The Shift From Self Improvement to Self Mastery

0:00Speaker 1:We hear the self development tools a lot. Right, You've got your habits, your routines, your systems, you're journaling, but self mastery is not really a set of behaviors. It's just a way of being inside of your own life. Welcome to you A Really Good Cry podcast. A Really Good Cry is here to help you understand your body. You're confident in your skin, manage your emotions, and take back control of your health. Because growth doesn't always start with answers, Sometimes it starts with a really good cry.

0:24Speaker 1:Hello everyone, Welcome back to this week's episode of A Really Good Cry. I hope you have had such a wonderful, fantastic, brilliant, extravagant, delicious, phenomenal week. But I really do wish all those things for you, I must say, But I honestly have been reflecting so much on my own journey in this self development world that we all live in. You know, if you're someone that's trying to better yourself, you read the books, you listen to the podcast, you really are trying to create a better life for you and trying to understand what is it that makes you a better person. But I've been really reflecting on it in my own life, thinking God, am I really doing the work that I'm supposed to be doing, Like why does it still feel so unfulfilling? And I was struggling, and I kept feeling like I hadn't really done the work that I needed to feel how I wanted to feel, how I thought I would feel. And sometimes you can end up feeling so disheartened if you are doing all the things year or year, and that you still don't feel good in yourself.

1:22Speaker 1:And I've been hearing people talk about self mastery and I thought it was just another name for self development, or like the PhD version of it, but actually they're two completely different things. Self development is building habits, healing patterns, and becoming a better version of yourself. It's trying to improve who you are. But self mastery helps you to transform how you relate to who you are. So let me explain that a little bit more as we go along.

1:45Speaker 1:If you've ever felt like you've been doing the work for years and something still feels off, or like you're sharper, you're healthier, you're more disciplined, but somehow you still don't feel very free, this is probably why. And I don't think you're supposed to do one or the other. I actually think is the missing key, and that you're actually supposed to be doing them both at the same time. So I wanted to go into that a little bit more because feeling lost or unfulfilled is a really difficult feeling to have to go through in life, and why should you when there is this possibility of not feeling like that? And to be honest, I'm the type of person who likes to try everything because life is worth living and we want to live it feeling fulfilled and happy and feel like we're experiencing life the way that we want to. The essence of it runs on one core question, how can I improve myself? And in real life it sounds like I want to be more disciplined, I need better habits, I'm working on my confidence, I'm healing my attachment style. All those things that we really do need to be doing that are very useful. They

2:41Speaker 1:needed to help navigate the world, relationships, and life so much better. But the assumption hidden underneath it is this idea that there's always something to fix, upgrade, or perfect, So you're always feeling a little bit broken, and so sometimes you can end up feeling like your own little project, which you can feel a little overwhelming at times because you're like, when does this stop? When do I stop fixing myself? Or a self master isn't about improving who you are. It's about understanding who you are, observing the self, and ultimately not being controlled by it. And so this is really where the conversation moves away from psychology and more into philosophy based on ancient thoughts and philosophies like the bug Bagita. Self mastery is this sability to beat in relationships with your mind, your emotions, your body, your desires, your fears, your impulses, and your ego, but without being ruled by them. It's not becoming emotionless. It's not controlling everything.

3:30Speaker 1:It's not being perfectly healed, it's not never reacting, but it's the moment between that stimulus and that response getting wider. It says, you're not your thoughts, you're not your emotions, you're not your impulses, but you're creating the awareness behind them. So the question shifts from how can I improve myself to what is the self I'm trying to improve. It's when you feel anger, but you don't feel controlled by it. You notice it, you hold it, and then you decide what to do with it. You notice insecurity without spiraling into a forty five minute hostage situation in your own head.

