Managing Your Self

Managing your self is about knowing who you are, drawing upon your inner strengths, and overcoming whatever may unduly limit you. True success means more fully appreciating your individuality, originality, and creative self-expression. You have a purpose in being here, something you want to do, something that matters, something that makes a difference, to you or others. And there is a way to do it. Being true to your self — the highest qualities within you — is the basis of doing what is right, good, and true, for you and others. You can learn to find a place to stand, within you, from which you can more effectively deal with everything outside you.

This is the basic outline of the course:

Lesson 1: The true self
Lesson 2: How to simply be you
Lesson 3: Purpose
Lesson 4: What works for you
Lesson 5: Decision making
Lesson 6: What isn't working for you?
Lesson 7: Success
Lesson 8: Obstacles and limitations
Lesson 9: Creative self-expression
Lesson 10: Review

The goals are to:

experience more fully who you are, and how to be true to your self

practice being centered, to find a strong, stable place from which to act

find a sense of purpose, and learn how to fulfill it

learn what works for you and what doesn't

gain mastery in the area of success.

Lesson 1: The true self

Introduction
1. It's You
2. Coming To Life
3. Socialization
4. Growing Up
Exercise One
Exercise Two
5. Labels
Exercise Three
6. Agreements
7. Rebelling
8. Boundaries and Limitations
9. Who in the World Are You?
Exercise Four
10. Lost and Found

Introduction

Welcome to the course in Managing Your Self. This course is an exploration of your true self. It is about realizing, unfolding, experiencing, honoring, and acting from your authentic self. Each of us has a private inner self, which we may or may not show to the world-at-large. Yet, we can all benefit from more confident, free, creative self-expression — in a way that feels right to us.

This is a course for everyone. Regardless of educational level or work experience, we face the same kinds of problems, challenges, and choices everyone else does in life. The most important part in everything you do, everything you want, all of your hopes and dreams, is you. Your true strengths, abilities, and gifts are all there, within you. This is a course to help you to more fully get in touch with your deeper inner resources, and go forward now.

You may find it helpful to write down your thoughts, insights, or experiences in a notebook or journal.

Note: The purpose of the course is to make you think, to be more self-aware, to gain perspective, and to learn how to apply universally applicable principles to situations in your own life. What's different about these courses is that there is no "fluff" or stories about other people, no facts to memorize or "top ten" ways to make everything in your life perfect. Be aware, your comfort zone will be challenged. For some, the material may seem like common sense, something you already know but have yet to practice. For others, the realizations you make will be profoundly transformational. As in life, you decide its value to you.

1. It's You

When we talk about "self" we mean you, the real you. As we will see, this is very often something other than what we are familiar with, who we think we are, or what others expect us to be. We mean the real you.

We are going to push the boundaries of your experience, challenge your accepted limitations, limiting beliefs or behavior, and help you to find a place to stand — in your own inner center — from which you can deal with everything around you.

First, we will explore how you came to be who you are — which is, for most people, quite different from their authentic or true self. Most of us wind up going through life acting as something we are not, and come to see ourselves as something other than who we truly are, deep within us. There is an authentic self, within us, which tends to be invalidated, suppressed, or simply ignored as we go through life. The result is, for most people, we lose touch with who we are, our true strengths, our sense of self, our true inner-directedness — our true standing in the world.

So, this is a course about you, about finding your self, knowing your self, and being truly at home with and comfortable with your self. It will focus entirely on how to be you, in a way that really works for you. For some people, this will be a transformational experience. For others, it will be a validation of who they already know themselves to be. For many, it will be the missing part of our formal education.

There are three aspects of any problem you face in life: you, your situation, and your experience of your situation. Here, we will focus on you. Many people go through their entire lives, dealing with everything outside them, without any sense of who they truly are inside. And they can be very "good" at that. They "learn" to control, manipulate, and "problem solve," in a way that lets them change or control things outside them — rather than ever having to change in any meaningful way, within them. In other words, they may never really grow as a person.

Parents, teachers, family, friends, and peers all place their expectations upon you — and you adapt to meet their expectations (or in some cases, you rebel, and automatically become the opposite of what they expect). This causes you to not simply be you. You become what others expect of you. And this pattern is handed down from generation to generation. Parents raise children by trying to shape them to be just like them; or else, it happens by the children assimilating the parents' attitudes, thinking, biases, behavior, and limiting patterns of behavior.

