the self may become something far less desirable such as to impress others. If you ever discuss your simple demonstrations of power in an effort to impress others, you will effectively destroy your chances of ever breaking free of the Ego and mastering your self at a higher level.
I’m sure you can think of plenty of other exercises on your own. Here are a few more ideas: You could write down 20 times, “I will write this sentence for no other reason than to prove I have power over what I write.” You could say 20 times, “I will say this sentence for no other reason than to prove I have power over what I say.” You could jump up and down 20 times and say, “I will do this 20 times for no other reason than to prove I have power over what I do with my entire body.”
This first level is like a self mastery boot camp that sets the stage for much more powerful levels to come.
LEVEL 2: DEMONSTRATE POWER OVER YOUR SPEECH
In the last lesson you took responsibility for what you say – 100%. You proved to yourself that you and only you control what you say. And you can say complete nonsense as much as you want; which also means that you can filter negative words coming out of your mouth before they ever reach vocalization. How? Awareness. You must be aware of what you’re saying in order to catch yourself saying something negative! This level teaches you greater awareness. How can you ever master your self if it’s running on auto pilot?
Remember the horse carriage example? How can you ever stop the horse carriage from going over the cliff unless you step in and grab the reigns? If you’re not aware – your Ego could drive it right over the cliff. You have to see it’s not going in the direction you desire and then take action to change its course.
Same thing with your speech- unless you start making deliberate attempts to control what you say – you are letting your brain and body run away with you. Autopilot is dangerous! You must exert all necessary effort to stop the flow of negativity at your mouth. This awareness makes it possible to trace the pattern of negative energy into the mind. It all starts here.
Key Point: Unless you can learn to demonstrate power over your words don’t even try any of the “think positive” stuff. The brain is a stronger beast than the mouth. If you have difficulties don’t despair. Just go back to Level 1 and in your private time do some pretty ridiculous exercises to take control of your mouth. Show it who’s in charge!
After you learn to filter the negative words, pretty soon you’ll find it impossible to entertain negative thoughts for very long. You’ll catch yourself the moment after negative words flow out of your mouth. And then you’ll catch yourself before they flow out of your mouth. And then you’ll trace that energy all the way up into your brain and this takes us to the next level.
LEVEL 3: DEMONSTRATE POWER OVER YOUR MIND
It’s much easier to observe things outside of us. We react to situations around us all the time. If a ferocious lion with giant teeth was roaring in your face it would be pretty hard not to notice it.
You may have the equivalent of a ferocious lions in many different aspects of your life. They distract you. They seem so real or dangerous. They drag your awareness into the past or urge it out into the future. The problem with this is your awareness can only thrive in the present. If you find yourself distracted by the past or future- your power is gone. Awareness is your only power over the mind. And so mastering the mind can only happen in this moment. It’s all you have.
By catching your speech in level 2, you can follow it up into the brain and ask questions like – Why caused me to want to say this? And perhaps for the first time, deeply engrained thought patterns will begin to emerge. They will be based on beliefs, perceptions and values that could be totally false and may not serve you at all. And for the first time if you’re honest with yourself – you may realize that! This awareness will instantly rewire the brain. Zap! In that moment you regain some power and a negative thought pattern begins to die.
It happens so fast you will hardly notice it! This is the power of awareness though. It works instantly in the moment. It’s not a long drawn out process. When you turn on a light in a room, it’s not a “process” for the light to fill the room. It just happens instantly with one little click. Consider everything you touch with your awareness to have that kind of instantaneous effect on it. Click – when the light turns on baby – only the truth will stand.
Demonstrating power over the mind is far more challenging than demonstrating power over speech. You better be prepared! At first it will be a battle of dethroning the mind. It could be powerful from so much autopilot training. And you could be just regaining your strength after training yourself through Level 1 and 2.
One of the best exercises for demonstrating power over the mind is a little breathing exercise. It’s a great ‘starter’ meditation in case you’ve never meditated before. It’s very simple yet very effective. Here’s how it’s done:
You commit to focusing on nothing but your breath for 10 complete breaths. It’s very important you are absolutely clear about your intention. If you start this exercise half-assed you are going to get a half assed result. This is also a great exercise for focus. Rarely do we ever FULLY apply ourselves to one task. This is an exercise you have to learn how to do with complete focus. Here’s why – You have to get to 10 full breaths without thinking of anything else. If you think of something else you have to start back at #1. Sounds easy enough right? Try it. You’ll learn a great deal about yourself in this one small exercise. For example:
- You may learn for the first time, that without a doubt that you are not in control of your mind. What do I mean? You gave your brain a direct order! You committed to focusing on 10 breaths and nothing else. Yet when you actually conduct the exercise for the first time your brain goes off on its own track! Some master you are. Who is the master right now? The brain!
