Episode #41 – Mastery of Oneself

Transcript

Welcome to Soulish Femme! Soulish Femme is a channel solely dedicated for you where I help focus in prospering body, spirit and soul. Life is a journey and I am glad that you can be a part of mine. As you explore my vlogs and my real talk episodes, I hope you will find inspirations and motivation you are looking for. Remember that life is not going to wait around for you. Therefore, live a life with intentionality and curate the life you’ve always dreamed of. As much as I love to share about my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, I also would like to showcase my passions in life such as food, travel, fashion, beauty, and many more. To truly be free from the shackles of the systems limitation, you must decide once and for all to live unapologetically and live a life that makes you feel alive and rejuvenated every single day. Perhaps I am a hopeless or romantic person, but I truly believe we are meant to enjoy the wonders and the magnificent beauty the world has to offer. If you are ready to embark on your healing journey from traumatic experiences, feel free to check the link below to enroll in this course through Udemy. I will see you there. Thank you.

Hello everyone! Welcome back to another podcast, “Becoming the Master of Thy Ones Self.” I don’t know which book I acquired this quote from, but it says, “Man may become the master of himself and his environment because he has the power to influence his own subconscious mind.” Human beings only value that which has a price. Be the master of your own self is knowing thy oneself. It is the greatest lesson that you must learn in this lifetime. It is very hard, especially for us those who love to control people, to micromanage those around us. Instead of looking outside and trying to make people better and fixing people because they’re broken. I tend to love to fix people because I do want people to see them succeed or to become the best version of themselves. However, I’m always convicted by this idea that let them be.

And I know this is the term that I’ve heard recently written by Mel. I know she’s not the Mel Gibson actress or the actor that you think. She’s actually the motivator speaker, whatever you want to call her, motivational speaker. And somehow letting go is very hard concept because we tend to really just want people to become like us and to do the things that we like them to do and to reflect and to make a clone out of us. Because we want them to know that we are better than them. And of course, this is actually very hard controlling other people and controlling yourself at the same time. You cannot really control yourself and being the master of your own self and then here you are trying to change people and try to control people. It doesn’t work that way which is easier said than done. Because how can you possibly be a master of your own self when you’re trying to control other people?

I’m not saying that when you’re raising children that you should not give them parameters or guidelines or directions because children do need supervision. They actually need guidance because somehow children still have not fully developed in their way of thinking. However, when we become an adult clearly, you know what adult looks like and they have a grown body. Majority of grown body doesn’t mean that they’re mature in the head. This is why as much as we want to say that there are grown bodies out there, but it doesn’t mean that they’re mature. It doesn’t mean that they’re living their lives the best way. They should or they have mastered themselves because majority of us do not really have the time to master ourselves.

So you could probably ask the question how can I master myself? How can I know myself Glenna? What are the suggestions? What are the things that I can do?

And of course, this takes a lot of time. Self-awareness as I always say is always the first step. When you’re not aware of who you are, you are actually just basically a zombie walking around oblivious to who you are. Because when you are out of touch and you don’t know who you are. For instance, I always talk about your triggers about your traumas. All of the things that we automatically do. The behaviors that we do is because it was programmed in us when we were children. These are automatic behavior responses that we have imitated from people. We have actually embodied from the people around us because children tend to copy. We tend to emulate the caretakers in our home, our parents, friends, the TV shows that we have watched. And that’s why sometimes we are not aware because we are so focused on looking around, trying to copy people’s personality and behavior without knowing that actually we are not embracing our own personality.

I did not know that actually I was getting so caught up on television when I was a child. I used to copy actresses on TV and I would change my hairstyle one minute, my fashion the next minute, trying to be cool and next thing I know I didn’t know exactly who I was because as a child when you’re when you’re in a teenage years, you’re still trying to figure out who you are. You don’t know fully your identity. You lack of the concept of who you really are that you are going to look around you copying everybody else. And you actually get lost in the true self because you are so caught up in the phase of copying and embodying other personality except your own. Until of course you become a grown woman and you decided to say, “You know what I’m going to take the time to get to know myself to be aware of the things that I gravitate towards, what are my passion? What are my skills? What are the things that truly I feel alive and rejuvenated especially when I do them. What makes me happy?”