So, we find ourselves in a time when children (of any age) have been through a "system" which has chewed them up and spit them out: parents get divorced, and children go through the suffering of that; they often lose their way, their sense of self, and absorb a great deal of trauma. Teachers routinely enforce an educational process which destroys individuality, free thinking, creativity, intuition, and a sense of self-purpose. Peers introduce us to binge drinking, hooking up, and other meaningless escapes from the pressures and stresses of life — which do not really solve our problems or help us in any real way, but tend to be more self-destructive. Employers insist upon our fitting into the machinery of the workplace, and we become another cog in the wheel. Our individuality, our free and creative spirit, our sense of self gets lost along the way. And, unless we do something progressive — or transformational — to recover our own authentic self, we may go through life without ever coming close to who we really are. Or our true potential. Or our purpose. Or true fulfillment.

We are not meant to lose ourselves in life. That is an excuse that is promoted by those who wish to sell you more illusions, or false solutions to your problems: "Have another beer. It doesn't get any better than this." We are going to disabuse you of all of those illusions — which cause you to happily (or unhappily) accept being what you are not. We are going to help you get in touch with your authentic self, and get past your programming, abuse, trauma, self-destructive behavior, ego, reactiveness, limitations, and illusions.

Do you want to be more of who you truly are? Do you want to find all that is good and progressive and creative and free and strong, in you? Do you want something better, rather than just coping with the way things are, or what you have become? Do you want to regain your sense of self, your inner strength and purpose, true self-directedness?

This is a choice you make. No one can make this choice for you. No one can force you to be your true self — they can only force you to be something other than your true self. Being your true self is a choice that only you can make. We will do whatever we can to help you to make the best choices for yourself. Then it is up to you.

What you need to know is that there is a place to stand, within you, from which you can deal with everything and everyone — the world-at-large — with confidence, strength, purpose, stability, understanding, creativity, and highest intent. Maybe you once knew, but you forgot; maybe no one ever showed you how. Now is the time, and we'll show you (or remind you) how.

2. Coming To Life

Many people become quite comfortable with who they are, or who they think they are, in the course of their lives. They never question who they are. After all, they already know who they are, don't they? They already think for themselves, don't they? They already live their lives as they have freely chosen, don't they?

Well, no, they don't. They just don't realize it.

We're not here to change anyone who wants to remain exactly as they are — and we couldn't if we wanted to. We can't even change anyone who wants to change. Perhaps you can see that this motivation — this understanding, insight, perspective, or realization — needs to come from you. It comes entirely from you. Either you want something better or not. It is your choice, always.

Perhaps we can offer a different perspective, to allow you to gain a different view, a higher aspiration, a higher intent for yourself. What would you say, if we told you that the life you live now — and who you think you are — is almost certainly not true to who you truly are?

Here's how it goes. You come into this life with a preset plan, program, set of limitations, avenues of exploration, and conditions that will shape you and your entire life. Before you come into this physical body, it has been formed by your parents' genetics, their predisposition for certain kinds of disease patterns, the biochemistry that existed in utero as a result of the moods, chemicals, drugs, thoughts, upsets, and feelings of your biological mother. All of these things shape the way which you present yourself to the world even before birth. At birth you were probably traumatized by the actual process of birthing. This was followed by you being treated as an object (not a person), immediately taken from your mother and automatically placed in a hospital's baby room, after which you were given nourishment on an artificial schedule, rather than when you felt you needed it.

You lived in a sea of feelings, sensitive to all of the people around you, including their distress. It is not uncommon for babies to cry when there is a lot of upset going on around them because they feel it and can't separate themselves from it. By the time you get to daycare, preschool, kindergarten, you have had years of being shaped by others' expectations of you. Parents sometimes have an agenda: you are going to be a skier, piano prodigy, athlete, or whatever. At such an early age, you have little say in all of this. You are taken to classes, shown what is expected of you, and shaped in how you should think of yourself from the earliest age.

In your early education, you are again treated like a blank slate, a consciousness to be filled with information and programming and social indoctrination, so that you "fit in" and are like everyone else. You may be punished or reprimanded, or receive low marks for being free spirited, thinking for your self, or not being willing to be conformed and habituated to behavior that everyone else expects of you.

In all of this, you are really given very little space in which to simply be your own self. And so, from the earliest age, you begin to lose touch with who you truly are, what you are truly here for, or what you truly need and want. Instead, family, friends, parents, teachers, peers, and society in general rushed in to tell you who they wanted you to be, and who you were not expected to be.

Once you become accustomed to this, it is habitual. You live your life going along with (or perhaps rebelling against) others' expectations of you. At school. At work. In marriage. In family. And so on. You simply don't ever question this process; it's who you are, it's how you've always been, it's how you've always done things, it's how things will always be.

Well, no, not necessarily.

We're here to show you a way to change all that. Maybe that's how you came into this life. But, it doesn't mean you have to stay that way. It can be quite uncomfortable to remain as you are, and not change, not grow, not overcome the things that defeat you. We know, we've been there.

