It's so ridiculously easy to become lost in somebody else's dream; to go from the dreamer, to the dreamt and to go from a creator, to the created. It's way too easy to forget that we are our own authorities and that none of our thoughts, feelings or actions need to be co-signed by anyone else. It's so damn easy to forget, but so f*cking important to remember.
For those that forget as frequently as I do, here are 9 creatively coined mastery skills to help you begin to get to grips with this valuable art.
1. The Ping Pong Visualization Technique (PPT)
Take a few minutes each morning to run through this quick visualization exercise and picture yourself as a master ping pong player. Your mind is the bat and your emotional body is the 'off bounds' territory that you're so fiercely working to keep clear. The ball represents each orb of negativity that may be thrown toward you during any given day. But being the master ping pong player that you so definitely are, every ounce of negativity that flies toward you is swiftly returned by a sharp flick of your bat, keeping your emotional zone free from negativity, so that you can stay 100% winning.
2. Stop fighting your fire & embrace your inner heat
Whenever you find yourself overwhelmed with a burning desire to say something, no matter how potentially controversial it may seem... Just say it.
The choice between zipping your mouth or opening it to unleash your authentic self - expression is the monumental difference between existing as a mediocre human being or becoming a bad ass world citizen with some serious grit and substance. Who cares if you're not reflecting the views of the most influential person in the room?
Become the new influential person in the room.
3. Abandon your 'Ego Ideal'. (It's not who you are anyway)
Our Ego Ideal is the part of us that forms expectations of how we think we should act in order to live up to our self-created identity. For example: If we identify ourselves as being 'artistic', we may subconsciously do, say and wear certain things that live up to what we imagine an artistic character to be like.
While doing this, we seem to forget or remain unaware that these characteristics are illusory. They're simply social norms created by society to form a mutual consensus that subtly outlines how we should behave. Unfortunately this tends to turn us into robotic clones living under a false sense of authentic uniqueness.
This is also often what causes self-consciousness and keeps us in the dreaded 'what do others think of me' trap. So basically, it helps to break away from the norms that society has dreamt up for us and become creative dreamers, rather than existing as mere dream characters in somebody else's dream.
Which brings me to my next tip...
4. Own your authority
Know the difference between what you think you should feel you should do and what you actually feel you should do.
See, when we do and say exactly what we feel is right to us, it becomes easier to forget about what other people might be thinking. But despite this, we tend to follow the notion that filtering our expression is a good way to avoid the 'Oh sh*t. Do they think I'm crazy?' scenario.
But realistically, when we say what we think people want to hear - that's exactly how we end up in 'have I said the right thing' mode. We forget that it's much harder to get trapped in that silly mode, if we've said the thing that we think is right. When we do this, there's less room to worry about whether somebody else thinks we're crazy or not.
5. Stick to the million dollar question
The only question you ever need to ask in regards to the above is:
'Do I agree with the thing that I just did/said?' It's that simple. If the answer is yes, then what's the problem? If the answer is no, then you should probably ask yourself why on earth you just did or said something that you didn't agree with. And I predict that 11 times out of 10 you'll realize that it was because you were influenced by the potential thoughts of others in some shape or form.
When you begin to make a habit of becoming conscious of this, you start to gain access to some mind-blowing insights about yourself, as well as others.
7. Dance, Meditate & Sing... loudly!
I sincerely promise you that these activities are totally worth your devotion. Although results may vary, once you start doing them regularly, the shifts begin to stick and you'll realize that the Art of Successfully not Giving a F*ck just got easier to master.
8. Ask, or forget about it
For some unfathomable reason, we have a tendency to spend weeks on end pouring endless amounts of energy into dreaming up elaborate reasons for why a person has said something or acted in a particular way. Then we'll spend even more time contemplating what that actually means in terms of what they think of us. We're happy to spend all of this precious energy on imagining, yet we won't spend the ridiculously short time it takes to simply ask them. This is insanity manifested, my friend.
Make a habit to start doing this while learning to accept whatever response is given, and you'll quickly notice that life gets a hell of a lot less exhausting.
9. Remember this final insight...
Nobody really 'gets it'. Whatever it actually is. But our elaborate acting skills have the world convinced otherwise. When in reality, we're all just floating around attempting to make sense of things in the best way that we can. But we're forgetting that most of the rules we live by were created for us and not by us. So absolutely never allow anybody to make you feel inferior for creating your own rules and experimenting within this global experiment we've come to call life. When, 12 times out of 10, they're just uncomfortable with their own sense of psychological imprisonment.
Remember, true freedom lies in the beautiful Art of Successfully not Giving a F*ck.