- You may learn the difference between effort and real effort. After you have to start back at the first breath from getting distracted a few times – you may grow a little frustrated. At some point if you stick with it, you’ll say to yourself, “This time I’m going to get to 10 without thinking of anything else!” You really have to apply some major effort to get there! So much energy in fact that if you’re like me, your body will be buzzing with energy when you’re done.
Odds are you won’t even get there during the first time you sit down and try this, so don’t give up! Learn persistence. Using breath to control the mind is the foundation of awareness.
What’s great about this exercise is that you can actually mark progress. For example if you know you got to 4 breaths the first time, if you get to 5 breaths the next time you know you’ve improved. If you stop doing the meditation for a month and start again and you can only get to 3 breaths – you’ll know you’ve actually become weaker!
In time you should make your goal 20 breaths without thinking of anything else. This exercise has incredible relaxation and renewing benefits as well – even in attempting to do this right. So you will experience immediate side benefits like greater energy and greater peace. You’ll notice the mind will begin to slow down the more you do this exercise. This is an important observation to make. You have to first learn how to slow down the wheel of the mind before you can focus on anything worthwhile. If you try to focus on something without first slowing down the wheel of the mind – your efforts will end in frustration. This applies to both your outer and inner world. The outer meaning any goals you want to achieve. The inner applies to greater self exploration, focused visualization etc.
There’s a vastly greater inner world that remains undiscovered territory for most people. Only in dreams they soon forget do they experience their inner world. When you begin to demonstrate true power over the mind – you cannot help but become more aware of your inner world and experience greater intuition from a previously unknown dimension or greater unity with all things. You may also notice a sharp increase in dream recall ability and greater control in your dreams. You may also notice you start to give dreams and other internal feelings more weight in your experience than you used to.
This may sound a bit esoteric right now. I certainly don’t mean to ‘program’ your experience. I’m simply doing my best to prepare you for the transition away from the outer roaring of the lions to the inner silence of the lamb.
LEVEL 4: DEMONSTRATE POWER OVER IMPULSE
Impulses at first appear instantaneous and uncontrollable – this is not the case. With greater awareness on your side, you are now prepared to demonstrate power over impulse. Because there are different levels of impulsive behavior – it’s best to approach this level as a gradual evolution in itself.
Impulsive behavior falls under two main categories learned impulses (habits) and instincts (pre-existing).
Learned Impulses
Learned impulses are behaviors you allowed to go on for so long the brain now generally accepts them as the ‘default’ action whenever the proper stimulus presents itself. The brain thrives on patterns. It is a prediction based machine. That’s why past data is so important to the brain. It uses the past to predict the future. It is an extremely efficient machine in this way. Any time it can save itself computing power at the conscious level – it does. Habits are the result of the brains efficiency in determining best course of action – without including “you” in the decision making. The only problem with this approach is that you may have made some choices in the past when you were pretty ignorant and now with more wisdom you wouldn’t make the same decisions again. This is where awareness gives you the ability to correct those patterns – but they don’t disappear overnight. You now have to retrain your brain through conscious effort until a new pattern emerges as the “automatic choice”. Once it does – you no longer have to exert much effort to maintain it. When you understand how this mechanism works it can be your greatest ally.
Instinctive Impulses
Instincts come “hardwired” into the system. You really had no choice in the matter. Your ancestor’s habits became hard wired into your system as the best-chance-for survival-automatic-response. Our instincts must have been invaluable to survival – look – here we are. However it appears we (the human species) were endowed with awareness as a powerful adaptation tool. What I mean is – even though the instinctive program appears to have been pre-written before your birth – it also appears modifiable to the extent that you choose to go in and work on it. Which means – even instincts can be rewired!
Knowing that both impulsive behaviors can be controlled through awareness and effort makes for some good news and bad news. The good news is you can master your impulses. The bad news is you no longer have any excuses.
Skeptics may argue that while learned impulses can be changed instinctive impulses cannot. The fact of the matter is you always have power to give pause between stimulus and response. The impulse may always exist, but in that moment of desire- or in that moment of rage or in that moment of jealousy – you have the power to pause and choose the best course of action.
If you do this enough times – you retrain the brain to skip the impulsive action and perform the chosen action. You reroute the path of stimulus and response until it becomes a new habit. I hypothesize that over enough generations the newly chosen action will become instinct. This is how I believe we came to possess them in the first place.
It’s important to note that when you begin to control impulsive behavior you are entering a high degree of self mastery. This is like having the ability to crack stacks of bricks on your forehead. You’re getting pretty good. Although this is not a difficult level to achieve if you’ve prepared through the levels as I’ve explained.