3. Socialization

It would be great if the socialization process we go through as children actually prepared us for life, taught us how to deal with problems, showed us what it meant to be true to our selves. But, that simply does not happen very often. In fact, it is extremely rare.

The two forces of socialization and individuation are opposed to each other. There are ways in which they can be harmonious, and work together, but our modern society does not acknowledge this or show you how. Instead, society promotes its agenda, sells you on its way of thinking, props up your social illusions, and is content to have you fit in at the cost of totally losing your authentic self.

Socialization — becoming like others in our society — does not ultimately solve our problems, individually or collectively. And, the less the individual is respected — including honoring individual rights, liberties, freedom, choice, and thinking for your self — the more narrow, closed-minded, and dysfunctional society becomes. Unfortunately, your leaders — as the ultimate representatives of the institutional forces of control, conformity, and dehumanization — are happy for you to go along with the herd, think like everyone else, not question authority, not think for your self, and basically let them make the important decisions in your life for you. Things like war, endless war, in your name. The agendas and priorities of others are somehow forced upon you.

That's how society and its many institutions work, to enact public agendas at the expense of the individual.

As a result, you may find yourself at some point in your life taking direction from everything outside you — or the programming, conditioning, and indoctrination you have already internalized and taken as your own. What gets lost in this process is: you.

Perhaps, at some point, you realize: "Wait a moment. It is too high a cost, for simply fitting in or doing what is expected of me, to lose my self in the process. I have my own thoughts, my own feelings, my own sense of what is right, good, and true for me. And I need to respect that."

You look around, and you realize, all of those other people who are just going along with things, who never question anything, have lost something in the process. They are lost in a lost world. They haven't found or been given all the answers; they aren't aware of some greater truth; they aren't very aware at all. It's more like they are asleep, dreaming that they are awake.

You can see that rather than everyone being in charge of their own lives, they are letting something or someone else be in charge of it. Ironically, people who have shaped our lives (including in the most traumatic or abusive way) can "leave" our lives, and yet continue to control them. It is as if their presence continues to shape us, our thinking, how we feel about ourselves, who we think we are, what we feel we deserve, the suffering we accept. Parents, leaders of government and other institutions, perpetuate our habituation, our acceptance of limitations, our egos and illusions, and all that is not working for us. They are especially "good" at this — they often take it as their mission in life. A parent can lay down a guilt trip which keeps us trapped for life. An institution can make us feel completely undeserving in life.

The world, and we as individuals, only suffers more as a result. People are very unhappy. People are depressed. People find little meaning or purpose in life. Marriages, relationships, and families break up. The workplace dismisses us, cancels our pensions, or makes us obsolete. All of the social institutions that seemingly promised to uphold us go back on that promise. It wasn't a real promise or vow after all; it was merely an illusion.

There is one promise that matters, a promise or agreement you keep with your self. And that promise must be: learn to be true to your self, no matter what. Learn what it means to know and do what is right, good, and true for you. Come back to who you truly are, let go of all of the false expectations of everyone else, and simply to be true to your self. Hold that agreement with your self, and honor it.

This is what we seek, here. Realize, no matter what you may have been through, you have made it to here. And you can learn a better way of being, now. You have to know that no matter what you may have experienced there is a true self, a good and pure and loving and peaceful and strong inner self, within you, waiting. It has been waiting, patiently, all this time, for you to return to your own authentic self. It has been there all along. And it is the real you.

4. Growing Up

Whether or not you have drawn upon your greatest abilities and strengths, they are still there in you. Similarly, although you may no longer be a child, the child in you still lives in you. What we are suggesting is: it is possible to bring forward all of the wonderful qualities you may have forgotten or left behind, when you "grew up." It is possible to reconnect with your sense of openness, wonder, curiosity, intuition, purpose, and creativity — which many of us leave behind in our childhood. Maybe those qualities never left, but have simply not been given any attention for a very long time. Would you like to regain them? They may be in the safekeeping of the child in you.

Maybe you haven't ever done this. Maybe you haven't done it in some time. Maybe it seems silly or childish or immature or foolish.

But, try it.

Exercise One: Think about your life as it presently is, and who you are. Imagine yourself around the age of five (it may help if you have a picture of yourself at an early age). Close your eyes and make believe you are having a conversation with you as a child. What does the "inner child" have to say to you. Listen. What do you want to say? Remember, that is you. Be gentle, and see what you may come to say or realize. If you want to, you can write down what you experienced.

Maybe it's a mystery to you, how your life has become what it has, or how you have become what you are. Maybe it's a mystery to the child you once were — which you still are, inside — how you have become who you presently feel yourself to be. The idea here is to reach some kind of understanding. You can continue this dialog, rather than thinking of this as a one-time exercise that is done. The you — who you were at a more formative, flexible, or earlier stage — continues to impact who you are today, what you think and feel about yourself, what you feel deserving of, and what kinds of choices you make.

