The dreaded weakness of even the wisest and the strongest, the shrink in our armor that could leave us mortally wounded. The arrow that seem to struck the heel of Achilles.
Insecurities, the foundation to envy & jealousy. The rift that separates most people & achieving their full potential. The greatest threat to relationships & the antithesis to the first crime against life. It turns women into wicked witches & men into sublime bitches.
Everyone has them, for some is either an intrinsic or extrinsic "flaw".
Noticed the way "flaw" was written? With a parenthesis? That's because most of the times, if not all the time. The struggle we have with that "flaw" is self inflicted. We believe that it may be socially unacceptable for us to have or show that side of ourselves. Our monkey brain fears being out casted by the tribe or some shit.
I'm going to drop a couple of harsh truths on your psyche.
- Nobody gives a shit about anything, that doesn't affect them personally.
- You created that insecurity yourself, someone might have started it. But you help the flame grow.
- If its a theme that has variables, meaning you can improve or develop it & you don't . It's even more your fault.
- Only insecure people, give shit about insecure and petty shit. Similar to the attention bias, which basically means that what we resonate, create or pay attention is based on our personality. So when someone points something down just know that they themselves reek of it internally & deserve nothing else than your sympathy.
- Your ancestors would laugh and disown you, for the petty shit you complain about daily.
- While yeah there are some things that might be actual and valid problems. But the way you handle those things speak more of your character. Than the problem itself.
I'll share with you a quick narrative that highlights this theme, the last being done in a masterfully fashion. I saw this Instagram story once, of this model/influencer from Puerto Rico.
Gorgeous eyes, incredible cheekbones, strong personality, dope smile. She was leaving a nail appointment. All natural, meaning no make up, not met gala dress. Just her. In the Instagram story she was explaining or advising her audience from the stand point of someone whose job. Similar to mine. Based on appearance, overall image of a lifestyle & ultimately setting an example or ideal.
The talk went along the lines of the traditional "Fuck the haters", "Everyone has imperfections" & the direction of the content/ message being promoted by this influencers of this era.
The thing that really struck my attention was the second point, while she was discussing the imperfections dilemma. She prompted pointed out the basic acne, skin issues, body fat, etc... Issues that most regular people deal with. The funny thing is I didn't notice any of it. You could say that it may have been the camera or the lighting, etc..
I prefer to use & advertise my own point of no one giving a fuck unless you do. The only thing I noticed, was her energy, charisma, vocal projection and the security in her words.
Second trait that I'm going to give her props for.
Self - Awareness. You see this trait is one of the hardest traits a person can acquire. Why? It requires you to be brutally honest with yourself. It is also the strongest asset you could have.
To look at yourself in the mirror, from an unbiased and objective point of view? Incredible.
Remember a while back when I talked about the different archetypes of a well rounded person on (The road to both mental & spiritual maturity) article? Well one of those aspects or archetypes was the King. The ones whose duty was to supervise & oversee the kingdom from above. That's what self- awareness is.
How do we achieve such rare and valuable trait?
There are some practices that revolve around being more grounded and being more centered. Such as:
- Mindfulness meditation or focused based meditation.
- Exercises that focus on being centered in your body, such as; bio energetics, breathing exercises and my favorite dumbbell curls.
- There's also this method from Julien Blanc or how he is referred to as Father J. Which was a theory on healing subconscious trauma. So that instead of your mind veering off to unpleasant thoughts, it comes back here, to the present, to your natural state. Let me explain.
We as humans, see the world from our own unique perspective. That perspective is both influenced by our nature and our nurture. A repetitive theme on Influence.
The problem stems from the following, during our nurturing or better yet development into full grown ass adults. Maybe and most probably during the age of 5-12, which is the period in which we are most susceptible to new information. Some shit might have happened to you. This shit is what I like to call trauma and it can manifest in different ways. One of which & most likely are inhibitors.
Inhibitors are repressed personality traits or avoidance mechanisms to cope with trauma and deviate from possible future trauma.
An example of this could be your voice. If you're a soft spoken and are afraid to project your voice instead of speaking from your chest and diaphragm. That is an inhibitor.
Maybe at a young age you where told to shut up by a parent or teacher and that shit just stuck with you.
Or looking down to the ground and avoiding confrontation, Maybe you had a traumatic experience during a high stress event and that inhibitor is a defense mechanism that you use from high stressful situations.
In the book Psycho cybernetics the author explains different ways to release you from you inhibitors, one of which is breaking the pattern of behavior that causes those inhibitors & instead reverse engineering your behaviors. Similar to the body follows the mind & the mind follows the body dichotomy. But what if we go deeper and work on the trauma that produces those inhibitors or other behaviors that are not suited to who you are.
