When I was about nine or ten, I was walking with my dad and he shared something with me that has stayed with me since.
He said to me “Karen, regret is a terrible thing. You don’t understand this now because you are so young but if you have regret it will keep you stuck in the past. Strive to always, always do your best. Later on, so long as you know in your heart that you did your best, you will be at peace with yourself because there is nothing more you could have done.”
He was so earnest when he said it, I felt how important it was for him as a lesson. And even at that young age, it just seemed true.
So from that moment forward, I have always focused on doing my best.
I didn’t realize it then, but what he was teaching me was the beginning of cultivating mastery because in mastery, there is never perfection.
It doesn’t exist except as a mental construct, so it’s simply not attainable in our reality.
Your best however, is a constant process of refinement that is infinite in its growth even if the steps you take vary in size or speed.
I have learned that the spiritual journey is ultimately about cultivating mastery.
Rather than focusing on a specific end goal, the practice is about realizing where you are now, remembering where you started, and always looking for opportunities to continue to grow and improve.
The pandemic is an opportunity like none other to cultivate mastery.
Yes. It sucks. On SO many levels.
But just like with any challenge, there are always opportunities to be found for those who are looking for them.
Whenever I’m in a yucky place, and if I ever start feeling sorry for myself, what I find helps me is to think “there are so many people who have it way worse than me, and even they can still do their best.”
So for example, if I think my body is sore when I run, I think of my Dad when he was alive and how he was in constant, horrible physical pain. Many times he could literally barely walk, but he’d still get up and work out (very slowly but he’d do it!) for over an hour a day.
If he was able to do that, then I can do this now, because even though I’m sore, it’s nowhere near what he experienced on a daily basis.
Or if I worry about our business slowing down, I think of Chris telling me about when he lived in Egypt for a year when he was 18.
His father had just died suddenly and Chris was feeling really sorry for himself and wanted to get as far away as possible from all the family trauma. So he secured a position at an American school in Egypt.
During that year, he volunteered to help someone deliver food to some needy people. It turns out that it was to a leper colony, and they barely had enough food to survive because no one wanted to go near them.
So when Chris went in there with the food, a bunch of the occupants there started physically fighting over the food baskets, with gruesome hands missing fingers and angry faces with no noses.
The horror of these people’s experience jarred Chris so much it forced him to introspect deeply. And in spite of all his self talk about how bad his world was, he realized that it was absolutely glorious compared to these poor forgotten people slowly dying in the leper colony.
So when times get hard, do what it takes to get some perspective.
Find something to be grateful about if you can.
If you can’t, then get angry and use that energy to make some sort of change. Don’t let yourself wallow in it—just freakin’ RALLY.
For yourself. For everyone. Because we really are one, part of the divine, expanding.
In this week’s episode (#63), Dennis and I discuss “Seeking Mastery”, what self-mastery means on spirit level and how it’s often the missing key.
The free Group Frequency Calibration® (GFC) at the end is the most important part – it will help you begin to remove the distortion patterns that may be keeping you from cultivating mastery.
Without removing these distortion patterns, we just stay stuck at beginner level!
Here’s to doing and being our best.
Until next time,
Karen
SUMMARY:
• There’s no endpoint to mastery of self—it’s an infinite thing. Because we’re infinite consciousness, the growth and acceleration available to us on spirit level is infinite as well. So mastery isn’t about perfection—it’s a constant refinement and evolution toward a higher and higher frequency.
• You’ll have roadblocks in your growth on spirit level, and those things are there to teach you something. It’s a further refinement that needs to happen. But with frequency work and the removal of distortion patterns, you’ll come out of the bad moments faster and with the potential to quickly know them for what they are—opportunities to learn.
• Self-mastery is about the ability to observe oneself without attachment, and that detachment becomes easier with frequency work because you don’t so easily fall prey to thoughts, emotions, and stories. Even during difficult moments, there’s enough distance from yourself to ask: What’s causing me to be pushed out of my center? You have the chance to observe and remove patterns causing you to be triggered and catalyze yourself forward even more.
• Detox is often a signal of what you’re releasing and what you need to let go of. Even well into your journey, heavy detox can still happen because you’re constantly growing. Part of self-mastery is having separation from your emotions and thoughts, so that there’s a bit less wallowing or self-pity when detox does pop up.
• In Karen’s experience, emotional highs and lows become less extreme along the journey of self-mastery. The lows are often released as we become more at ease with what is. And the highs level out as you become less susceptible to your external environment. It’s not dull, because the baseline rises higher and higher, but you’ll find yourself on more neutral ground—experiencing less of an emotional rollercoaster.
• The journey of self-mastery is unique for each of us. Our minds may want to compare our journey to others or have context to know where we are along the way. But as you refine and rise in your own frequency resonance, you’ll stop asking that question and instead allow things to infinitely unfold.