At the risk of oversimplifying, we will say that there are basically three words that you or your "inner child" need to say to each other: "I love you." Beneath everything, beneath everything that happened to that child or you where you are now, you really need to accept yourself, appreciate yourself, acknowledge your own sense of self, and love your self. You may wish to continue to do this exercise, when you choose to, until you come to a place where you hear your inner child, you at an earlier age, tell you, "I love you." Don't force it. Just wait until it happens. There is probably a lot you need to say to each other, before you hear that.

Somewhere along the way, we lose our simple innocence and joy in being.

We lose the openness, playfulness, and wonder of being a child.

Those are qualities we are not supposed to give up when we are "no longer a child." Parents, teachers, peers, authority figures, often demand that we "grow up." And, in that process, we put aside or suppress the wonderful qualities of innocence and joy in being. It is not being childish, but rather being childlike — this quality needs to be brought forward regardless of our age. It puts us more in touch with who we really are, and helps to free us from who we are not.

If you had difficulty with this exercise, or cannot relate at all with who you were as a child (for whatever reason), you may wish to do a different version of this exercise. Instead of having a conversation with who you were as a child, have that conversation with yourself as you are now.

Exercise Two: Think about your life as it presently is, and who you are. It may help if you look at yourself in a mirror. Or, you can just close your eyes and picture yourself sitting in front of you. Make believe you haven't ever met this person. What do you have to say, to the person you see? What do you need to say, to explain how you got to where you are, now? See what you may come to say or realize. If you want to, you can write down what you experienced. (in 200 words or less)

Once again, this may be difficult or easy. And, the three words you might want to say to yourself are, "I love you." Are you able to do this, looking at your self? What is in the way of that? What thoughts, feelings, beliefs, or judgments about yourself come up during this process? Do you like yourself as you are now? Do you see a person who is truly happy, in a place of peace, love, joy? Do you see someone who is engaged in their own life, or overwhelmed by life?

What you need to take from this is: there is still a place within you, which is closer to who you truly are. And it is a place of much greater peace, love, joy, happiness, and freedom. This is how you move closer to your authentic self, by moving toward who you truly are and want to be, and by gradually moving away from who you are not — what the world has made you. It is a process of being revitalized, remade, renewed from within you, by simply allowing yourself to be you.

Do not be surprised to see who you are not, when you are looking at yourself — we have already suggested that each of us is very much shaped by the world we are in. You will, if you look at yourself honestly, begin to see the ways in which you have been shaped. Some of them are not very appealing, and so you can let go of them. You may notice the things which not only shape who you feel you are, but how you present who you are to the world — such as vanity, ego, lack of self-esteem or self-worth, the feeling of not being good enough, guilt, shame, fear, sadness, or a mask which covers who you really are. Realize, it is not just you. Almost everyone walks through this world wearing a mask, having a private self and an inner experience which they do not wish to expose to the world. We are all vulnerable in that way, especially when we have experienced a soul-deadening or numbing influence by our prior socialization, conditioning, and habituation to the world-at-large.

5. Labels

A label — an externally applied definition of who you are — takes all that is unlimited and infinite and free within you, and puts it within the most narrow, restrictive, finite limits. A label solidifies your self-concept, the way the world views and treats you, and the consequences you experience. Wearing a label is not the way to live as a true, free, creative, unrestricted being.

We are all born with labels; we might just as well have a label on the back of our necks which describes how we will be cared for, treated, fashioned, used, or abused. That label has less to do with who we truly are inside, than it does the body and social conditions into which we are born.

There are perhaps as many as a hundred million people, men, women and children, who live in slavery today, around the world. That institution has never disappeared from this world, nor does it show any sign of remission. A person who is born in those circumstances, or is put in that place because of social, economic, or other factors, often wears that label their whole life, as do their children. That is, perhaps, an extreme case of what it means to wear a label — an ownership label — throughout one's life. But, we all wear labels, to some extent. Every label we wear enslaves us to something outside us, whether it is economic, racial, legal, academic, social, financial, or otherwise.

A person born in America, who is of African American heritage, most likely has a history of slavery in their family's past. It is not that long ago that a person with this heritage experienced a tremendous lack of opportunity in life, even if they were not a slave. Until very recently, they were dehumanized by the dominant social system. People of color could not drink from a fountain that a white person used, walk into a hotel through the front door, sit where they liked in a movie theater or on a bus, and so on. And it didn't matter how rich or educated or good a person they might have been — that label was applied to everyone of African descent merely because of the color of their skin. That label or one very much like it has been applied to those of Asian, Mexican, and Native American origins as well.

