Musings on Mastery
I met with a lovely friend a few weeks ago for tea and walking the dogs and chatting about our work. She is a shamanic practitioner, trained in the work of Michael Harner and the Foundation for Shamanic Studies. We discovered we have a lot in common in that we both faciliate drum circles and journeys drawing upon native North American traditions; we do individual healing work, I facilitate one-on-one Soul Journeys based on Denise Linn's work and she practices shamanic healing of various sorts with her clients, so both of us are experienced in kinds of healing journey work, traveling to other dimensions of consciousness or helping others to, in order to tap into their and our Higher Selves or Divine Wisdom or Spirit.
We are also both artists, she being a painter and I a photographer (although one of these days I would love to paint! I have brushes, paints and boards just waiting for me but it is one of those "priorities" issues for me. More on that later.)
We are also both nature lovers, happy in the woods and in our gardens, both getting grounded and finding our spiritual centres in the natural world. I believe she may be more in tune with the "nature spirits", elementals and such. While I have been known to converse with a tree or two, I still do not feel at home calling upon the faeries or devas of the land. Some day I hope to get a better sense of that.
We discovered we have a few more things in common, drawing from our various life experiences, but one issue that popped up for us was the shared need to make more of a practice of what we believe in and what we preach. It's that "walking the talk" issue coming up again.
And it is not that we do not believe or practice what we offer to others, it's just that to fully integrate it into our beings, there really needs to be a focus on having a scheduled, regular practice, something done day in, day out, rain or shine, that keeps us on the centred path to being the people we aspire to be. The path of mastery.
This is not necessarily in order to master disciplines related specifically to our work. In my case, one of the things I decided I had to attend to by committed daily action, is the practice of yoga. I studied yoga from a teacher for several years, learned many poses but never mastered anything in part because I only did it in class, I never practiced at home. Yoga is not something I teach or offer to clients or students, nor do I ever intend to, except perhaps as a casual morning option at a weekend workshop. Yoga has no connection to Soul Coaching or feng shui.
What yoga is, however, is one way of my disciplining both my mind and my body. It is something I already know that, when I do it regularly, it helps me and makes me a better person, healthier, more comfortable in my body and more centred in my mind. Which will ultimately make me a better soul coach too I reckon.
Along with it I have committed to a daily brief period, twenty minutes or so, of sitting meditation. And in light of that "priorities" thing I mentioned above, the third thing I have decided I need to make a "practice" of is not painting per se, but doing something weekly just for fun, not geared toward self-improvement or to a facet of my work as soul coach or farmer, but just for play or creative self-expression with no "end" or "productive" aspect. That may in fact be my biggest challenge to integrate as I am so geared toward making whatever I do have some apparent purpose.
While many people desire to master a particular discipline like a sport, a work skill or craft for it's own end, to be successful at that discipline, I am looking simply for the "discipline" that comes from committing to a daily practice, of any kind. It could be running, it could be tennis, it could be writing for two hours every single day. While any of those would eventually make me a better runner, tennis player or writer (along with getting some good instruction and feedback), I am really just looking for the sense of self-discipline, a feeling of true commitment to myself, to my health and well-being, to being the best I can be in a way that resonates with me, so that I can be of service to others.
I am desiring to master myself and to prove to myself, through a committed daily practice that I can commit. When one commits to themselves one develops trust in onesself. And when one trusts themselves, it sends a signal to others that one is trustworthy. Making such a commitment, by way of a written contract with onesself, is in fact one of the components of the 28-day soul coaching® program too, for just those reasons.
It is also helpful to do that program and any other practice which is attempting to change the way you normally do things, with the support of a group. The others can help prod you and keep you in check when you fall off the path, until it becomes an integral part of your life. Support systems are essential in overcoming what is known as "homeostasis"*, a resistance to change within us that is natural, some kind of stabilizing mechanism that can sometimes work against us. For that reason my friend and I have committed to a kind of "buddy system", to check in on each other and our progress with our respective commitments.
The path of mastery is not easy but is an antidote to our modern world of quick fixes, immediate gratification, superficiality and lack of faith in ourselves and others.
This article was not only inspired by my conversation with my friend, but by a recent re-reading of the short but excellent book "Mastery: the keys to long-term success and fulfillment", by George Leonard. The edition I have is from 1991, published by Dutton, and was required reading and the subject of the opening night lecture, when I attended the Maine Photographic Workshops for the first time back in 1993.
I think it bears periodic re-reading, and is a reminder of the trite but true saying that it is the journey, not the destination, that is the real reward, or as Buddhist leader and teacher Chogyam Trungpa titled his book about the practice of mindfulness meditation: "The Path is the Goal". Leonard's book is all about how you can get on and stay on the path, to whatever you are trying to master.
Thanks also to my husband, to whom I had given the copy of "Mastery", (due to his own comments about needing to become master of himself), for, after reading it twice, offering it back to me, saying, "maybe you'd like to read this again too?" Umm, have I ever written the blog about how our relationships are mirrors?
Here's to the path.
*see more on homeostasis and the other challenges on the path to mastery in Leonard's book.
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