How to Self-Regulate in Order to Self-Actualize

Part 1 of 3 | Understanding Your Self-Deception and Dysregulations:

‘‘It is only when a man tames his demons that he becomes the king of himself if not the whole world.’’

- Joseph Campbell

Welcome to Part One of the Self-Regulation-Guidance from the Letter of Loving Man!

In this three-part letter, I will guide you through the most important trait in life:

Self-regulation.

What is self-regulation?

Self-regulation is the skill that realigns you with your true, innermost intention and purpose on your journey to self-actualization (You are going to learn more about self-actualization in a moment).

Mastering self-regulation lays the foundation for the discipline needed to achieve whatever you want in life.

Self-regulation is the key factor linked to success in our modern times.

Winners are not defined by never getting off track, but by how quickly they get back on when they do.

What leads to success is your ability to quickly adapt to any situation while keeping your direction and staying on track.

Self-regulation involves adapting to a situation by realigning your focus on what is truly essential and right.

Life and its reality consists of ups and downs, and consistency always wins over perfection.

In this first part, you are going to learn how your ego deceives you and causes dysregulation. Later, you will discover how changing your perspective can counteract self-deception.

Self-Actualization:

‘‘What a man can be, he must be. This need is what we call self-actualization’’

- Abraham Maslow

Self-actualization is realizing your full potential, developing your abilities, and embracing life in its full spectrum of experiences. It is the highest level in Maslow's hierarchy of needs, describing the process of becoming the highest version of yourself.

When you self-actualize, you are living a life of truth. This means, being inherently open and not shutting yourself off from any idea or imagination.

It is about drawing from universe’s infinite knowledge to achieve a holistic understanding.

Clarity towards your goals and fulfillment stems from a deep understanding of the aspects of reality that allow you to achieve your goals.

This is not a single goal but a lifelong path. It involves embracing hard times and lifelong learning.

Nothing great comes without sacrifice.

On this path, self-deception is your biggest obstacle hindering your growth and fulfillment in every domain of your life.

Your self-deception creates desires that block your flow in achieving your goals.

Self-regulation is battling self-deception.

Self-regulation is realigning your focus.

Self-regulation is letting go.

How you self-deceive:

‘‘The current moment is always filtered through the current thought.’’

- Naval

Your mind seeks clarity and order to evolve and grow. When these are lacking, chaos and disorientation ensue, making you feel overwhelmed.

If these thoughts are based on self-deception, you become vulnerable to impulsive decisions, leading to unhealthy dysregulations and coping mechanisms.

You cope and dysregulate because:

1. you do not have meaningful and strict INTENTIONS that guide your decisions.

2. you lack a strong sense of PURPOSE that serves as an ASPIRATION that keeps you on the right track.

3. you lack CLARITY over your plan of ACTIONS which let you self-actualize.

…You do not understand the aspects of reality that give you clarity on your path of achieving your goals.

Your decisions hinge on your understanding of reality. Your understanding is deeply influenced by your perception, which is shaped by your experiences from the very beginning of life.

Your experiences are defined by the paradigm through which you perceive them.

Reality is the absolute truth, but your thoughts are not, because they are filtered through your paradigm. This is why your ego-mind deceives you.

Imagine yourself as a newborn, absorbing the wonders of existence with boundless curiosity.

Over time, these experiences intertwine like delicate strings, weaving the fabric of your identity. Some threads are fragile, easily swayed by change, while others become resilient as steel, resisting life's trials.

In your early years, dopamine reinforces the significance of new stimuli, contributing to your worldview. As you mature, your worldview solidifies, leading to emotional upheaval when faced with challenges to your established identity.

Your identity’s ego builds an idea of reality, which it is attached and clings to.

These attachments include not just preferences but also beliefs, biases, and ideologies that shape your sense of self and identity.

Your ego deceives you for its own survival.

The more you perceive reality through a paradigm that is attached to pre-fabricated ideas of reality, the more narrowed your perspective becomes.

This leads to less consciousness and more conflicts through self-deception and dysregualtion.

Your self-deception stems from a narrow and limiting perspective on reality.

This makes it easy for your mind to judge instead of observe. You already have a narrow, pre-made perspective and image of what reality ‘’is’’.