For the exercises in this level we’ll start with some ‘easier’ impulsive behaviors and escalate.
Demonstrate Power over Impulse Exercises
- Saturday is Sweet Day – You don’t have to give up sweets. Just set a day, once a week that you will eat anything that has sugar in it. The purpose here is not to lose 100 lbs. The purpose is to plan when you will enjoy the things you desire instead of acting on impulse. Does this make sense? By planning you are making a conscious decision to do something. There will be times during the week you are tempted to eat or drink something with sugar in it and instead of feeling deprived- you can look forward to indulging yourself on Saturday. Although this may be hard your first week, this will develop the discipline you require to master harder impulsive behaviors. When you decide to start this program, you must commit to this fully!
And trust me on your first Saturday you’ll want to go wild like I did – go ahead and indulge yourself. This will only happen for a few weeks and pretty soon Saturday becomes the only day you have sweets and you’ll notice your brain will sail through most days without giving sweets a second thought. There will be a few temptations every once in a while but by setting a day (Saturday) with few PRE-PLANNED exceptions (birthdays) you will be demonstrating great power over your impulses with this exercises.
You will also notice that after your system has begun to clear up, what used to be ‘normal’ doses of sugar for your body feels like poison. You may not have noticed it before because you were in a chronic state of sugar overdosing. But once you start this exercise and become healthier you won’t want to go back.
You can try this exercise of pre-planning with other unhealthy habits you’ve been trying to quit. When the urge to do something strikes you – don’t give you. Only do it at the pre-planned time. You can slowly push the time out further and further until you have grown powerful enough to push it away forever.
One very important point – you have to commit to pre-planning over impulsive behavior. If you give in even just a little bit you are greatly going to handicap your efforts. At this point it’s like walking across a high bridge between two mountains. You have to go all the way. Don’t even attempt to cross the bridge if you’re not ready to make it to the other side. Be honest with yourself BEFORE you cross. Don’t make any half-hearted attempts to quit something because of external pressures. You must convince yourself of your inner resolve – otherwise you demonstrate your lack of power to your self and impulsive behaviors gain the upper hand. If you’ve experienced these personal let downs – you know how much harder it is to make a promise to your self the next time. That’s okay. If you find controlling impulsive behavior difficult you should probably go back to Level 3, 2 or even 1 until you feel you’re truly ready to cross whatever bridge you want to cross.
One final point on this – it helps to maintain discipline if you have other motivating forces besides discipline itself. For example you should develop a strong belief in health by visiting a local hospice or read some strong ‘anti-sugar’ material and learn what it does to your body before you attempt to quit it. Anything you can do to give yourself additional power before you make the commitment. Once you make the commitment – there’s no turning back.
LEVEL 5: DEMONSTRATE POWER OVER EGO
The Ego is in everything. It’s not just an over inflated sense of worth or arrogance. The Ego is the energy that holds the concept of individuality together. It forms the “I’ in I. It is the sum of all parts. Everything you think is your thoughts, say is your words or do as your deeds. Everything you own, everything you worship. Anything you call your own is the product of Ego. You the Observer, observe this happening through the brain. Because you are so close to the process of Ego, you can become confused and believe you are the Ego. Believe you are the body. Believe you are the mind. You can become trapped and caught on one wild ride, hanging on for dear life; seeking only to have peace with your self. Peace is only a breath away; in the awareness that you are separate from your identity. You can play with it, change it – mold it into anything you want. Instead of feeling like a victim you can begin to see yourself as a wonderful creator. The best friend of your self – you get to tinker inside the box and reprogram the way the self behaves. You have the power to raise your awareness, relieve your own unnecessary suffering and spread as much love and positive energy that you can to others. That is the essence of your experience.
The concept of Ego can be abstract. We are talking about an energy here.
If the energy of Ego could be expressed visually you would see it grow or shrink and become more defined in every interaction. Your relationships define you. When you give to a beggar – you are defining yourself, your identity. Whether you tell anyone or not – you know who you are. This relationship with Ego is the most intimate experience you will ever have. But you must take the drivers seat. You must dethrone this Ego energy and lead it through awareness. Why? Because that’s the only way you’re ever going experience your life at your full potential. If you let the Ego guide your path you’ll be so distracted with labels, identities, beliefs, achievements, etc. you’ll lose your way. The guiding principle here is this: If you can imagine yourself living a higher level than you are now – why would you settle at a level any less than that?
To demonstrate power over the Ego you have to kill it in various ways. This is not suicide. This is death to the Ego energy. And it will only die for a short while before it comes back to life again. It’s like one of those trick candles that goes out for a few seconds and sparks back up again. In those precious moments when you’ve killed the Ego you will notice a total peace. In the absence of Ego energy you find your core. You are not distracted by the roaring lions that the Ego produces.
Exercises for killing the Ego
- Challenge Rejection. I suggest you start with one simple empowering act in public. If you fear public speaking – do it. If you fear approaching the opposite sex – do it. If you fear communicating with someone you’ve had a conflict in the past with – do it. All these resistances to express ourselves are born out of Ego and its fear of rejection.
Rejection has a strong recoiling effect inside the Ego energy. You will notice it instantly. It doesn’t feel good. It tries to avoid rejection at all costs because it finds it painful to shrink. It constantly builds itself up because even though that growth may be temporary, it finds it pleasurable. Rejection is a no-no in the Ego’s book. In this exercise you have to learn to act in spite of rejection.
To challenge rejection is truly rare. It goes against the natural tendencies of Ego to gain acceptance and significance from other Egos. Rejection has such a powerful shrinking effect on the Ego, that emotions such as rage or hatred were used to counter it. So we are truly playing with fire in this exercise – but because you’re doing it consciously you are much less likely to react with impulse. In fact you may find this quite liberating. Try it – entertain yourself. Experience something new. And immediately after the event you need to write down what you learned from the experiment. Notice how your body instinctively reacts to fear or embarrassment. Notice that it’s not you running the show. Why should you care if you blush? If your palms sweat? If you can barely breathe? Are these reactions useful? If not – why do they exist? Be like a scientist questioning your self about the social dynamics that used to cause so much friction in your past. You will emerge a better communicate and a better leader. You will have more opportunities to express yourself if you wish. Every time you begin to feel uncomfortable around others don’t be afraid – get curious! Why does it happen? What can you learn from it? Death to the Ego is certain the more you question why it behaves in such a childish manner.
LEVEL 6: DEMONSTRATE CONSISTENCY
Self mastery is a daily process. It’s like lifting weights, the stronger you get the more heavy weights will seem lighter. This is a tricky situation that can cause you to get over confident. When life is good it’s easy to go on auto-pilot. Auto-pilot is always dangerous! No matter how much the sun lights your path – your carriage can always go over a cliff when you’re not at the reigns. Awareness is the key to staying on track.
And the track itself is a daily structure for your life. Only you can really formulate what that might be but I’ll give you a few suggestions.
Form Your Daily Vitamin
I recommend you do these three things every day, no excuses.
A. Meditate – Schedule a time in the morning or evening to do the breathing meditation. Research other forms of meditation and schedule time each day for it.
B. Read – Develop a deep frame of reference about the world around you. A wise captain once said “the most effective leaders are those who know the battlefield.” We are talking about the battlefield of reality. Learn all you can from many different perspectives. Read empowering material every day – it’s the best thing you can do to improve your station in life. It silently rewires the mind behind the scenes.
C. Exercise – The body evolved to be extremely active every day. Sedentary lifestyles are the most hazardous thing to your health and your mind. New studies link physical activity to stronger brain function. If you don’t have a gym, jump, kick, hop.
Remember – if you have a challenge getting started or maintaining any of the above activities, remember the Level 1 demonstration. You have complete power over your body. Just because the brain might be unwilling doesn’t mean you can’t get yourself to touch the wall – or breathe 10 times, or pick up that book, or get that body moving in some way. You have all the control – you just have to commit to taking the action! Touch a wall right now – remind yourself you control the body. No excuses!
One last thing to keep your daily system on track – plan each night before you go to bed. You may have heard this before – but don’t just understand this. Do it. Use a blank sheet of paper – think about what’s important in the days and weeks ahead. Ask yourself the question, “What really is the most valuable thing I should be working on in my life right now?” The answer may surprise you. Write it down, estimate the time and schedule it somewhere.
You don’t have to worry about being inflexible – the main point of this exercise is to get your mind constantly thinking about your highest value activities for the day so you have top of mind awareness. You’ll find them getting done far more often than if you simply let the day go where it may.
Be pro-active. Plan the night before. Develop a system and follow it daily. And don’t let vacations throw you off track – still maintain the habit of planning! Just plan fun things – but still keep the habit alive so you can maintain it when you get back on track. This is so important – a daily structure for your life is vital to successful life mastery. Plan this now! Refer back to the lessons if you need to and use this as a guide to live your full potential.
One Response to “Evolution of Self Mastery”
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May 3rd, 2007 at 11:05 am
WOW!
I logged on to get a “appetizer” for my soul and found myself partaking in a full blown buffet!
This will take some time and it will feed my soul at every level….with my commitment.
Thank you! I shall go into my castle and start my meal.
You are a wonderful “chef”, I enojoy every meal you provide!
YUMMY for me!
JP