3 Simple Steps to Release Insecurity

When my spouse misunderstands me.

When my colleague wants the policy to be his way.

When the shop clerk is short with me.

When my kids aren’t interested in spending time with me.

When I’m feeling resistant to writing my blog.

When it’s not clear to my client that they'll break through the suffering.

When the future seems uncertain and daunting.

I’ve written a couple times about the most powerful question I ever learned to ask: "What am I avoiding being responsible for?"

Well here’s another powerful question:

"What insecurity is driving this experience for me?"

Usually, we resist our insecurities. We react from them in anger and frustration so quickly that we hide our insecurities from ourselves completely.

We react by blaming others, life, and God. We react by being the victim of the world we see.

We’d rather lash out at the people we care about than feel the inner discomfort of an insecurity flaring up. 

And there’s always an insecurity flaring up whenever our emotions get hot. 

We’re terrified of our insecurities, that other people see them and talk about them. That our flaws and shortcomings are going to do us in a bad way. 

Our insecurities are mini attacks from within our conditioned mind - they come from much younger versions of ourselves as children, teens, and young adults. And they run our lives and limit what’s possible wherever they go unnoticed or unresolved.

How do we resolve insecurities?

First, when we find ourselves freaking out, we ask "What insecurity is driving this experience for me?"

We recognize that there’s nothing wrong. 

Such a simple sentence to type and such a challenging sentence to live. 

There's nothing wrong with insecurities. Strangely enough, they’re there for us, to protect us, to help us win. 

Turning towards them is the first step to releasing them.

Second, we give them room to be. 

Our default response to insecurity is to resist (push it down, keep it down), avoid (like drinking it quiet for a little while), or react (get mad, or panic, or spin up the anxiety mechanisms). 

Instead of those default responses, we make a conscious choice to welcome the insecurity into our experience. “Yes. I’ve got room for you. Come on up. I’m not scared, we’ll be okay.”

The insecurities awaken deep within us, in our lower emotional centers. By saying ‘yes’ and welcoming them up into us, we invite the energy to move upward along our emotional pathway to where they can loosen up and get free.

By saying ‘yes’, we activate the true self, our witness consciousness, our seat of awareness, and it’s like we pull our head out of the barrel and see the apples floating there on the surface. 

Third, we choose consciously and intentionally who we be with the people and circumstances in our lives. 

“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.” (1 John 4:18)

The true self doesn’t want to bark at the people we care about. It doesn’t want to gossip and denigrate the character of our colleagues. It doesn’t want to run or resist the workings of its mind.

No. Only the insecure self barks at the people we care about. Only the insecure self gossips and criticizes colleagues. Only the insecure self drinks until its mind dulls. 

Each morning, put your important to-do list aside, and put the dreams of your to-have list aside. Then, take a sacred few moments and create the most important list of all, your to-be list. And then honor it, honor it, honor it. 

Aligning ourselves at all levels of our being is the most important task in our lives.

No one needs to respect us when we respect ourselves. No one needs to understand us when we understand ourselves.

When we know ourselves as whole, complete, and perfect, we no longer have to blame the people in our lives, and we have infinite room for them to grapple with whatever they’re grappling with as we love them through it.

Releasing our insecurities is a gift we give ourselves as well as to others. They become no longer responsible for us being okay.

Much Love. ❤️

Freedom From the Cage of Insecurity

Today I met with a former student and Mind Mastery Experience participant. 

Today’s conversation was powerful. He’s 19 years old, and he shared about challenges and successes he’s been facing, and what it’s been like to navigate life and listen for his own authentic voice, and then living it with integrity.

At times contrary to how his friends think he should be living.

At times contrary to how his family thinks he should be living.

Through our work together he’s gotten very clear and confident in his own inner knowing, and he finds that being authentic in his life has been easier than he thought, even in the face of pressures from others to conform to how they think he should live.

Mind Mastery grounds us in our own values and commitments, so we’re much less likely to leave them at the door when confronted, challenged, unsure, or insecure. 

He shared how proud he was of himself to not be taking things personally, getting frustrated with others, or feeling like he needs to be living a different life.

Here’s another thing he shared: when he's grounded and clear, he more clearly sees when other people are living fake… and that it comes from fear and insecurity. 

One of the tools in the Mind Mastery Experience is this: “I’ve been pretending _____, when in fact _____.” 

So many of us pretend to have ourselves together, yet we’re scared. Scared of being wrong, scared of making mistakes, scared of not measuring up, scared of not knowing, scared of looking bad, scared of feeling stuck.