These are the things that you’re aware of. Additionally, if you’re aware of your triggers, as I said, it all comes down from your childhood. We all have different triggers, but they all might look differently, but they all come from the same source. Our upbringing, the culture that we were exposed to. These are the things that made us who we are. And so, if you do not like how you were brought up and if you came from a dysfunctional family like I did. Some of it are very toxic and you don’t want to bring that on to your children or to your environment and you want to change the course of that family of yours, the dynamics of your family. Maybe you had lack of support in your family growing up and you thought it was acceptable and they probably suppressed your emotions. Perhaps, you were the person that you had an idea but your family said “we don’t want to listen to you because you’re still a child and your opinion does not matter.”

So these are the things also you thought you were an introvert or a shy person but then now that you have grown up you realize that you are have a gift of a gab. Because you were not allowed you didn’t have the freedom to express yourself and you didn’t know that then. Because much of your childhood were suppressed and you were controlled and that’s why you thought that you were such a shy person when in fact you were just not supported. You were just not per se given the liberty to express how you felt and therefore you lack of understanding of yourself. Another way to master yourself is to go and be silent and ask God to reveal to you who you really are. And you think I’m going to leave out God in this equation. You’re absolutely wrong because without the creator of course you are never going to know who you are. We are the masterpiece. God is the master.

So, who you should ask is the master who created you. It would be so dumb if you have something, a manual. When you have brought something and you don’t read the manual. Most of the time, we don’t really read the manual because it has so many pages. But just to get an idea, you know exactly if something is broken of how to fix it because you do have a manual that will guide you. In the same way, when we know who we are and our identity in God, then we can know better of ourselves. That’s why the Bible is clear that we are created in the image of God. We are an image bearer of God. We’re like the spitting image of the one that Created us. However, many of us do not take the time to read the Bible and understand what God expects from us and who we are in him and how does God function. Because we only are looking around from people’s ideas and opinions of how a woman or a man should behave in this world.

But without vertically aligning yourself with the master who created the masterpiece, it is such an absurd that you don’t even know how you supposed to be because Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches. Apart from me, you cannot bear fruit.” So, in order for you to bear the spirit of God, you have to abide in him by reading his word. And that’s how you know that you can master yourself. I really think that mastery of self is truly just becoming one with the creator. When Jesus said, “The father and I are one. I don’t do anything apart from my father’s leading. I don’t do anything apart from my father’s voice.” I think that’s exactly why for many of us who are so lost. We’re caught up in this trying to fix ourselves because we think we could. We cannot fix ourselves apart from the power of the Holy Spirit. We’re going to end up being broken and lost and wretched, sinful person because that’s who we are.

Our nature is rebellious. That is how we were created. Because of what happened in the Adam in Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, we refuse to obey God. Therefore, the moment that you have become born again, you become two, become one with Jesus said, “I am your other yoke. Come to me all of you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest for my yoke is easy and my burden is light and then you can know who you really are. You don’t you cannot function by yourself. I did not become so confident and know who I am really until I have decided to rely upon the savior of this world. The one who created me inside and out because he knows my tendencies. He knows my weaknesses. He knows my strengths. He knows my skills. He knows the talents. He knows the very hair on my head of how many hairs I have left on my head and how many hairs that I have shed on the floor. That’s how much God knows you.

So, if you’re going to leave out God from the equation, you cannot really master yourself. I know there are so many voices out there telling you that the only way to master yourself is to get into yourself and get to know yourself better, which is very superficial. But without knowing the Bible because God said I am your creator. I you are wonderfully and fearfully made. I have actually woven you together in your mother’s womb. He said that I have actually know you from birth and I have called you as my own people. And so when you think that you can master yourself on your own without knowing your creator, you are probably are just lying to yourself because I did not know who I really am, my worth and my value that I have an intrinsic value. Not because I am beautiful, not because I am I am doing much better than anybody else or just because I’m talented, but because I know that God said so. You are created in my image. Therefore, you have an intrinsic value. No matter who you are, no matter where you come from.