It is all too easy to deprive a person of their basic humanity — their right to be human, to be who they are — by labeling them. Society — the male, white, property holding majority — has demonstrated little tolerance for the rights of others, historically. This has been going on for thousands of years, it didn't just start yesterday. And so we inherit labels, and society at large agrees to apply them. Historically, we have had little say if we wished to reject those labels as being too narrow, demeaning, dehumanizing, or inappropriate. Those who spoke out were routinely righteously beaten, tortured, and killed by the dominant culture.

So, when we speak about "who you really are," we are well aware of all of the false labels and limitations that society might generally agree on — and we reject all of them. We do not accept any labels or limitations. We are not in agreement with society in any way that denies any human being their basic rights, humanity, freedom, and opportunity in life.

Race, religion, sex, ethnic background, social status or position, economic status, political ideology, and so on are deeply held bases of denial of human rights and dignity, as much as we might imagine they are not. In our quest to honor who we truly are, many people reach for these convenient social labels — and rather than rejecting them as racist or sexist or unfair, embrace them as a way of defining who they are. Or, who they think they are.

Exercise Three: Think about who you are, or who you think you are. Make a list of all your labels. Identify yourself by saying, "I am _______(fill in the blank)"; you can also use, "I am not _______ (fill in the blank)." There is no need to censor or be politically correct. Tell it like it is. Say exactly who and what you are, and what you stand for. (in 200 words or less)

Not disrespecting anyone's tradition or background, we can only say that you are more — much more — than what can be defined by any worldly label. If you find value and meaning and a sense of identity in your tradition or heritage that is fine. But, we are saying there is much more to who you are than those outward indicators.

Perhaps at some point in the exercise, you realized that you were running out of labels. If not, you may wish to continue the exercise at a time of your own choosing. You may notice that at some point you really do run out of labels to describe yourself, or labels that others use to "get" who you are. You might even find that you come closer to who you truly are. You are not any of the labels that society — or you, by assimilation — has put on you. Nowadays, it is becoming very popular for young males and females to label themselves, literally, with tattoos — as if this marking on their skin defines who they are.

You may have a given colored skin, or be born into a given religion, or be born with one sexual identity or another, or have a given level of education, or have a given job, or have a given social or economic standing, or side with one political perspective or another — but that does not define who you are. It may describe how you act in the world. But, you are much bigger than that. You are the inner self, the inner being, who is not a product of anything outside you. Your authentic self has no skin color or social standing. It is not defined by any external social label. It is your inner being, your consciousness, your true self.

Everything else is a label. And you can wear it or not. It's your choice.

We are not going to give you another label to wear, or tell you to be comfortable wearing the one you have. We are going to invite you to know yourself, deeply, beyond any outside labels.

6. Agreements

You have many agreements — whether you are conscious of them or not — with the world-at-large, your society, your family, yourself. Every choice you make is an agreement to participate in something and thereby obtain a given result (which you expect). You are in agreement with things that may serve you as well as those that do not. You may even be in agreement with things that are very destructive to you, such as choosing to abuse yourself with drugs, alcohol, tobacco, promiscuity, gambling, pornography, and so on. When you choose it, you accept it and agree with it — and in effect support it and promote it in your society.

In fact, you are in agreement with everything in your society to the extent that you do not personally, individually, reject it as not being right, good, or true for you. This includes racism, prejudice, religious intolerance, sexual chauvinism, limited personal expectations, materialism, and so on. You find a niche, a set of social agreements which you wish to adopt and which you wish to be accepted within, and you define yourself that way. It may be conscious or unconscious, such as joining the country club. It's a way of telling others who you think you are, and that you believe you should be acceptable to them.

You may or may not realize this, but you are in agreement with every label you wear. If you have not gone beyond the label, or if you use it to define who you are, then you are in agreement with society using that label as well.

This is a hard way to go. Basing your self-esteem, self-worth, and sense of self upon how others accept you can be ruinous. They can break their agreement with you at any time. And, if your entire sense of worth comes from something or someone outside of you, if you are ever deprived of that, you may just fall apart. There is nothing — no external structure — supporting your self-image, and without that, you really do not know who you are, or truly value your self, at all.

Those are the kinds of social agreements we make, at the cost of our own inner sense of self. We allow society to define who we are, and even welcome that as a kind of "success." There may be a high price to pay, in the end.

And, there are agreements we make with the "world" that are even more impacting upon who we are, who we believe ourselves to be, what role we play, what relationships we have, and what we accept in our lives. We suggested that you are in general agreement with the world as it is. That doesn't mean we know you and we know firsthand that you actually agree with everything in the world, or that you believe everything should be the way it is just because it is that way.

