“Who is your master? Whoever has authority over anything that you’re anxious to gain or avoid.” ~ Epictetus
Read that again.
Your master is anything YOU ARE ANXIOUS to blah-blah…
In other words, if you want mastery of your life, true command of yourself, it is up to YOU.
It’s a mindset.
Break down that word: mind and set.
You have to understand what you want (mind) and then drive your intention there (set).
Knowing what you want to gain or avoid starts with knowing yourself.
To know your mind, develop a note-taking or journaling habit.
Mine? “Dear Diary…”
Learn to write down your stated goals and identify your known triggers… Or, perhaps you’re not there yet, maybe you’re still unpacking something… And that’s OK.
Remember: WHAT you are writing down is less important than THAT you are writing things down.
Over time, your journaling habit will enable you to better set your mind because the more you write, the more adept you become at knowing your mind.
Getting clarity on your thoughts will likely surprise you.
To master a good life, you need to do less time traveling in your noggin’ and more living in the now. Anxiety stems from not living in the present.
Writing things down is the bridge. You can take your time traveling past worry or future anxiety, and by putting pen to paper, you make it now, you are creating that thought in the present.
Now you can examine it in this timeline and decide how much true weight to give it, because IN THE NOW, whatever is on the page, is probably not happening or is not nearly as bad as you IMAGINED.
This should help you understand our thoughts are figments of our own imaginations, and we have control over this. Negative thoughts (ones that induce anxiety, stress, worry) should be relegated and released, and positive ones (your dreams, goals, aspirations) should be captured and created.
Journaling lets you see where you are time traveling to, and then helps you decide if these thoughts serve you or not.
The more you become adept at dispelling negative thoughts, the more you gain mastery of your timeline.
And this, your timeline, your time, how you spend your time and where your mind travels–whether to far away galaxies or the gutter–is your life, and the beauty of life is you are free to choose the landscape of your mind.
Choose wisely. Choose the galaxies. Choose to shine.