“In the past, we humans have learned to control the world outside us, but we had very little control over the world inside us.” – Yuval Noah Harari
Quick heads up before we jump in:
I’m co-facilitating a retreat this weekend, so this will be our last email until I get back (probably Tuesday, but maybe Wednesday).
So let’s send ourselves into the weekend right, with three principles for Self-Mastery…
…Rapid-fire style:
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You are the sky, everything else is the weather.
You are not your thoughts or your feelings; you are what is looking at them.
So, practice separating from your inner experience and watching it like a movie:
Notice how it is always changing; no thought is permanent, no feeling is forever.
Even in stormy weather, the sky remains untouched.
“What you are aware of, you are in control of; what you are not aware of is in control of you.” – Anthony de Mello
***
Don’t believe your thoughts.
The untrained mind is like a dog off it’s leash, sniffing at everything it sees:
Chasing after stray thoughts, racing down rabbit holes.
But most of our thoughts are nothing more than energy bubbling up to the surface of the mind:
Random, arbitrary, irrational chatter to be treated as false until proven true.
Don’t let the dog walk you.
“One cool judgement is worth a hundred hasty councils.” – Woodrow Wilson
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Focus positive.
No circumstance is 100% good or 100% bad:
Every circumstance has upsides and downsides, and you will create more of the one you focus on.
Do not feed energy into realities you do not want to continue experiencing.
“You never can tell whether bad luck may not, after all, turn out to be good luck.” — Winston Churchill
***
Okay, that’s three.
Hit reply if you want more, and maybe we’ll make this a series.
In the meantime, have an awesome weekend over there.
– T
P.S. We dropped some heat this week.
If you missed anything, catch up here:
