A New Take on Self Mastery

Written by Michelle Shelton

August 8, 2023

I grew up believing that self mastery was a process of self denial. Controlling the bad impulses inside of you, mastering your urge to indulge or be slothful and lazy. Denying yourself certain pleasures, following specific rules. 

When it came to food and wellness, this idea of self mastery was my go-to strategy. Don’t eat these foods. Don’t eat at these times. Only eat these amounts. Don’t let your physical urges drive your actions. You are in control of when you eat.

This worked great. Until it didn’t. Like holding a wall of water back against a rising tide, eventually the internal push back was too strong and all of my efforts to self-mastery were quickly undone. 

I now have a new understanding of self mastery. While one definition of “mastery” does indeed mean “control or superiority over something,” I prefer the second: “comprehensive knowledge or skill in a subject.” When you have mastered a game, it is not because you’ve managed to control every ebb and flow, every corner and turn. It is because you understand it well enough to know how to pivot, how to adjust your strategy, how to leverage your strengths, how to navigate and make sense of new plays you may not have seen before. 

Self mastery through the lens of this second definition takes on a completely different form. It is building a “comprehensive knowledge” of yourself, a skill of tuning in to what is happening inside of you and what it means, a habit of responding proactively based on what you discern. Far from controlling, it enables flexibility, empowerment, and action. 

Self mastery in this form looks like:

1. Recognizing your triggers. We all get triggered at times. Self mastery neither tries to stop the trigger, nor reacts from it, but creates space to understand when it is happening and what caused it. As you understand the trigger you can separate that from the present moment and empower yourself to act from a place of intention rather than reaction. 

2. Understanding your emotions. If you have ever tried controlling your emotions (and let’s be honest, we all have at times), you know it does not work. It either stays stuck inside of you, waiting to spill out (often becoming a source of a trigger! See point 1 :) ), or it gets bigger and stronger in the moment, determined to be heard. When you understand your emotions as a signal of a need or a boundary, you gain valuable insight from your emotions into your values, purpose, and priorities.

3. Responding from your wise self. Creating understanding for your triggers and emotions opens up space for your wise self. This is where intentions generate, where values, purpose, and priorities lead. Far from needing to control, your wise self has clarity and calm to meet the current moment, no matter how uncertain. Far from needing to protect, your wise self has courage to face what may come. Far from needing the answers, your wise self has the creativity, curiosity, and confidence to discover the answers.

I am all for self mastery. But let’s let go of the need to control, dominate, or shut down. Let’s instead cultivate a deep understanding of ourselves. Let’s build skills of self awareness. Let’s become experts in our relationship with ourselves, our needs, our triggers, our emotions, our values, our purpose, and our priorities to allow our very best selves - our wise selves - to lead.