4:00Speaker 1:You act with discipline, not because you're forcing yourself, but because you're no longer ruled by every distraction that pulls at you. You don't need constant validation because your sense of self isn't actually plugged into other people's opinions of you in the first place. This is the simplest way that I've understood the difference. Self development changes your behavior and it refines your identity. It works within the mind. Self mastery changes your relationship to your mind. Nevern so many times in my life where I felt like self development and all the things that come with it can become such a trap, feeling like I should be taking the boxes but not really getting to the depths of what it truly means. Listening to the podcast but not actually implementing them. It was kind of about the optics rather than the true depths that it requires to create a change of mindset that you need to feel better.

4:45Speaker 1:There's this Buddhist teacher who called this spiritual materialism the way that the ego co op spiritual and personal growth practices to really strengthen itself. So now you're not just successful, but you're evolved. You're not just attractive, you're self aware, you're not just productive, but you're heal well. And I've noticed this in myself before. The version of me that's doing the work can be just as performative as the version of me that wasn't doing any work at all, and sometimes more so because now it has this moral framework to defend itself with. I read this quote and I felt like it really related to this. It said, if your sense of self is always tied to who you're becoming, you never get to feel whole as you are.

5:21Speaker 1:And I was trying to think about how this would work in our everyday life, like how does self development show up differently to self mastery when it comes to things like relationships. I think self development is something like how do I communicate better? How do I express my needs? How do I set boundaries? But self mastery is why am I reacting at all? What part of me is being triggered right now? And can I witness it all before I act on it? The first one is about doing the relationship better. But the second one is about meeting the part of you that the relationship is exposing.

5:53Speaker 1:Both obviously matter, both need to be done, but notice that the second one doesn't require the other person to change for you to be okay. In work, self development can show up as productivity hacks, time blocking, discipline systems, you know, trying to optimize as much as possible. But in self mastery, it's focusing without the inner resistance, detaching from the outcome, doing the work because the work is yours to do, not because of what you will get out of it. And that's a really hard thing to try and wrap your head around. And it actually ties beautifully into one of the key messages of the bug with Gita and ancient text, and it says, do the action that is yours to do and release your attachment to the result, not because the results don't matter, but because tying your sense of self to the outcomes you don't fully control is just the fast tract to suffering.

6:37Speaker 1:In emotions, it can show up as regulate, reframe, journal it out, breath work, talk to your therapist, But with self mastery, it's more like observe without attachment. Let those emotions move through you instead of becoming you. So there's a big difference between I am sad and I'm noticing sadness in me. It sounds like semantics, but it isn't. One puts you inside of the weather and the other puts you on this mountain what the weather pass? And look, this whole episode could end up sounding a little bit spiritual vibes, woo woo, whatever you want to call it, like cool. Yeah, you're saying you're not your thoughts? What does that even mean? I've had that so many times, But the Vaidy takes I've been pointing at this for thousands of years saying that we can get there through introspection.

7:17Speaker 1:So I want to go into some of the deeper qualities that self mastery is based on. The first one is detachment. Detachment doesn't mean that you don't care. It means that you are no longer possessed by the outcome. You can want something really deeply without making your peace dependent on it. In real life, detachment sounds like I would love this opportunity, but my worth is not dependent on getting it. I really care about this person, but I can't control how they respond. I will give it my best, but I won't let the result decide who I am or how I feel about myself. The second one is self control, and self control is not suppression.

7:49Speaker 1:It's not saying I don't feel angry. It's saying I feel really angry, but I'm not gonna let anger choose my words for me. Self control is being able to pause before acting from your senses, whether it's hunger or fear, or jealousy, in security, last ego comparison resentment. It's basically not acting from impulse. It's not denying the emotion, but it's refusing to let that emotion become the driver of our life, which brings you onto the third concept, which is emotional regulation. Self mastering means that your emotions are allowed to exist, but they're not allowed to ruin your whole life and run it. You can feel grief without collapsing into hopelessness. You can feel feel without abandoning your path, and you can feel insecurity without seeking immediate validation. The goal is not to feel less. The goal is to be less controlled by what you feel, and so self mastery is definitely not the absence of all of these feelings and emotions. It's just this ability to meet all of them without handing them the keys to your life, without letting them control you. The next principle is discipline.