But, in a sense, you do have that sort of agreement with the world-at-large. And we know that, because everyone does.

The world in which you live is filled with many things that are not ultimately for your benefit. For example, you are sold endless illusions about who you are in commercial advertising: who you are is defined by your hair coloring, the beer you drink, how sexy your underwear is, whether you smoke and drink, how much time you spend in the sun, what sports or team you call your own, and so on. We are sold all of these things — we pay our hard-earned money for them — and so does everyone else, and so we believe in these definers of self. And none of them are real.

We are sold agendas, products, services, and things that are supposedly for our benefit, which define who we are, and they only take us further and further away from who we truly are, inside. The authentic self gets so caffeineated, drugged, drunk, made-over, dressed over, enlisted, and involved in so many ways, that our normal state of being is very unnatural to who we truly are. And we don't even know it. We are told we've bought the "real thing." The way we usually try to "fix" the problem is by changing our hair color, or our fashions, or our beer. As if any of that has anything at all to do with who we truly are. If you are someone who can be completely defined by the beer you drink, you are no longer a person but a walking beer label.

You may find that you need to break this level of agreement you have with the world-at-large, and make or honor a better agreement with your own self. The agreement will be, very simply, that you find what really matters to you, that you respect who you are more than what you are sold, that you take your identity from your deep inner self rather than the most shallow and superficial worldly identifiers.

7. Rebelling

Some people habitually react to social pressures by rebelling against them. They seldom see that they are still taking their identity — their sense of who they are — from what they oppose. Their sense of who they are is defined by — and often controlled by — what they are reacting to.

There is a difference between no longer being in agreement with various aspects of your social conditioning, and automatically adopting the opposite position. For example, let's say that a person represents authority; you resent authority and rebel against them. Whatever they tell you to do, you do the opposite. Can you see how you are being controlled by your reaction, rather than simply learning to act in a way that is right, good, and true to your self?

What if you reject authority because you think you are such a strong individual, and you refuse to compromise? You might find yourself unwilling or unable to work with anyone, because other people do tend to assert their authority in work situations. Or you might find that you habitually reject any good advice or common understanding, just because you reject authority. So, in what way would that be working for you — rather than against you?

There are, of course, people who are so traumatized by authority in their childhood that they cannot tolerate it at all. They may become Hell's Angels, join a counter-culture, or drop out of society. We do not see that as a workable solution to the problem; it is only giving in to the pressure of what is driving you, rather than truly getting free from it. If you ever see a motorcycle gang on TV, for example, you may wish to remind yourself that they are not freely driving down the road; they are being driven by the power of authority, which they have never learned to deal with. And, no matter how "free" they imagine themselves to be, they are probably more trapped than they can possibly imagine. We are not judging them or who they are; we are merely pointing out that a lifetime of rebelling can be as entrapping as a lifetime of conformity — and when we are doing it, we may be the last one to realize it.

This brings us to resentment. Resentment is another trick that people play on themselves, to "distance themselves" from whatever (or whoever) is troubling them. They imagine, "this is not getting to me." They imagine that their resentment protects them. In fact, it shapes them by the very thing they resent. In other words, what they are trying to keep out of them takes residence within them, and shapes them from within. If you cannot let go of hating someone, or resenting them, you keep experiencing the same feelings over and over. Resentment is actually a commitment to not letting go of something, not getting free from it. And, when you are no longer in the presence of whatever or whoever you resent, you do it to yourself. You begin to take your identity from what troubles you, what you cannot get past, what you resent.

You need to know that you cannot distance yourself from, or get free from, what you continue to react to — by rebelling or by resentment. That is continuing to draw your sense of who you are, your self-esteem, and your self-worth, from something outside you. As a result, you may lose your true sense of self, your inner peace, and your self-worth. Resentment and rebellion tend to aggrandize the ego, at the expense of the true self. There is a better way of being, by simply being true to your self.

8. Boundaries and Limitations

Everyone has limitations and everyone has boundaries. There is a difference between the two: boundaries are constructive attempts to have your own space, in a way that works for you; limitations are generally accepted or imposed attempts to unduly restrict your space, or to narrowly define you, your expectations for your self, or your self-image.

On some level, it would be nice to think of ourselves as unbounded, free spirits. In this world, in these physical bodies, we all experience boundaries and limitations. The idea is to remove as many unnecessary limitations on our selves as possible. As we will see, many limitations originate outside ourselves, and others are internalized: we limit ourselves, our perspective, our hopes and dreams, our engagement in life. In further cases we adopt patterns of self-limiting or self-destructive behavior, not realizing what we are doing to ourselves, or ignoring it.

