19 Nov Chamber of Sovereign Mastery #2; WHERE DO I FIT?
Never compare yourself against others – However, compare yourself against your own potential, against your own – possible! – against the capacity within you to achieve your purpose and your dreams. Analyse the passion that fuels your mission after you’ve weighed up your options and concluded who you are and what it is you’re here to do. Then conclude where best to place yourself on the chess board of your life to maximise the probability of winning in the game you’ve set for yourself.
Don’t allow low self-esteem, fear, or circumstances to prevent you from realising that which you know to be why you incarnated onto planet earth at this time. It’s in your body, it’s reflected in your experiences up till now, both bad and good, and even in your genes, and DNA.
Your personality, and the particulars of your specific truth make you a unique being. And I’m the kind of person who has concluded that destiny and fate are real, not just philosophical concepts bandied around by philosophers. I also believe we have more power over our outcomes than we often give ourselves credit for.
So let me define what I mean when I use the word destiny – I see Destiny as the realisation of our purpose, because we used our gifts and pursued our sense of calling to the fulfilment of our Souls internal conviction regarding who we are and what we are here to accomplish.
And by contrast I see Fate as the almost synchronistic inevitabilities which transpire when we fall foul of our purpose, usually because we didn’t pursue our purpose or value it enough. James Hollis PhD describes Fate and Destiny as; ‘the forces of determinism (Fate), and the possibilities inherent in all of us (Destiny).
These are the terms I use to describe these things, you can use your own, or none at all, let’s not allow semantics to cause a falling out between friends. However, because I hold this perspective I do believe we can realise our destiny and that the Universe themselves will literally partner with us by creating beautiful synchronicities and serendipitous events to enable us to get to our desired destination – if and when we step out and do what we feel internally compelled to do and be who we instinctively know ourselves to be. Of course that is going to require an element of honesty from us, honesty with ourselves, in order to come to terms with and honour our personal take on truth.
In the Mankind Project there is a saying which is often quoted at the men’s groups enabling participants to acknowledge what other men are saying without the man having to argue or seek to justify his expressions, they say; ‘What’s true for a man, is true for a man’. And every time I hear this statement, I smile inside knowing that the controversy such a statement could provoke if debated would be immense. However, what is liberating is that at the Mankind Project an environment is created where whatever conclusions a man has at that point arrived at is welcome and the other men simply hold space without judgment, or unsolicited feedback or advice.
It is trust in the process which enables this approach to be wise, it is an awareness that there is an inner guiding light for all of us and that if we’ll be honest with ourselves and have the opportunity to speak some of our conclusions out loud even if just to try them on for size or to hear ourselves utter them, more often than not many errors can be corrected by the internal response from our higher selves as we learn to attune ourselves to that still small voice.
Sometimes status quo’s need upsetting and apple carts require overturning, sometimes stale, unexamined lives need deeper scrutiny if they are to be worth living, sometimes we are going to have to dig deeper and come to more authentic conclusions if we are to be proud of the lives we’ve lived. – We will only be proud looking back on our lives if we know we lived unapologetically and to the best of our ability.
Asking and answering the question; ‘Where do I fit?’ then, means the ‘us’ that we’ve discovered ourselves to be in response to the question; ‘Who am I?’, is honored by place and context. When we answer this question and take action it may require that we start to overhaul certain things – jobs, vocations, relationships, friendships etc. These and other areas of our lives may need closer examination and scrutiny in order for us to conclude for ourselves if or not they reflect the authenticity of our lives as we proceed to hold ourselves accountable to a higher level of personal integrity.
Many people will try to fit your square peg into their round hole and shave off your edges. Believe me you need an edge in this world if you are going to get ahead.
Being compliant, agreeable and nice is not what enabled the women’s movement to get momentum. And being compliant, agreeable and nice will not enable you as a guy to accomplish your mission.
Of course the world will find it considerably more convenient if you simply roll over and get out of their way in order for them to fulfil their agenda, and achieve whatever objectives coincide with their mission. But remember you have as much sovereign right to live out the truth of who you are without apology or justification as anyone else on this planet.
This may sound obvious, but if those words make you feel a little uncomfortable it may be worth revisiting them again. Remember, we live in a world of abundance and life is NOT a ‘zero sum’s game’, despite what certain politicians and power mungers seek to convey. Therefore, if there is enough to go around, there is enough for you too and you don’t have to take anyone else’s to have everything you need.
To put this on balance and to help us to do this in a way which does not have to be at the detriment of others we explore here at The Idea of a Man™ in addition to the 12 Chambers – The Four Male Archetypes – King, Warrior, Magician and Lover.
Sometimes status quo’s need upsetting and applecart’s require overturning, sometimes stale unexamined lives need deeper scrutiny if they are to be worth living, sometimes we are going to have to dig deeper and come to some more authentic conclusions if we are to be proud of the lives we’ve lived, because we know we lived the life that only we could have lived unapologetically and to the best of our ability.