Judgement is the opposite of understanding and imagination. Observation lies at the heart of understanding reality and truth, while judgement stops these in their track.

This process is the source of all your perceived problems and struggles.

Letting Go:

To break free from this cycle, you need to transcend your ego, letting go of the impulse to selectively interpret reality.

At the core of this transformation is acknowledging struggle, rejection, failure, and disorientation as catalysts for growth.

Each obstacle you encounter presents an opportunity for realignment and evolution, guiding you toward your deepest purpose and truth.

‘‘Everything is here for our awakening, the universe will use anything to point us home, no matter how painful.’’

- @BodhiPerryer

Your suffering often seems isolated and disconnected from the greater context of life.

Your mind tries to make the impermanent permanent, which is self-deception.

You feel the pain because you do not understand the purpose behind your suffering.

Conflict, when aligned with your goals, becomes an inevitable companion on the journey toward your self-actualization.

Yet you resist these challenges due to a craving for perpetual comfort.

It is your ego that craves this comfort of not being challenged by reality and its ups and downs.

This attachment binds your mind.

Your future self wants you to evolve and grow.

Most of your daily wants are just a way to cope, because you want to escape reality. You want to avoid what you inevitably have to face, sooner or later.

When you evolve and grow, you build a new identity of self. Thus, your old identity, and all its ideas, beliefs, and biases have to die.

Your current identity craves its comfort zone to stay alive.

Most of these desires merely offer fleeting relief from discontent with reality.

A discontent with what is your duty in life and what reality gives to you.

In one hand, you hold everything that you can control and in the other, there is what you can not.

Your dysregulations and copes serve as pain relievers because you can not endure the discomfort and struggle with reality.

You start reacting instead of acting and mastering your reality as soon as you feel discomfort.

Freedom eludes you as your reactions overshadow actions, perpetuating cycles of dysregulation and self-deception.

‘‘Fate hits us exactly where we try to escape it’’

- The Book of Loving Man

If you change your perception, the world is likely to follow suit and reward you.

Ask yourself, ‘’Where is the advantage of my problem?’’

Embracing Life Holistically:

The Universe embodies absolute consciousness, encompassing the full spectrum of experiences, shaped by all perspectives and thus forming the ultimate truth.

We call it reality.

Reality is holistic.

Adversity acts as a catalyst for revealing your greatest strengths and gifts, as well as your most significant blind spots and self-deceptions.

Every conflict, failure, rejection, feeling of disorientation and overwhelm, struggle and suffering, serves to realign your focus and redirecting your energy.

Every experience and perception, every emotion you feel, serves as a test—a challenge to your capacity of navigating through life’s adversities.

‘‘Where your focus goes, your energy flows.’’

- Tony Robbins

Endure and tolerate the disorientation until a new vision guides you.

Embrace it.

Rejection and failure merely redirect your focus, channeling your energy towards new opportunities where it can make a difference.

All these feelings serve as opportunities for understanding.

Embrace reality as a guidance, aiding your journey towards higher levels of consciousness.

We are not battling life's challenges and struggles; we are striving to harmonize with them.

As soon as you are content with reality and embrace every obstacles in your life, you are no longer self-deceiving yourself. It is the starting point from which you try to understand the aspects of reality and yourself that hinder your growth and those that will eventually enhance it.

Truth lies in transformation.

Transformation needs radical open-mindedness and embracing what is… reality.

The highest truth cannot be put into words. You have to experience it yourself.

When you uncover the ultimate truth, you realize that all fear, judgement, and anger are mere delusions.

They stem from self-deception.

You understand that all the suffering and struggle have not been in vain.

They were divinely designed for you.

For your purpose.

‘‘…The path to one’s heaven always leads through the voluptuousness of one’s own hell.’’

- Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science

Anything in your life can be taken away at any moment. So enjoy and embrace it wholeheartedly with abundant love, even during the greatest struggles. Be thankful for the opportunity to struggle and suffer on your path of growth.

Be thankful for the chance you have been given.

‘’The whole world is a test.’’

- John Dutton

I highly appreciate you taking your time to read these words. I hope you could draw value from them.

Feel free to share this article with anyone, you think, it could be valuable to.

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Thank You

- Lennart