Boundaries are important in establishing a sense of self which is independent, free from undue interference or violation from anyone else, stable, secure, and confident. We can set our own boundaries, experience them more clearly, and protect them, as we see fit. A simple example is a woman's right to say no to any untoward advances by a man, including sexual harassment, and certainly sexual assault. We hold our selves to be sacrosanct, and refuse to allow our personal space or our boundaries, or our bodies or our selves, to be violated by anyone else at any time. We do not grant permission. We do not allow such violations of our personal space, and we set the boundaries: for example, touching by someone we do not know, or who does not have our clear permission, is not allowed. It is important for us to learn to set our own boundaries when we are young; it gives us a clearer sense of who we are, and enhances our self-esteem. Many of us have never learned how to do this effectively. Assertiveness training is a way to recognize and set your own boundaries, and to learn how to have others accept those boundaries. We'll get more into that, later.

For now, we will continue to highlight the difference between boundaries and limitations. Limitations may be common, normal, or accepted by you or others — they may even find rationalization or justification — but they do not ultimately work for you. They are a way of keeping your self from openness, awareness, insight, intuition, creativity, and self-reliance. When you are aware of your limitations, you can see how you operate within them. But, the important thing about limitations is that you do not merely accept them as the way they are, and the way they must be.

There are ways to expand, push back or remove limitations that you might have otherwise accepted or taken for granted. For example, a person might lose a leg in an accident, and take to a wheel chair; it is certainly a way of coping and getting around, and there is nothing wrong with doing that. Still, another person might lose a leg and decide that they are going to become a champion skier. What one person takes as an absolute limitation — they will never walk again — another takes as a challenge, and refuses to limit themselves.

Life is that way. We all have limitations — it's what we do about them that matters.

We are not going to judge anyone for accepting various limitations in their lives. On some level, they know why they are doing it, they feel it is working for them, and they often feel that it is the most appropriate choice in their circumstances.

What we are going to do, is to present a different perspective, one which allows you to move beyond limitations you might have accepted in the past, but which you are able to see your way past, now.

9. Who in the World Are You?

The choice of how you want to be in the world is up to you.

We will point out what works for you, and what does not. The choice you make is up to you. We all come into the world with a nascent sense of self, and over the course of "growing up" we create our own little world to inhabit. The challenge is to find who we are in the midst of all that we are not. Have you ever wondered, "Who in the world are you?" And, where in the world did you lose your self?

Not very long ago, a woman who wanted a career could choose between being a secretary, a teacher or a nurse. That was about it. The world had a few predefined categories in which a woman was expected to fit, and if she wanted to do something else she was looked upon as being brazen, overstepping her position in life. Our society gives all of us categories that we can express ourselves in — who we can "be." But we are so much more than that. We inevitably lose a lot of our selves in being what the world-at-large says we can be, no matter what category we choose.

In our society, a common reaction to a feeling of loss of self, lack of self-esteem, lack of purpose, and lack of meaning in life, is to become self-centered, egotistical, arrogant, and self-delusive. At times we feel "less" than we can be, or try to prove that we are more than — better than — others. This comparison with others is generally self-defeating; it only builds up our egos or our illusions about ourselves.

When someone is commonly described as "self-centered," it means they are egotistical — they are not "centered in their self." In fact, they are probably lacking a sense of their true inner self, their core, their deeper self. They feel overwhelmed being in the world; and so they act as if the world — and everyone and everything in it — is there to serve them. They think that if they can just make themselves important enough — in their own eyes, and in the eyes of others — then the world will literally revolve around them. They crave this attention, this energy they draw from having everyone and everything around them. They get a sense of power from this. And, it is all rather self-delusive. In a sense, you become a product of worldly design. You may get very good at selling that product, but it is not the real you. And, on some level, you know that, if this applies to you. In a sense, you cannot fool anyone except yourself. And, even then, you know the truth, whether you want to admit it to yourself or not. Ultimately, you can't fool anyone, not even yourself. Either you are living your life as your true self, or you are not. You know.

Exercise Four: This is an exercise in awareness. Allow yourself some time to be with the following questions. Sit with them, and be aware of the thoughts, feelings, and desires that come into your awareness.

Questions: In what ways have you conformed to the world? In what ways have you rebelled? How do you know when you are acting in a way that is true to who you really are? Have you found your self, or lost your self, in this life?

We are going to present a different idea of what it means to be your self. At least, it will be new to you to the extent that you haven't experienced it. The basic idea is: the less you know your self, the more you act like what is "not you"; and the more you know your self, the less you act like what is not you. Of course, everyone thinks they are acting like themselves, and thinks they know themselves. After all, if you don't know yourself, who does?

