Can you be the best version of yourself around people who bring out the worst in you? Is it worth trying to imagine that you can be?
Who are those people? The ones that see you at your most hostile, most volatile, most emotionally explosive?
Your family? People at school? Your friends, even? Coworkers? Your boss? ANYONE who messes with your money, or your time as it relates to how much money you can earn? Bartenders? Bouncers?
If you’re a gamer, and your significant other destroys your progress or throws your gaming system out the window into the sprinkler system as it starts to water the lawn. He or she destroys your investment of not only $100’s or $1,000’s of dollars but also hours and hours and hours of time, energy, effort, RAGE even to build up your gaming history and credibility – how would you respond?
Are you being honest with yourself or are you watering down your answer?
What if someone ruined your career the way one can pick up your gaming system and throw it down onto a sidewalk from 10 stories up?
Would you blame them or yourself? Or would you try to see both sides of the situation reasonably?
Be honest here…
You would want them to experience the same kind of trauma and emotional damage they inflicted on you, wouldn’t you? Even if you didn’t have the guts to bring that kind of pain down on them directly, you would hope for some kind of karmic retribution. That would be the thought and prayer that most people present in order to console you.
Are you proud of who you are in those moments when people “bring you out of character” or “make you” “act out of pocket”? When they see you at your most emotionally reactive and explosive?
Do you want to be?
Do you think it is worth becoming someone who can handle hardship without losing every ounce of emotional control and impulse – except maybe the one that stops you from actually doing the thing you wish someone else would do for you?
I believe there is great power and authority in being able to face the worst moments of your life with dignity, grace, and a respectful demeanor. That is where true power comes from.
But does it always mean being calm? Does it always mean smiling, not saying a word, and letting other people just do whatever they want to do to you?
Does it mean being able to stop them as easily as a spider catches a fly in the web he had already been spinning?
Or is it something else entirely?
I want to be clear here – Money can’t buy the kind of presence that we are defining.
The best money can do is hire someone to be present for you, that you hide behind like a shield. Or, if you’re intelligent in anyway shape or form, you’ll hire someone to TEACH you how to CULTIVATE this presence within yourself of your own honor and merit.
Why?
Because. It’s important to be able to navigate the world with mastery. As a Master of the Self.
Why wouldn’t that be important?
This mastery of the self is definitely not something we are born with. It is something we must learn how to cultivate. It is not handed to any one of us. It is not something any of us are entitled to, and yet on some level the best of us desire it. We recognize it’s value eventually.
That cold, steely ability to face every challenge and just Smile. Knowing just what to do or where to turn when it comes looking for you.
If you have that level of self-control, any money you earn will be more valuable than anything you can amass from a place of desperation.
That takes time to cultivate. It takes effort. Training. Adversity. Overcoming hardship. It comes from wisdom. Maturity. Yes, it comes with age, but age doesn’t guarantee anything except another year on the calendar between you and the day you were born.
When you imagine your most controlled self, the one that no one ever pulls away from your center of gravity and stability, the one that no one else ever knocks off balance, what does that look like?
I’m talking about calm, peaceful warrior that nobody messes with because they know they will lose. Even if they try to mess with you, you always address the threat at the level that is warranted.
More importantly, how does it feel to embody that level of power, authority, wisdom, and self-control?
The Chinese grandmother who, instead of being frail and feeble, can walk through a crowd and the crowd moves around her rather than knocks her down.
Going to family Thanksgiving, a holiday culturally accepted in the US as symbolizing peace and harmony, but in actuality is a day your family gets into fights over politics or anything emotionally charged. Can you imagine being the eye of the storm instead of the cause of it, or a cow caught in a tornado? Or is that possibility out of reach for you, sister or brother reading this?
Can you imagine not only sitting back and watching the drama, but when it presents itself to you can you synthesize all of the opposing viewpoints into something wonderful?
When your uncle who you haven’t seen since Easter invites you into the fold with a question of when you’ll be married or have children, you can actually not take it personally. That’s an option, to remain calm and stable while responding to his question earnestly and navigating every single opinion and emotion tossed “carelessly” towards you.
