Turner - War of Self: The 7 Weapons of Self-Mastery

Real glory springs from the silent conquest of ourselves.

Joseph P. Thompson

Introduction

Take responsibility for your life. No one else is going to live it for you. Freedom and your pursuit of happiness are your birthright. No one can take them away from you. Every one of us has the power to create his or her own destiny. Sadly, too many of us give this power away. We fall into conformity at the expense of creativity. We adopt mediocrity, instead of striving for excellence. Rather than taking an equal seat at the community table, we submit to the demands of authority. We learn to feel small and insignificant in the face of those we believe to be greater than us. All of this is illusion.

Self-mastery is the way to reclaim your birthright. It is the way to live a creative life. Mastering ones self is a move away from the anxious habit of comparing yourself to others. It is a leap out of the millennia-long fight for pecking order that continually leads to societal inequities and warfare. While social hierarchies and competitive drive will, no doubt, continue to be a part of the human drama, it is no longer a prime motivator for one who masters himself. No one tells the self-master how to live her life; she is truly free.

Mastery is a process that gradually peels back the layers of personal limitation and self-deception. It is an endeavor to examine our preconceived notions and unconscious beliefs. A self-master is someone who commits his life to excellence, someone who is continually learning, and growing. Because of this, the self-master has insights that other people dont.

Most people spend a lot of time deceiving themselves, which is why they are easily deceived by the world around them. On the other hand, by getting to know themselves better and understanding their internal strengths and weaknesses, self-masters begin to see more clearly in the world. True masters know that they are not perfect. They know that mastery is not a static destination; its not someplace where they ever arrive. Thus, true masters are also humble, not self-proclaimed experts. This is why they are good people to have in the community.

The self-master knows that the shadowed corners of the unconscious mind can be hiding spots for personal demonsdemons are mental habits or beliefs that keep us asleep to our potential. With the thoroughness of a detective, we all must move into the darkened domain of our unconscious minds and face what awaits us there. We must proceed into the shadows with courage, directing the light of awareness into those forgotten places.

In a world that craves fast fixes and instant gratification, the path of self-mastery can feel like a tedious one. Freedom takes work. It is not easy to probe the depths of unaddressed emotional baggage that weighs us down and keeps us from the remarkable. Poorly formed assumptions about how to live have been hammered so deep into us that we often think our ideas are our own. Most of the time, they are not.

When you face your fears, you gradually grow stronger. The more old wounds are mended, the more you will feel the fragments of yourself coming together. The path of self-mastery is about becoming whole again. As you pick up the pieces, the glimmer of your best self emerges. After putting in the work, you become the radiant being you were meant to be. When there are more of us searching for self-mastery, the world around us will become more enlightened as well.

We have much more potential to do and be great people than how we usually act. As we deepen our understanding of ourselves, a new level of personal power develops. Many people are not prepared for the level of responsibility that comes with a self-directed existence. Most of us have been conditioned by our upbringing, schooling, personal relationships, and employment to believe that something is missing from our souls. Its as if nothing we ever do will be good enough, and no matter what we do, we will always be insignificant. As a result, insecurity is planted deep within our psyches from an early age. Like a psychic virus, these insecurities continually tell us that we just arent good enough to deserve a happy life. We become accustomed to carrying around a lot of unnecessary baggage filled with broken hearts, disappointment, regret, and resentment.

Worse yet, many of us are unaware of how our lives are hijacked by this ubiquitous mind virus. Discussing the problems of modern society, Carl Jung estimated that for every person diagnosed with a mental illness, there are ten more with latent cases. So if youre reading this right now thinking that you dont have any real issues, think again. Even the most well-put-together people I know have their problems. We all have work to do. The sooner we get honest with ourselves, the better our lives will become. Uncover your baggage, question your insecurities, and heal from emotional pain. You are more than all of that. Paying close attention to your inner landscape yields amazing results.

The symptoms of insecurity are impulsiveness, procrastination, self-doubt, denial, and the tendency to blame other people and external events for personal setbacks. When we use external things as an excuse for not doing what we need to do, we create blind spots in our psyche. We start to believe that its other peoples problems that make the world the way it is, not us. We cuss, fight, and proclaim the unfairness of the world. We cry over the failures and frustrations we experience.

When that doesnt work, we sink into apathy or depression. Many of us medicate our moods with junk food, caffeine, alcohol, sex, or drugs. Or we talk negatively and criticize other people who seem to be worse off than us if only to feel that we have it a little better. But at best, all of this only numbs the pain a bit. The ache of discontent still remains beneath the surface. Even emotionally stable individuals will crumble and start acting like third graders when the right buttons get pushed. What we need to do is find a better way. We need to grow up.