8:44Speaker 1:Discipline is a huge part of self mastery because it teaches the body and the mind that you can keep promises even when your mood changes. It's when your actions are led by your values, not your cravings or your immediate desires. So it looks like I may not feel like moving my body, but I really value my health. Or I want to react so badly, but I really value my piece. I want to scroll, but I value my focus and attention right now. And so it's seeing discipline as not being something punishing, but as seeing as devotion to the person that you are becoming or want to be. The next principle is awareness. Awareness is foundation of self mastery. You cannot master what you cannot see, and so this is the ability to notice your patterns in real time. Oh this is me people pleasing. Oh this is me trying to prove myself. Oh this is me spiraling because I feel rejected. Oh, I'm actually attaching my worth to this outcome, and it's making me feel like This awareness actually helps to create distance between you and the patterns that you've created. The next principle is ego mastery. Now, I think this is one of the

9:42Speaker 1:deepest parts. The ego wants to be right. It wants to be seen and wants to be praised. It wants to be chosen. It wants to be safe and in control. Self mastery is being able to notice when your ego is leading. So, for example, you don't need to win every argument. You don't need to be understood by everyone, and you don't need to prove your goodness. You don't need to make someone else wrong to feel secure, and you don't need to constantly feel validated to believe that you matter. And so self mastery is really working on all these things, noticing, observing, and then correcting. The next one is desire management, and so it's not about having no desires, it's having a clean relationship with desire. Desire becomes dangerous when it turns into attachment, addiction, or identity when you give into every single thing that your mind thinks, or feels or desires. And so a healthy desire says I want this, but attachment and an unhealthy desire says I need this to be okay, and so self mastery helps you to desire something sure, but not become enslaved by it. Whether it's food, attention, love, success, beuty, money, recognition.

10:41Speaker 1:None of these are bad, but when they control you, they become a cage that you live in. The next principle is a response over reaction. This is something I definitely have struggled with in my life, along with most of the other things we've just spoken about. But it's this ability to respond instead of reacting a reaction that's automatic, it's not thought out. A response is thought out, and con reaction comes from old wounds or past experiences, but a response comes from this present awareness. Your reaction says how do I make this feeling go away? But you're responding says, who do I want to be in this moment that I will be proud of in the next five minutes, ten minutes, five years down the line. The next one is in a steadiness. It's about being less easily thrown around by life. Praise doesn't make you arrogant, Criticism doesn't destroy you. Success doesn't make you forget yourself.

11:27Speaker 1:Foe doesn't make you hate yourself. This really beautiful word called economity is something that I heard years and years ago, and it really stays with me because I've seen people display the qualities of equanimity, this ability to stay steady throughout no matter what happens. There's no high high peaks, there's no low lows. It's just this ability to receive everything that's happening in your life and maintain equonomity, or maintain this flow that fine, it might go a little bit up and the little bit down, but there's no extremes in your life. And that's because you understand your relationship with things like failure, with things like success, with things like rejection, and you don't allow them to take control.

12:07Speaker 1:You allow yourself to observe them, observe how they're affecting your life. But you learn how to maintain this sense of self throughout all of that, and this sense of integrity to your values and your beliefs and who you are no matter what comes your way. And it's actually beautiful because it means that you're able to experience the world from a place of neutrality, and that takes a lot to do, but I have seen people do it. It's a beautiful thing to aspire to, and it doesn't mean the steadiness comes because life gets easier. It's just because you become more rooted, you become more steadfast in your practices, you become better at seeing the world in not through all of those painful things that you've experienced.