Another thing that I would like to say is mastery of yourself. It is a lifetime journey. It’s not today I’m going to master myself and I’m going to be so cool and tomorrow I’m going to blow up again. Because as I said, when you become a student of life, you are never done. You’re never finished. When you become a student of life, you are constantly learning about yourself. There are times that I’m always falling and there are days that I am succeeding. There are days that I just want to beat myself up for failing at certain things. Maybe choices that I was not very proud of. The words that I’ve spoken harshly, the things that I have done wrong. So mastery is not about arriving. It’s about the It’s not about the destination. It’s about the journey. Every journey matters. So this is why I always like to journal and see if I have progress. That’s why I I like to go back to my old journal sometimes and I would just go back and reflect of how much I have progressed as a person. Because if you really think about it, journal is your reflection time of really putting down the things that you’re still struggling with.

And of course everybody and I’m still struggling with impatience and perfectionist. Once in a while I do have to be aware of being uh perfectionist and these are the things that I’m trying to shake out of my own head because I sometimes get into my own head being perfectionist and that’s why I don’t get things done most of the time because I’m waiting for the right moment the perfect time or perfect hair but it’s better to get it done than never and waiting for the perfect moment. And so that’s why if you have not yet completed yourself as the perfect woman or human being, do not be surprised and do not beat yourself up for being not perfect because mastery is an ongoing process. You cannot be complete until the day you die. You can never be perfect until you have a new body which is immortality. You are still immortal right now. You are still living two kinds of person in you. the one that is sinful and the one that’s actually trying to become the good.

Remember what this Indian this native Indian that says you have two wolves that lives inside of you. The one is good and the one is bad. And whoever you feed the most that is going to manifest most of the time. So if you do not know how to tame your inner demons, if you don’t know how to tame your old self that is rebellious, that is toxic, that is full of hurt and pain. Because as I said, if you do not heal from your wounds and your trauma, that is going to manifest by outbursts of anger, uncontrollable. Sometimes I still have to manage that part of me because of the traumas that I’ve been through, the abuse of the things that I’ve been through since childhood. And as I said, trauma is such a rooted uh it’s a root. It’s you got to cut it down from the bottom. You cannot really just stop when you cut a tree. I know that some people would like to cut it the branches out, but it’s it’s going to have something that’s going to sprout out of that eventually later on. It’s also like trying to pull a plant. You have to really get get out to take out the roots of it so that it’s not going to grow again.

So with the same with our trauma and our wounds that is deeply rooted in us. It’s in our psyche. It’s embedded. Our body might not forget it. Okay? Our body might forget it rather but our mind it’s going to be embedded in you. You could never forget the things that happened to you. You might try to but it will never going to diminish out of your memory. This is why when you have been traumatized, sexually abused and you have been psychologically abused, mentally, physically, emotionally have been abused, that is going to take a toll on you. It’s going to change your whole demeanor. It’s going to change your behavior. It’s going to change your whole personality. That’s why people who have not healed from their trauma like I used to cuz I was living in denial. I did not want to acknowledge it. I was running away from it. I was hiding from it. There were outbursts of anger.

There were times that I just don’t want to do anything. You become apathetic and atrophy. You become so depressed and so down to a point where you don’t want to do anything at all. Isolation of course is one of the things that people don’t want to do anything and uh not because they are as long as you are isolated and you’re not just not taking a shower or not eating but if you like to isolate because you like to reflect and you need to do your work most of us are working from home that is not what I’m saying but for those people who really have not yet will dealt with their trauma that because they have not yet tamed their old demons and they have not yet managed their own trauma uh because that’s why the cost the that is the result that is the consequences of painful things that you have tried so hard to hide because Jesus said the truth will set you free unless you deal with the truth you could never be free and you could never master yourself when you want to master yourself you have to be truthful of where you come from you have to deal with your demons you have to deal with your pain you have to sit with them cry it out.

Maybe ask for help, intervention, ask for lots of prayer. I don’t know what else to tell you, but because if you don’t know who you really are, what you’re about, your standards in life, and the moment you heal from those trauma, you will know now what you’re about. You can now set healthy boundaries, you know the things that you you going to tolerate and the things that you would not tolerate. But before that, you were a pushover. Before that, when you did not know what boundaries look like, you are just a doormat and that you are so gullible, easily to be manipulated and controlled because you did not know any better. But the moment you got healed from those trauma and you discovered who you really are and you mastered yourself, that’s when the time that you will not take BS from people that you will know how to push back and you will know how to defend yourself and you will know how to say no to some people that are takers of your energy. You can now have the discernment to actually remove yourself from anyone that does not contribute peace in your life.