You see the key here is that many things we humans react to on a visceral level are menial when you really understand where they’re coming from. A relative who hasn’t seen you for a while, or even one who is constantly putting pressure on you to succed in alignment with his or her will, doesn’t have to do much to knock you off balance if you haven’t cultivated any foundational sense of what really matters to you.
If family and harmony matter more than your ego, your pride, or the victim mentality you’ve gained from being on social media 24/7, then a meaningless discussion about when you’re going to find a boyfriend won’t bother you as deeply.
If Drama is a God in your life, you’ll look for EVERY opportunity to be the star in your next TikTok.
Just because you feel pressure, just because you are uncomfortable, doesn’t mean you have to respond as though you’re under attack or being trampled.
You have another option. There is another way. You can choose to be *still* if you want to. But you have to desire that.
Maybe you don’t want to find balance.
Maybe you don’t want peace.
Well, the process this month is about finding those things. Harmony, relaxation, centeredness instead of heightened emotional reactions. It’s about putting the ego aside so you can embrace all there is that is good in you, in life, in the world, and the people in it too. That’s what relaxation truly is. This is where Spirit finds the most comfort. The ego? Not so much.
Which one are you hoping to develop? Which one do you want to starve?
Feeding the spirit is not the death of your ability to succed in the world. It is your foundation for living a life full of passion, confidence, and strength in who You really Are. We can get into the unfounded conflations between ego, humility, confidence, arrogance, and just plain being rude or mean another time. That’s a good question to ask and explore in the Empower Thyself Initiation, actually (Click Here to Find a Certified Modern Mystery School Guide).
If you don’t want to go through this journaling process, you don’t have to. You know your options at this point. You don’t need me to spell them out for you.
Personally, I have found great value in being able to be calm while the world is chaotic around me and towards me. I have found great enjoyment in being able to sit back and watch what happens. But spectators eventually get pulled into the ring, especially if you have any desire to actually live your life fully. Otherwise, watching gets boring.
Will you be happy with your decision to sit back, pop popcorn, collect the gossip (brew the tea), boo and cheer, or will you eventually be guilty of something just by observing instead of owning the value of your presence in those moments when tensions run high?
The real question, the only one that matters, the one that you should journal about today if nothing else, is this one: Do you want your presence to bring greater value to a moment or less value? Why?
If you want your presence to increase in value, how are you going to cultivate that?
Here and now, the answer is stillness.
Emotional control.
Maturity without losing your ability to enjoy life to the fullest, but instead maximizing it.
This is the beauty of maturity. There is beauty in growing older and wiser.
Misery is a choice that older people make. It’s not a guarantee. To be more accurate, misery is the result of a series of choices that older people make. It is still not a guarantee.
So, let’s undo the work of becoming a miserable old fogey before you commit to it forever.
Let’s focus instead on the wise old man, the Hermit, the Magician, the one experimenting, pulling levers, tossing things into cauldrons and seeing what comes out of it, in order to become the harbinger of Joy instead of depression or apathy.
The worst thing a person can cultivate in life is a sense of betrayal. A deep-seated belief that the world betrayed him or her by not keeping the promises that were made.
The reality is, life promises nothing. Adults promise things just to keep the younger generation moving. That is a huge mistake that we’ve made.
Do not betray yourself in the process of becoming the person you hope to one day become.
Today, focus on stillness. Wisdom. The old, wise, joyful, peaceful, calm, still, quiet, all-powerful, all-knowing Elder. Crone or Grandfather. The one we all deeply and secretly hope to grow into, even if the way to get there is paved without clarity. How do you know that all the paved roads lead to where you are headed? What if there is only one right answer? What if the only right answer is that the paved roads are all dead ends?
Where will you aim for next in your quest for Power and Control? Authority? Wisdom? Stability? Harmony? These words all mean the same thing in the context of Balance and Alignment with your Higher Self.
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