12:46Speaker 1:And then the last one is surrender. And this is really the spiritual layer, the hardest thing to do in life. Knowing what you can control and what you can't control and being okay with that. Usually we want to control what we can't control and use to avoid what we can control. And so it's knowing what is and what is not in your control. What is in your control is your effort, your attitude, your words, your choices, your integrity, you're discipline, your response. But what's not in your control is the outcome other people's opinions, timing and how fast or slow life goes, whether someone chooses you, how people perceive you, the past, everything unfolding exactly as you planned.

13:29Speaker 1:Surrender is not giving up. Surrender is just giving your best without trying to play god with the result. So I feel like we hear the self development tools a lot. Right. You've got your habits, your routines, your systems, You're journaling. But self mastery is not really a set of behaviors. It's just a way of being inside of your own life. So the practices are often subtler, and they sometimes can look like nothing from the outside. But here are four that I keep returning to in myself and my daily practices that I found are really useful. So the first one is watch one desire without immediately obeying it. And this is such simple daily practice. But whether it's your urge to check your phone, whether it's you want to interrupt someone or something. You want sugar, pause, you want gossip, pause, you want to send that reactive text, just pause, you want to avoid this uncomfortable task. Pause. You don't even have to deny yourself every time. But the practice is, can I feel this urge? Can I feel this desire without immediately responding. It's almost like when you think, oh my god, I really need to eat a sweetweet right

14:27Speaker 1:now because I've just feel stressed out. It's that okay, Well, why don't you just sit with the stress instead for a second and see what it's telling you. Where is the stress coming from? What are you actually trying to fulfill from that one hit of excitement or adrenaline your body, what is it you're actually feeling, and so being able to watch the desire and sit with it before succumbing to it is definitely an incredible practice, and you notice how you feel really rewarded in that moment when you do do it, when you do just sit with it rather than just tending to your desires, because sometimes, well a lot of the time, you end up deciding to just go with it and you regret it afterwards, and that's a sign that maybe you acted too fast in that moment. The second one is the pause before a reaction. Now, this is probably one of the most important ones. When something triggers, you practice creating space, so this isn't coming from a place of desire, but coming from a place of trigger. Before replying, defending, explaining, snapping, spiraling, or proving yourself, just take a pause, take a moment, and try and

15:24Speaker 1:observe and analyze. The third one is to practice detachment from an outcome. Now, this is really the buglergee to central instruction. Act fully but attached lightly. Pick one thing this week, a piece of work, conversation, or workout where you do it as completely as you can, and then practice releasing your desire or your grip on the outcome. You'll notice it mainly how much of your normal experience is contaminated by checking, monitoring, refreshing, and hoping, and that checking is actually putting yourself through so much suffering. And the last one is to just sit with yourself with no input. A lot of self mastery is increasing your capacity to be uncomfortable without escaping. So this could look like sitting in silence for five minutes. Let me tell you you're doing so much silent work lately. Just sitting with myself and the amount that it has been revealed to me through that is like nothing else. It looks like not grabbing your phone in a queue, letting yourself feel sadness without distracting you or any emotion, letting anxiety move through your body before trying to solve it or

16:21Speaker 1:mask it, holding a boundary even when guilt rises. So the question is can I say with myself even when this feeling is uncomfortable. So That's what I've learned so far about self mastery, and honestly, it's already in the time that I've been doing it feels like a much deeper, meaningful journey. Than a lot of the self development I've been doing is, and by the way, that doesn't take away from it. I think doing the journaling about the things that you are observing and making sure you have your morning routine and making sure you have those habits in place while doing this work, the inner work where you're actually in your mind, you're actually observing your mind while doing it, is really important. So I think both of these things together are important, but doing one without the other can make you feel like you're going through the motions but still feeling quite empty. And so I'll definitely update you guys on anything else that I find out about myself or I find helps me through this journey.

17:13Speaker 1:But it was really fun digging deep into it and has really helped me to create so much more depth in my practices, and I really do hope that it helps you do that too, Siddy, You're so much love and I hope you have such a wonderful, wonderful week.