And let’s not forget the archetype of the Lover, in this case rather than us looking for love in all the wrong places and being dragged about by an addicted internal Lover whom maybe we have never honored or acknowledged. The Lover being closely linked to our inner child with all the curiosity and thirst for adventure and treats of a child, if not being led by a mature internal sovereign can be the cause of obsessive compulsive behaviours. By contrast the Lover who as a consequence of early wounding in this area of deep personal sensitivity and vulnerability can cause us to abstain from all meaningful connections and intimacy. And for some of us we end up swinging between these two poles from addiction to abstention and back again.
But by doing our shadow work we are able to transcend these ‘either’, ‘or’ perspectives and we can learn to embrace our inner Lover and ourselves and really understand what it means to love ourselves. To invest in ourselves and to place upon ourselves sufficient value so that we are sufficiently invested in our existence to do the work of personal development and personal growth such that we can achieve our objectives.
You see, essentially we can feel as unworthy and undeserving as we like, but this unexamined perspective by disempowering us and preventing us from giving the gift of ourselves also ensures we are never going to be a part of the solutions to any of the world’s problems or woes. It is going to take big minds, with big ideas to make a difference and cause transformation and change, and if we don’t do the work and heal so that we can fulfil what it is that we are here to do, we leave all the key player position in the hands of unhealed, narcissistic individuals, – bullies on the playground of the global playing field and various other psychopaths to seize all the opportunities and possibilities while the rest of us bemoan our fate and the lack of support provided by our childhood. But when we honour the Archetypes and their energies within us we get to live a life for us that has meaning to us.
So let’s ask; what’s possible for us? And let’s be daring enough to ask ourselves genuinely; What do we want?
This work is called Shadow Work, and it involves becoming aware of the energies we instinctively put into the shadows of our personalities. For example when we put the energies of these building block archetypes which exist within our psyches into shadow we’ll tend toward ‘either’ – ‘or’ extremes. However, by doing shadow work these energies can become more balanced and we are able to recognise for example that our sovereign right to exist without apology or justification means we don’t have to overcompensate for a sense of power we don’t feel with inflation or by abdicating our sovereign right to exist on account of feeling insecure in ourselves or ‘less than’ anybody else, causing us to respond with deflation.
On the contrary, if we discover our place as ‘King’ in our own lives we’ll be internally empowered to lead our lives intentionally and to steer the vessel of our existence toward our purpose as the master of our own ships.
Likewise, when the internal archetype of the Warrior recognises he needs not to be ragefully aggressive or passively aggressive because we recognise we have the power and strength necessary to change things up for the good in our lives, then this archetype comes out of the shadows with the internal fortitude necessary for us to achieve a life of meaning, fulfilment and purpose.
Additionally when we begin to learn to use Our Minds because we recognise our mind is literally our onboard Magician – and able to create magic within our lives and is not just a tool for our survival through the thousands of automatic instinctual behaviours which our subconscious is responsible for day to day. But instead we install our King archetype to sit in the driving seat of our lives, and he gets to use our mind as his key advisor, together they’ll find solutions to the problems we face in life and transform our lives from simply surviving into thriving.
I remember watching Earl Nightingale on YouTube. His video is called ‘the strangest secret’ and it’s a classic! – There is a statement which he made which has stuck with me. He simply asks the question in the midst of his dialogue; – ‘What do you want?’ and he makes it clear that answering this question is key to us realising our objectives.
So, first let’s establish; we all have potential, distinct from anyone else, specific to ourselves. So, I’m saying that the realisation of that potential, on an axis with the answer to the question; ‘What do you want?’ puts you in a position to realise your potential in a way that is tailored to your own specific wants, hopes, dreams and aspirations. Bespoke to the truth you are here to live and specific to the individual who has incarnated in time and space right now as you. Therefore, the pursuit of your destiny, is not some ethereal pie in the sky notion, but simply the pursuit and realisation of your most authentic, honest appraisal of what you are here to give, day to day as you bring the most authentic version of yourself to the table and allow yourself to unfold further and further into the evolving reality of you.
This is the next logical step in our process of self-discovery and it lays a foundation for all the other work we’ll do together here at The Idea of a Man™. It’s no good us engaging in self-development if the ‘Self’ we are developing is a caricature of someone else’s imagination and not a genuine reflection of the most authentic expression of ourselves.
Where we fit is wherever we want to fit. Be aware, however, the biggest obstacle you’re likely to face is a lack of clarity. So give yourself permission to get clear about what really resonates with you and what does not – march to the beat of your internal drummer, and do the work to get to know the internal parts of your psychological make up, and heal the wounds which may have been left unaddressed for many years so as to rise unimpeded to the heights of your possible, knowing; ‘You are not alone!’
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