LEAD AS A PIONEER
Self-Mastery - Choosing YOU
There comes a time in life when we have to stop looking outside ourselves for all the answers and begin to trust what is happening within us. Other people can guide us, love us, teach us and walk beside us, but there are certain parts of our journey that belong to us alone. Nobody else can feel exactly what we feel or know what our heart is trying to tell us.
I think this is where self-mastery really begins.
For me, self-mastery isn't about controlling everything around us or reaching some place where we suddenly have life worked out. It is much more about knowing ourselves, understanding our own nature and becoming comfortable enough with who we are to trust our decisions. It is learning to recognise when something feels right, when something has run its course and when life might be asking us to move in a completely new direction.
That kind of trust takes time. We can spend years asking other people what they think, looking for reassurance or waiting until we feel completely certain before making a move. Yet some of the most important choices we make don't arrive with certainty attached to them. Sometimes there is simply a feeling inside us that says, this is where I need to go next.
Our intuition can be very quiet. It doesn't always shout above everything else that is going on in our lives, which is why we have to learn how to hear it. The more we understand ourselves, the easier it becomes to recognise the difference between fear, wishful thinking and that deeper knowing that seems to come from somewhere beyond the busy mind.
As a psychic intuitive and channel, this relationship with intuition has naturally become a large part of my life, but I believe it exists within all of us. We may experience it differently, and we may give it different names, but there are times when we simply know something before we can explain why.
Self-mastery is partly about honouring that part of ourselves without losing our discernment. We can listen to our intuition and still keep our feet firmly on the ground.
Having the Courage to Be Seen
Another part of mastering ourselves is allowing ourselves to be seen for who we really are.
This isn't always easy. We learn very early how to adapt ourselves to the people and situations around us. We discover which parts of ourselves are welcomed and which parts might attract judgement, and before we know it, we can become very good at making ourselves smaller without even realising we are doing it.
There comes a point, though, when hiding yourself becomes exhausting.
Being seen doesn't mean we have to tell everybody everything or put every part of ourselves on display. It simply means that we no longer feel the need to apologise for who we are. We can enjoy what we enjoy, follow what interests us, express our creativity, speak about the things we believe in and allow ourselves to get close to what we love.
There is something wonderfully freeing about that....
When we stop using so much of our energy worrying about how we are being perceived, we have far more energy available for actually living. We become more willing to try things, to create, to laugh, to dance, to love and perhaps even to make a fool of ourselves occasionally. Life thrives when we stop watching ourselves from the outside and begin experiencing it from within.
What Our Difficult Times Can Teach Us
Self-mastery also changes our relationship with the past.
We all have experiences we wouldn't choose to repeat. There are times of loss, disappointment, heartbreak, uncertainty and change that can leave us wondering why something had to happen in the way it did.
I don't believe we need to pretend that painful experiences are wonderful simply because we eventually learn something from them. Pain is pain, and sometimes life is simply difficult. What we can do, when enough time has passed, is look back and recognise what those experiences revealed about us.
Perhaps we became stronger than we realised. Perhaps we learnt where our boundaries needed to be. We may have discovered what we truly valued, what we could no longer tolerate or what kind of life we wanted to create for ourselves.
Sometimes the greatest wisdom comes from the parts of life we never expected to become our teachers.
There are also times when something we desperately wanted to hold onto has to be released. Letting go can feel frightening because we don't yet know what will take its place, but an ending creates space. That space may feel empty for a while, yet it can eventually become the place where something entirely different begins.
Recognising the Golden Opportunities
I love the idea of golden opportunities because they aren't always as obvious as we imagine they will be.
We tend to think that a wonderful opportunity will arrive looking unmistakably wonderful, but life can be much more interesting than that. An opportunity might begin with a conversation, an unexpected meeting, a new idea or a sudden curiosity about something we have never considered before.
Sometimes it is simply a feeling that makes us look twice....
The more PRESENT we become in our own lives, the more we notice these moments. We begin to recognise the people, ideas and experiences that bring something alive inside us.
That doesn't mean every opportunity needs to be taken. Self-mastery also means knowing when to say no. The treasure lies in being awake enough to notice what is being placed in front of us and wise enough to decide whether it belongs on our path.
We Don't Have to Understand Everything Yet
One thing I have come to appreciate is that life needs a little mystery.
We can put enormous pressure on ourselves to understand what everything means and where everything is leading. We want the whole picture before we are willing to take the first step, but very rarely do we receive life in that order.
Usually we are given a piece at a time....an experience happens, somebody enters our life, an idea appears or something unexpectedly changes direction. At the time, we may have no idea how it fits into the bigger picture. Months or even years later, we can look back and suddenly see the connection.
I think there is wisdom in allowing some things to remain unanswered for a while. We can be curious without needing an immediate conclusion. We can trust that more will be revealed as we continue to live, learn and experience.
There is always more to come.......
Remembering Who We Are
Perhaps one of the most beautiful parts of self-mastery is that it can feel less like becoming somebody new and more like remembering who we were before we became so concerned with who we were supposed to be.
We remember what excites us. We remember what we love. We remember the dreams and ideas that were pushed aside because life became busy or because somebody once made us doubt ourselves.
We begin to recognise our own voice again.
There is wisdom in remembering. Our experiences become part of us, but they don't have to define the limits of who we can become. We can take what we have learnt, keep what still belongs to us and release what doesn't.
And sometimes we surprise ourselves....we discover that there are still parts of us waiting to come alive.
Leading as a Pioneer
This brings me to something that feels important: what it means to lead as a pioneer....
A pioneer is someone who is willing to go somewhere new. In our own lives, that doesn't necessarily mean doing something enormous or becoming known for changing the world. Sometimes pioneering is much quieter and much more personal.
You may be the person who chooses to live differently from the generations before you. You may be the one who ends a pattern that has existed for years, starts a business nobody around you understands, follows an unusual calling or finally allows yourself to become the person you have always known you could be.
There may not be a map for what you are doing, and that is often the point....
When we walk our own path, we quietly show other people that they are allowed to walk theirs. We don't need everybody to follow us, agree with us or even understand us. There is a very different kind of leadership in simply having the courage to live truthfully.
For me, that is what being a pioneer means....it is having the courage to walk your own road while keeping your heart open. It is bringing empathy and understanding with you rather than believing that your path has to be everybody else's path.
Self-mastery isn't about becoming perfect. We will still question ourselves. We will still have moments when we don't know what to do, and there will always be another layer of ourselves to understand.
Perhaps that is part of the wonder of being alive.
We are always learning, remembering, releasing and becoming. There are dreams we haven't dreamt yet, people we haven't met and parts of ourselves we haven't discovered.
So if you find yourself standing somewhere unfamiliar, without a clear road ahead, don't immediately assume that you have lost your way beautiful ones...you may simply have reached the place where your own path begins....
Trust yourself enough to walk it. There is more to come...
With love, peace and pioneering purpose,
Deb x
