Audio Course in Self Mastery
Your happiness is directly related to your ability to control your attention and the interpretations in your mind.
So many people have been inspired by The Four Agreements and don Miguel’s other books. However they have been frustrated because his books have very little in the way of practical actions for you to take. I was very fortunate to study with don Miguel over many years and be the recipient of many of his practical lessons that are not in his books.
I’ve taken the philosophy and intent of those teachings and crafted them into a series of practical exercises and activities that you can listen to on audio and do your self at home. I call this series the Self Mastery Course.
Near the end of the book, don Miguel Ruiz writes that if you want to adopt the Four Agreements as principles in your life that the next two steps to take are 1. Awareness and 2. Take an inventory of your Fear Based Beliefs. I’ve designed the Self Mastery exercises to help you accomplish just that and more. The more part is that include specific guidance on what to do, and more importantly what NOT to do, to change these beliefs.
The Self Mastery Course is located on my other website www.PathwayToHappiness.com. You can sign in and gain access to the audio sessions there. Below is a more detailed description of what the course is about.
Self Mastery Course Description
The self mastery course is a series of exercises in awareness and changing core beliefs that lead towards mastery of your emotions. The simple intent is to eliminate limiting fear based beliefs that create unhappiness in your relationships and your life. Eliminating false beliefs in the mind creates more room in your life for emotions of gratitude, love, respect, and happiness.
The Self Mastery exercises build on each other over the length of the program. As you practice them you develop awareness and skills to:
Stop your emotional reactions
Control the thoughts in your mind
Identify and change core beliefs behind your thoughts and emotions
Shift your point of view to see your self and others differentlyDissolve the voice in your head that is critical of your self and others
Develop respect for your self and for other people
Gain control over your attention so you can focus on creating love and happiness in your life, and in your relationships
Is this a big list, and perhaps too much to promise? Not if you understand that your thoughts, attitude, emotions, and behavior all propagate from your core beliefs. Whether your specific issue is insecurity, fear of public speaking, jealousy, anger, controlling behavior, or something else, it is founded in your core beliefs. Once you develop your awareness and the skills to change your core beliefs, then changing your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors becomes a simple step.
Awareness and Skills
Take note of the fact that I say develop awareness and skills. This is not about accumulating information, or becoming overly analytical in an academic way. We have been trained through years of school to be plenty smart, but we have had little or no training in being aware of our mind, changing beliefs, emotional reactions, or behaviors. To make these changes requires a different kind of learning and some skillful practice.
It is near impossible to make changes in your emotions and behavior simply by accumulating more knowledge and information. If it were that straightforward you could read a book and make the changes you desire. The truth is it doesn’t seem to work that way. People can read numerous books, and know what they should be doing, but don’t actually change a behavior or an emotion. In many cases all this information makes things worse because they end up judging themselves more harshly when they fail because they expected knowledge to do the trick.
One of the problems with knowledge is that it doesn’t require you to take any new actions. Because of that we don’t have any new experiences. And it is by experiences that we really learn. The other problem is that the very mind with the faulty beliefs is filtering your incoming knowledge to fit its existing paradigm of beliefs. This makes it difficult to take the necessary step of seeing things in a different perspective.
Self Mastery requires practical actions
Consider the process of gaining awareness and skills involved in swimming. Swimming is a complex activity that we make simple with practice. You don’t learn to do that all at once, but rather by beginning with small fundamental steps like holding your breath and then floating. When practicing these skills it doesn’t appear that you are learning to swim. However you are learning very important skills necessary for swimming.
Just by floating you are learning to focus your attention, calm your fears, and relax your body. When floating it appears you are not doing much. But it is in the not doing that you are making progress. You are learning how not to lose your attention, panic, flail, waste energy, and gulp water. These not doings are a big steps towards mastering swimming.
Learning to swim is a skill that you practiced in the safe shallow end and then worked you way up to rivers and oceans. As you worked your way up to more challenging environments you also developed awareness of your skills as a swimmer, and of the water. You learned to read the currents, depth, ocean waves, and things like rip tides. You also learned to make discerning choices based on your physical condition and the affects of water temperature of fatigue. As you gain awareness of your skills as a swimmer, and the water conditions, you can make wise choices and enjoy playing in a world of water.
Learning to make your way through the world of beliefs and emotions is similar. You can have a lot more enjoyment in the world of emotions when you develop your skills, awareness of your skills, and awareness of the environment around you. In the beginning it may be a matter of learning not to drown in fears, anger, or jealousy. As you become more skilled you will spend more time in the emotions of love, gratitude, and respect.
You can not learn to swim from a book or even 100 books. By the same token no amount of intellectual knowledge will translate to the skills necessary to change your perceptions, core beliefs, emotional reactions, and sabotaging behaviors. The only way to learn is to practice skills that allow you to make those changes. This includes awareness of your own beliefs, emotions, and point of view.
Most people have had no training in changing their assumptions, expectations, point of view or beliefs. When they do start paying attention they often react to what they discover with judgment or victimization instead of making clear assessments and effective changes.
