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In this episode, we are tackling the subject of self mastery and this means we are talking about getting down to knowing the authentic you, under all the guises and personas we have in society. Knowing your authentic self means understanding your self worth and knowing your truth and this in turn can lead to mastery of the things that you authentically want and need. What are you currently mastering in your internal dialogue? You could be mastering the hero and the victim, or fear. Are you mastering the art of feeling like an imposter? All too many of us are on a journey where we are mastering things that are not in alignment with our truth, success, and fulfillment. We need to get to a point where we can see under the mask to the ever present force within us, only then will we be able to make decisions and take actions that serve this real part of each of us. For this and more thoughts on the matter, tune in!

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Transcript

Introduction and Obsession with Mastery Series

00:00:17
Speaker
Welcome to this week's episode of The Art of Authenticity. I'm Laura Coe, your host, and thank you guys for tuning in. Today, I'm obsessed. I can't tell you, I've been reading and rereading and rereading sort of crazy. The Mastery Series by Don Miguel-Riez. I don't know if you've checked them out, the four agreements you guys know. If you've listened to the show, I'm slightly obsessed with this person, but the Toltec wisdom to personal freedom.
00:00:44
Speaker
I can't tell you what I've gotten out of this series from the Four Agreements. If you guys haven't checked it out, check it out. You will not be disappointed.

Mastering Life and Authentic Self

00:00:52
Speaker
Take your time though, because it's written in a way that's easy, but it's really deep and hard to put into actual practice. Mastery of self. I'm thinking, right? What are you mastering in your life? What are you spending your time on? What are you mastering?
00:01:09
Speaker
that hit me one day and I couldn't stop thinking about it. Are you mastering fear? Are you mastering low self-worth? What are you mastering? Are you mastering imposter syndrome? All of us have that one down. What is going on in the inner dialogue in your mind every day, all day long that you have mastered? Have you mastered being a victim? Have you mastered being the hero and showing up and saving people?
00:01:38
Speaker
What is it that you are mastering on a day-to-day basis in your emotional life? What about mastering yourself? What about actually mastering the authentic self, your ability to bring forward your truth and to know where your truth is?
00:01:56
Speaker
in all moments or if you lose access that you have the mastery to come back to it.

Defining Personal Freedom in Toltec Wisdom

00:02:02
Speaker
To me, freedom, freedom, he says, the Toltec guide to personal freedom. Personal freedom is when you are able to get back to yourself even
00:02:13
Speaker
when life feels like a storm and you're stressed, overwhelmed, feeling fear, you just feel like your feet aren't touching the ground, your mind is busy, you're anxious, maybe not sleeping, how do you get back to yourself?

The Dream of the Planet: Societal Norms

00:02:27
Speaker
So in this book, he talks about the dream of the planet. And if you haven't heard of it, I'll just tell you quick for everybody who's read some of this, bear with me, but the dream of the planet, right when you first come into the world,
00:02:42
Speaker
People who have lived here before you have decided what the collective dream is. You didn't have a choice. You didn't get to help choose that a cup is called a cup, that a spoon is called a spoon, that the sky is blue.
00:02:59
Speaker
You didn't get to choose how we talk about anything and what the beliefs of the world are. They were decided for you by people who lived before you. And when you're little, you are told every detail about the dream. They tell you, this is green and this is blue. And if you try to say the opposite, you get in trouble, right? When you go to school, if you don't say back exactly what you're told, you get an F.
00:03:27
Speaker
So we all agree to a certain amount of things. And if you don't agree, you get punished. You get punished in school. You get punished by your parents. You get love taken away.

Identities and Masks: True vs. False Self

00:03:38
Speaker
And so over time, everybody just starts to agree.
00:03:42
Speaker
And look, there's value to having this collective dream. We can't go around without being able to communicate. And communication requires us to have some agreements that a coffee cup is called a coffee cup. It's not necessarily a problem. The problem comes when you start to agree who you are, when you take on the masks that are discussed in the mastery of self.
00:04:07
Speaker
Right? You have multiple masks, I'm quoting him now, that help us relate to others and co-create more effectively. But deep down, I know that none of the masks are the real me. A mask is just knowledge formed by the agreements we use to interact with life with people.
00:04:25
Speaker
A mask is an identity. I choose to wear a mask for the benefit of navigating the dream, but none can ever encompass my life force, my authentic self. When we are domesticated, the mask hides who we are and we believe that who we are is the mask. But when you have to let go of the domestication,
00:04:48
Speaker
A mask doesn't hide nor do we hide who we are. It is just an agreement that our bond has created and that has shaped the way we see each other. So perhaps you put on a mask for your children that you are a father or a mother. It's a mask. It's not who you are. It is not the life force that creates the authentic self.
00:05:14
Speaker
We are the energy that knows there's a mask. There's a part of us that knows that we are now turning into the parent.

Connecting with True Self Beyond Roles

00:05:21
Speaker
We are turning into the teacher. We are turning into the neighbor, right? When we walk through the days, we put on a different mask and we interact from a different place. When we walk into our workforce, maybe we put on that mask.
00:05:37
Speaker
The key point that he's making that I am encouraging you to think about, that I'm giving a ton of thought to, is do you know how to take the mask off? If you're a school teacher and you're teaching all day, do you take that mask off and recognize that that is not you? That is just what you've been doing all day. After you've been parenting your children, can you take your mask off and recognize that the mask of a parent is also not you?
00:06:04
Speaker
Can you, after you've been a neighbor and walking around in the world, whatever masks that you have chosen to put on?
00:06:12
Speaker
you are also able to take off. And you can come back to this life force. For many people, they say, well, I don't know what it means if I'm not the mask, if I'm not identifying with some component, some label that makes me who I am. And so here's the question. The part of you that knows that there's a mask is the real you. It's like the blue sky and the clouds.

Authentic Decisions and Life Force

00:06:36
Speaker
We know that the sky is cloudy because we look up and it's gray, but we call it the sky. The sky is always blue. The self is this energy that is behind all of the identity structures that we put forward in each and every day. I am not a podcaster, an entrepreneur, a writer. Those are the masks that I wear. When I sit down at the computer and I start to write, I am putting on my mask of a writer
00:07:06
Speaker
When I'm out with the person I'm seeing, I put on the mask of myself as a girlfriend. I am a different mask depending on the situation I am in. But my truth, the truth, the life force that is beneath it is the part that we want
00:07:24
Speaker
to guide our daily decisions. So it matters if you can't tell the difference. It is very hard to build an authentic life, to build a life that has meaning, to know what your truth is so that you can think about what you want, don't want, when to say yes, when to say no, right? Have you ever weighed things out indefinitely with the pro and the con and you're analyzing it to death but you don't know how to make a decision?

Exploring Authenticity Further

00:07:48
Speaker
When we get past the masks and we recognize there's something beneath there, this life force, this energy, the blue sky, when we can access that, that's where we can choose the life that we want, where we can remain aligned with ourselves, body, mind, spirit, that happens when we actually can identify it.
00:08:08
Speaker
If this is something that you struggle with or would like to spend some time learning more about, check out my website, lauraco.com. You can set up a free 30-minute call with me. Love to speak with you guys. I love your emails. Thank you guys for taking the time to send a note, lauraco.com. Thank you for tuning in. Check out Mastery of Self. I promise you, you won't be disappointed.