Insecurity is driving so much of our lives, and we call it normal! It's like we move through much of life in a cage of our own making, hoping to one day "make it" and break free from that cage.

Many of us don't even see that freedom as a possibility in this life at all, and we think that our best hope is to cope with life in a spiritual, emotional, and mental cage.

From that insecurity, we make decisions that go against what we value, what we are committed to, what we truly want, who we really are. 

We people-please, we lie, we use substances, and we stress.

With Mind Mastery, something else becomes possible. 

Life doesn’t become easy with Mind Mastery, but we get to live life with more ease.

One of the most powerful possibilities this young man walked away from the Mind Mastery Experience with was the possibility of being unconditionally happy.  

Can you imagine that? Unconditionally happy...

The promise of the Mind Mastery Experience is that ALL people wake up and free themselves from the inherited and self-imposed constraints of fear, insecurity, judgment, expectation, and misalignment. 

Mind Mastery is alignment at ALL levels of our being - mind, heart, body, spirit, and relationships.

At the end of our conversation today, I asked him a question I often ask at the end of intentional conversations: “Is there anything else you’d like to say to be complete with this conversation?”

He thought for a moment, then said this: “Thank you. Thank you for seeing more in me than I saw myself. And thank you for helping me to see it too.”

I’m grateful for my relationship with him - and I'm grateful he sees more in me more than I sometimes see in myself, and that he helps me to see it too. 

Much Love. ❤️

Time-Traveling to Heal

I like to time-travel during my daily practice.

During my morning meditation, I’ll sometimes visualize younger versions of myself and others. I’ll see the world through the eyes I looked through then, then I’ll look at myself from the outside. 

It’s usually the heart that takes me there. 

For instance, yesterday morning I recognized some trapped resentment within me. (There are a few processes I use to recognize trapped emotions, and it's one way I work with clients.)

I started by looking at my life as it is and identifying where resentment was showing up for me. I didn't think it was at first, then I saw a couple ways it was definitely showing up.

So I forgave myself for it.

One of the methods I use for self-forgiveness is this (either spoken, thought, or written): "I forgive myself for ______."

Forgiveness includes an unspoken promise to be better.

After fully forgiving myself for how I was being resentful in my current life, I slowly and gently time-traveled backwards through my life to reflect on all the times resentment showed up within me. 

I forgave the people who inspired my resentment, and, more accurately, I forgave myself for being resentful.

I let myself feel the resentment. I let myself understand it. I let myself own that the resentment was mine and nobody else's.

Then I forgave myself for it.

Remember: forgiveness isn’t really about the past. It’s about our present experience, who we're presently being in relationship with the past. Forgiveness is a release - in the present - of what we’re holding onto, what we’re righteous about, what we’re justifying.

Forgiveness is letting go an intention of separation, justification, and blame, and when we let go, we become free.

So I forgave that young version of myself all his resentment, at times directed towards his parents, towards his siblings, towards his teachers, friends, priests, and neighbors. At times towards his wife and his own kids.

The experience was incredibly freeing. 

It wasn't freeing because the resentment went away (which it did). It was freeing because I got to own ALL of my experience of life.

As I told a 14-year-old student nearly 20 years ago when he said it was weak to apologize:

"Taking responsibility is the most powerful thing I can ever do."

Afterward, when my meditation timer had gone off, I still felt some resentment. But it was no longer something I needed to 'handle.' Nothing I needed my wife to take responsibility for so I could feel better. Nothing for my colleagues to do.

The resentment was no longer something I had to resist, avoid, or react from.

Instead, I let it be within me, and I thanked it for looking out for me. I thanked it for caring that I have a great life. I thanked it for being a gift, even if I can’t see the true gift in it at first. 

And I stopped drinking the poison of self-righteousness and justification that would otherwise feed that resentment until it tainted my life and relationships.

I got up from the floor and I resolved to allow the resentment to be and dissipate at its own pace, and I promised to not react from it.

I knew it would continue to release me as I continued to release it.

My work was done, and I could trust that it would find its way out of me - I had done everything I needed to do to help it on its way.

And it left. And I got free. 

And not a single thing around me had to change at all. 

Where we judge, where we blame, and where we justify, there’s no room for love. And feelings like anger, frustration, and resentment always carry a component of judgment, blame, and justification. 

We close ourselves inside a box of justification and expect other people to free us.

Those emotions aren't wrong. They're simply incongruent with what we’re really looking for: love, peace, and joy. Happiness, connection, and respect. Fun, enjoyment, and compassion.

Much Love. ❤️