My whole point and what Father J, means is the following. Use your inhibitors as a guide to where you need to work on. The process of healing trauma is simple and quite complex at the same time. You need remember the event, go through the exact emotions that you where feeling during the event and release them. A good method for this is Mindfulness meditation and if it's really serious, therapy. But let me show you the mindfulness meditation method, it simply means to let your emotions flow by without no attachment to them. To let them flow and release them. Use you're body as a guide. To not run away from thought or emotion, but rather following it until it no longer is. I.e Releasing it.
It's a hard process, it will require you to be aggressively honest with yourself. This is what self - awareness means. But hey, if somewhat can do it is you.
Being aggressively honest with yourself is a good transition to my next point which is that self-awareness is a good building block to achieve emotional intelligence.
Emotional intelligence is merely recognizing, identifying, categorizing your emotions. In a much simpler way is managing your emotions the same way an employer would manage his employees. To do so you must be aware & recognize each of them. Understanding their needs & wants.
Another reason I'm a proponent if mindfulness meditation instead of focused based meditation. It's because like we said, it brings awareness to your emotions without attaching to them. The " Watch your emotions flow like a river, but don't get caught in the current" Is actually true. Instead of focused based meditation, which simply states that your focused should be directed towards a singular thought and ignore the rest. I don't tell you to do this as much as the mindful one because this one only provides about 10 minutes of mental clarity. The effects of latter is much more lasting.
Now, this mental clarity allows us to have a clear vision, Not only about the world, but also about ourselves. This a gateway to self-acceptance. To accept your virtues as well as your limitations. To simply saying "yes" to the idea that is you. For this you need a thing called balls/ bravery. Without self acceptance. But at the same time having that self awareness, it's a good combination for what I like to call being miserable & what will transpire to another common coping mechanism which is called projecting. & yes, you probably heard that before from the chick on her first year of psychology.
A good exercise for this is to list out your virtues and you limitations or "flaws" so to speak.
I'll give you a list of mine as an example in terms of character and personality.
Virtues:
- Disciplined
- Assertive
- My ability to learn anything / Fast learner
- Driven / Ambitious
- Charismatic / your wife loves me
- Self- aware
- Charming
- Intuitive / Passionate
- Entrepreneurial / hustler
- Self- reliant / independent
- Well fed / my needs are well met / usually get what I want
- Resourceful
- Loyal
- Im ok with being wrong (though it rarely happens.)
- Etc..
Now, My flaws this is the hard one.
- Arrogant, leaves me prone to blind spots.
- Anger issues/ Over Aggressiveness
- Impulsive
- Don't take some serious shit as serious as I should.
- Easily bored due to a lack of challenge or most commonly known as adhd.
- Emotionally unavailable
- Prone to rely on talent, rather than skill.
- Tendency to micromanage.
- Tendency to over look red flags, if I see some talent, potential, skills or a challenge.
Now you may resonate or relate to some, or not.
The only thing I'm intersted in you resonating with is how brutally honest I am with myself. My purpose with my example is to instill in you the bravery to be brutally and aggressively honest with yourself.
So now I want you to do the same. Make a list of your own. Start with the virtues, the gradually go to your "flaws". But not only a list on your character, but also a list on every aspect of you & your life. This will help you know what you need to work on.
Okay, so now you have a basic idea of who you are. But... why stop there? See this company is primarily a self-development company. Meaning we believe and practice the development of human beings to their maximum capacity.
Meaning we create Spartans, Captain Americas, and Einsteins.
Before you say or relate us to "self-improvement."
Let me give you the distinction between Self- improvement and Self-development.
Self- improvement is the idea that there is something wrong with you that needs "fixing". The idea that there's the need to "improve or add something", because somehow something is not right or we lack in any endeavor.
Self-development however means that you where already born a stud meant for greatness. It means to make the good, great. The constant journey towards the status of a god. You where meant for greatness, but maybe got lost and chose to follow the sheep's path. A lion living like a sheep. That's not you. I do not know you personally. But that is not you. Let me erase those collective thinking thoughts, those pre conceived bullshit ideas, those added weight society makes you carry. So that you may thrive into who you where truly meant to be.
By developing into your true self, you will slowly and surely melt away those bullshit and petty insecurities. That would most likely make your ancestor die (again) but this time of laughter.
Your ancestors fought saber tooth tigers, rode mammoth, conquered cities, fucked Beyoncé's ancestors. But there's people bitching on twitter? Yeah, That's not a good improvement on the trajectory of humanity right?
Yeah, that's not for you.
So let's start your journey to become a living legend.
Big Love
-A
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