And, that is the point. If you do not know and act as your true self, your authentic self, then no one else knows you or can truly relate to you either. They only relate to what is not you, the same way you do. Do you really know your self? Or do you feel as though you might have lost your self, or your way? Do you relate to everything and everyone from a position of ego, rather than your authentic self? Do you care what everyone — or anyone — thinks about you? Have you been molded or shaped by the world-at-large; are you in a role that isn't quite "you"? Are you defined by the labels you wear? Has your life taken on the most shallow or superficial dimensions? Are you living in your own little world, where you have things the way you like, and exclude all the rest of the world — or reality — from your private world? How small is your world, the one you inhabit?

Do you recognize yourself in any of these examples?

you have no idea what you are doing here
you have no idea what you really want to do
you were taught many things in school, year after year, but could not really relate to them
you pursue your goals and try to fit in and be a success, but you cannot relate to any of it
you are a success at being what (or who) you are not, which leaves you totally unfulfilled
you hardly know yourself
you doubt everything, especially your self
you disbelieve; you are disillusioned
you might meet people, have relations with them, and still not be able to deeply relate to them
you may not even feel any need to deeply relate to anyone or anything
you might not think to help others, because you might not know how to help yourself
you may not feel a need to make a difference in your life or with your life — or believe that you can.

All of this comes from not knowing who you are. The fact is, the world's definitions and labels and evaluations and perceptions of you are totally irrelevant to you. You are not what others think you are, but you aren't what you think you are, either.

So, who are you? Why are you here? What do you need to do here? What do you need to realize, learn, or move towards?

10. Lost and Found

Have you ever felt as though you were lost in a lost world?

Welcome to life on planet Earth. Now, we will be learning to do something positive about it, so that you can find your self no matter how lost you might have ever felt. You may have already "learned" how to react to everything and everyone negatively, or how to give in to the world's pressures, demands, or expectations of you — that's something we all "learn" here. But, that isn't really learning; and, it isn't of much value at all.

Do you know what it means to do something progressive, to experience who you really are, to unfold and express your true self, and act from there? It has nothing whatsoever to do with fitting in, or being what everyone else wants you to be. It's about being you, the real you. And, if that doesn't interest you — if finding what you are looking for, or don't even know you are looking for — right there, inside you, doesn't interest you, what does?

We are going to tell you how to find that place in you. That place you forgot. That place the world told you didn't matter. That place that the "system" denied, crushed, ruined, or defeated. We are going to show how to regain that place of wholeness and self, balance and well-being, and freedom. Not freedom to do what is bad for you — that's no freedom at all. That's living in a prison of your own making, or taking the world's ruination upon yourself.

Is freedom being able to put any tattoo or piercing upon your body, being able to have sex with whoever you want with no sense of connection at all, being able to cater to the lowest instincts you can possibly scrape up in this world, being able to get high? Or is freedom the ability to reach something higher rather than sinking lower and imagining you are getting "higher"?

In our modern society, the meaning of many things is reversed: "bad" means good; "sick" means really good. It is possible that you have many things backwards. Perhaps the world doesn't revolve around you. Perhaps everything you do isn't right. Perhaps everything you do doesn't serve you or free you, but holds you in bondage. Maybe your choices are pointed in the direction of darkness rather than light, descending rather than ascending. Maybe you lost your way and got completely turned around.

We can tell you how to change all that. But, you have to want to do it. If you don't care about yourself, who else really will? You tell yourself you don't care, but you do. You really do. It hurts to care so little. It hurts to love so little. And it doesn't matter what lies you tell yourself to try to make it all all right with you. You tell yourself you are free. You tell yourself you are powerful. You tell yourself that you can have anything. And yet you have lost what matters most, your own self.

You have to look at yourself, look at your life, look at what you have become, and realize, "I really don't want to be lost any more. I don't want to live without my true self, my higher self. I want to live with light, grace, peace, love, and wisdom. I don't want to compromise myself or sell myself out any more. I don't want to hurt any more." That's what you need to say to yourself. You have to tell yourself the truth — maybe for the first time. Do you have that courage, that strength, that power? It is not weakness to admit that you haven't had every answer or done everything right; it is the first step in changing, growing, learning. You are doing that now.

All you have to do is choose. The power is in choosing it. It is ultimately so simple, you could kick yourself for not seeing it before now: you have to choose you. You have to choose to be who you truly are, and choose to not try to be who you are not. What could be easier, or harder, more obvious or more nebulous?

You can be who the world has made you, or you can be your authentic self. As we continue, you will be able to see the choices that support you and the ones that don't, ways of being true to yourself and ways that are not. You will have the opportunity to make real, effective, positive, progressive choices — and begin to learn and practice true self-mastery.

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