By practicing the exercises in the Self Mastery program you will learn how to see hidden assumptions, and beliefs in the mind that were previously invisible to you. You will learn practical ways to step back and observe without wasting energy on reacting. You will also learn to avoid common things people do that amplify negative emotions and take themselves on a downward spiral of emotions.
This is NOT One of Those Success Program
Success programs try to provide you with the many habits, beliefs, and attitudes for you to adopt in order to create your dream life. The more effective programs often provide guidance on what to avoid that could derail you from your success habits. These include things like negative thoughts, self judgment, limiting beliefs, fears, doubts, and sabotaging behaviors.
These programs tell you to avoid these things however they rarely if ever provide effective tools to do so. It is easy to create habits of success if you don’t have any fears, doubts, or limiting fear based beliefs. However that is not the situation most adults are in with their lives.
The exercises in the first part of the Self Mastery program focus on the very issues that other programs seem to avoid. The activities in the program teach you how to challenge and dissolve the fears, doubts, emotional reactions, and self sabotaging beliefs in a comprehensive way. It does this by giving you very practical tools and actions to take. Instead of telling you how you should be you are just given actions in what to do.
“Other people talk about theories of happiness, but Gary gives you the steps of how to do it.” Holly P. California.
The Easy Way to Change Beliefs
As you practice the activities in the self mastery series you heighten your awareness to thoughts, emotions, and core beliefs. By doing so you see them from a perspective you didn’t have before. A natural consequence of raising your awareness is that you instinctually self modify. In this way it is not a strenuous effort to change your beliefs. With awareness it simply becomes a matter of common sense not to believe negative thoughts or unconsciously follow old patterns of emotions. The work involved in the process is to raise and maintain your awareness. However once you are able to raise your awareness of the world of emotions and beliefs, you will reap the benefits of these skills for the rest of your life.
A common objection, “This is “hard”
Some people consider the idea of changing an emotional reaction, behavior, or belief behind them as “hard”. This is an interesting assumption considering they usually have no experience in identifying and changing core beliefs. I will admit that changing beliefs that were programmed into your mind years ago can be challenging. It requires that you take some actions that may be uncomfortable at first, and that you spend time practicing the exercises. However I will not say that it is “hard”. What I consider hard is to live the rest of one’s life by the limiting fear based beliefs and emotional reactions that have accumulated since childhood. That is a hard way to live.
The Next Step in your Path
The best way for you to find out what the Self Mastery series is about is to sign in and begin listening and practicing the exercises provided. There is no risk to start because the first few sessions are free for you to sample. This gives you a chance to decide if you want to purchase the next 10 sessions of the course.
If you want upi cam read what course subscribers have written about their experience and feedback.
A few logistical details about the course
The first four sessions are available for free
The price of the basic Self Mastery course it is $99 with a one time payment. You can also have the option to purchase the course by making four monthly payments of $33.
The sessions are sequenced in 2 week intervals so that you have time to practice and integrate each assignment before going on to the next session. The exception to this is session #2 which comes one week after course sign up.
Every two weeks you will receive and email with pass codes to your next audio session. To access your assigned session log into your membership account with the username and password you signed up with. Then click on the session you are accessing. A security window will pop up requesting a username and password. Put the session pass codes you were emailed in the pop up window and you will be able to access the session and download the mp3 audio.
If you have difficulty logging in, accessing a session, or figuring out the passwords, or accidentally unsubscribed your self from the emails, you can probably solve your problem by going to the User Help Page.
For further exploration
If you are listening to practicing the Self Mastery exercises you might want to also listen to the free audio I’ve posted on the site as well. The free audio provides background and awareness on issues like the mind, core beliefs, personal power, relationships, emotional reactions, hidden assumptions, and how to stop taking things personally. If you are still debating whether or not to start the Self Mastery course, the free audio is a good place to explore the background of these teachings and find out if this process makes sense to you.
Here is feedback from a course subscriber half way through the series.
Dear Gary,
Regarding session 7, I have created an inventory of characters and been incorporating them into the material from session 5. I have found that this is a really good exercise as it incorporates a lot of the previous sessions and everything seems to be coming together….like a jigsaw puzzle.
Investing in this course has been the best thing I have ever done.
I have never come across anything that helps one achieve peace and happiness at such a low cost!
Your website is full of wisdom and i regularly listen to your podcasts as well as the ‘Odds & Pieces’ section……i am particularly attracted to the audio piece called ‘Life’.
I no longer have any moments in my life where i don’t have anything to do…..whereas in the past I would watch TV. I now practice one of your sessions or listen to your audio.
When I used to wake in the morning the different voices in my head used to fight for my attention and usually got my attention, leaving me dreading the rest of the day. However, I now listen to the gratitude session as soon as I wake up. After the session I am in a state of gratitude and it helps me be an observer more frequently throughout the day……and being grateful when you catch one of the voices of the internal dialog trying to grab your attention is wonderful.
THANK YOU
Peace and Love to You.
M. B.
The happiness in your life is directly related to your ability to control your attention and choose which interpretation in your mind you are going to believe. These are the fundamentals that you will learn in the Self Mastery Audio Program. The first four sessions are available to you free when you sign in.