That’s the important part and the beautiful part of mastering yourself is now you will no longer tolerate toxicity in your life. And you will no longer going to condone any behavior does not resonate with you. you are going to just remove yourself politely or minimize your time with this people that are not giving you the same kind of energy. That is the beautiful thing about knowing who you are because you are now in your power. You can now say this is how much I can give you because I can sense that you are not really willing to give me of what I want because before you’re always available for people. You’re a people pleaser because you want people to love you, to like you, to accept you, to validate you. And that’s why because you don’t know who you are. You don’t know what your standards are. You are just keep on giving until the time that you said to yourself, why am I so resentful? I’m always giving. I’m always available for people.

They keep on taking. and you think you’re doing yourself a favor when in fact you become so bitter because now you’re going to say well I keep on serving people and yet I don’t get anything back in return because you do not master yourself. So it says that his environment because he has the power to influence his own subconscious mind and it all starts also with our thoughts. You are what you think according to the Bible that if you are going to fix your thoughts on what is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, admirable to think things are excellent and worthy of mind, worthy of praise rather. We are influenced by our subconscious mind. Our subconscious mind as I said these are embedded thoughts, habits, behavior patterns.

These are belief system that we have been repeatedly ruminating in our mind since we were a child. The belief system that we used to tell ourselves. So subconscious mind does not know the difference between now and before. The subconscious mind is always present. Whatever you tell your subconscious mind is going to believe it. If you’re going to say I am a millionaire right now, your subconscious mind doesn’t really know whether you’re a millionaire or not. Your subconscious mind doesn’t have a concept of time. It only have a concept of today. Okay. So this is something that I really am learning still that when God revealed to me that your thoughts is always now the I am. When you tell yourself I am beautiful is going to believe it. I am smart. I am capable. It’s going to just take it because you are feeding your subconscious mind in the present. Because as I said the subconscious mind doesn’t have a concept of yesterday. It doesn’t have a concept of you know um lying between the truth. Whatever you feed it is going to magnify.

You just have to convince yourself until that you are actually going to believe it. So that is all that I would like you to think about that when you master your own self, you are going to thank yourself for it because now you know the things that you accept and the things that you do not accept. And I think that is all that I would like to talk about that mastery of oneself is a project. It is a continuous cycle of life. It doesn’t end until the day you die. You’re always going to revolve or evolved rather. You’re always going to change. I am not the same woman as I used to be 20 years ago. When I look at myself in the mirror, I look different, but I also feel different. Because when you are growing with time and you’re changing hopefully for the best, you are going to see that the things that you used to tolerate and the things that you used to condone perhaps those are the things that are going to appall you and that you’re going to run away from it. So take your time to really reflect on yourself. Maybe that’s your homework for this week.

And ask yourself the question, what are the things that makes me happy? What are the things that makes me alive? What are my trigger points? What are the things that I’m still struggling with? Maybe I’m still struggling with confidence, lack of confidence thereof. Maybe I’m I am still dealing with insecurity. My fears perhaps there are still fears sometimes that are lurking behind the closed doors. I’m still working on my fears. Sometimes sometimes I get anxiety attack. I would have uh thoughts of fear sometimes about the future. Of course, everybody has fear of the future. But I have to now instead of worrying, I would have to replace it with uh the verses of God that says do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow’s problem uh today’s problem is sufficient enough.

So these are the things that you can replace it. You cannot really shut down your thoughts per se. you can shift as I said your subconscious mind have no concept whatever you feed it no concept of uh yesterday it’s it only has a concept of today so whatever you feed your subconscious mind is just going to believe it if you’re going to say to your subconscious mind that you’re going to uh what do you call this you are sick and you are going to be sick and you’re going to be so tired it’s just going to follow whatever you feed your mind your body is just going to follow it if you’re going to tell your mind to I’m going to work out today and I’m going to show up for myself and you just have to prove it because your body is going to follow and that is why our thoughts it all begins in our thoughts and it all begins within ourselves of what we believe and what we feed our mind and it’s just going to overflow that and manifest that through our actions and behavior.