#1640 WTF Is Self-Transcendence - Harps

that to Melissa just before. Might becoming a Brisbane soon to do that. We'll think about that anyway. So did it? Workshop yesterday called Understanding You were Me and a whole bunch of people in an auditorium at Deacon University Slow Down, Harps. Me and a whole bunch of people at Deacon University opened the door on the topic of trying to understand ourselves, kind of that self knowledge, self awareness, self for who am I? How am I? Why do I think the

way that I think? Why do I make the decisions that I make? Why do I do the stuff that I do? The good stuff the bad stuff, the dumb stuff? Am I living consciously? Am I living unconsciously? Do I do things which are at odds with who I want to be and how I want to be? Am I living in alignment? What are my values? What are the

things that matter to me? And does my typical lifestyle and the way that I do everything from health and wellness to communication, to career, to spending money to being a member of society does the way that I do all of those things typically represent or reflect who I want to be as a human. My values, my standards, my purpose, all the shit that allegedly brothers and sisters allegedly matters to me. So we opened the door on

that kind of stuff. And for me, my experience and observation from a personal perspective, me analyzing me, which is an interesting thing to do. But self awareness is kind of my field, it's my PhD area of research. But you know, as an observer of other humans, also the ever present challenge of trying to understand why do I do the stuff that I do? And why am I Why am I self sabotaging? Why am I overthinking? Why

am I underdoing? Why do I make decisions which are at odds with improvement and growth and development and all of that stuff is fascinating. You know, me talking today is not going to be a it's not going to

be a panacea or a three step solution. But I just want to keep opening the door on this topic because I believe that if we can understand ourselves better, understand our mind, understand our thinking, understand our emotions, understand our actions and reactions, and understand the way that we are in the world and the way that we are for ourselves, but also the way that we are and

aren't perhaps for others and around others. Now, pursuant to that desire, I said yesterday that I was going to share like a framework, which is really a synergy or a combination of a whole lot of thoughts and ideas from different people. I've added to it. I've put my own little touch and insights and stories into it. But this is part of what I'm about to share. I shared the other day at my workshop, my Melbourne workshop.

So it's like I said, it's Monday, so the other day being yesterday, and I said that I would unpack this further on my podcast. So for those of you

who were there on Sunday, welcome back. This is me kind of finishing this off or recovering or reflecting on this for you and for those of you who weren't there on Sunday, this is kind of I guess it's like a framework or a model that you could use to either start to be proactive and lean into this getting to know you, getting to understand the self capital s self that is in the middle of your life. It's so hard to be objective about ourselves, isn't it,

Because we are us? Because my experience of me is subjective. Your experience of you is subjective. Your experience you the listener, your experience of everything around you is some because you're looking through the U window. Through the U filter, you're looking at every person, every event, and every situation, every problem and every opportunity through the lens. That is your beliefs and ideas and values and education and all of

those things. As am I. So to truly to try to understand ourselves with a greater level of awareness with a through a somewhat more objective lens and a less subjective lens is the real challenge. So, without further ado, there's eight steps to this and I'm going to walk

you through them. I'm going to explain to you what they are, and then I'm going to kind of operationalize it, or to put it into practice, using me and one of my issues, one of my numerous issues as an example for you to understand how you might use what I'm about to teach you or share with you in a practical way. So there are eight steps. So I'll just share these eight with you now and then i'll

unpack them in some detail. So number one is self reflection, Two is self awareness, three is self knowledge, four is self acceptance, five is self regulation, six is self improvement, seven is self actualization, and eight is self transcendence. All right, here we go. So what is self reflection? This is more the education part. I'll give you a real and of course, you know, I don't expect you to necessarily

operationalize this today or even do anything with it. Maybe it's just for you something of interest, and it's going to be hard to remember all of this, but you might want to reply it at some stage and take notes just to get your head around it. But so stage one, self reflection is the practice of intentionally examining your relationships thoughts, motions, behaviors, experiences, beliefs, habits, patterns, and outcomes in order to gain a deeper understanding of yourself,

of you. This stage is not about judgment, evaluation, or labels. It's just about curiosity and recognition in a way. This is about, as Eckhart Toll would say, this is about you becoming the observer of you. And this kind of the self reflection enables us to identify patterns and behaviors and traits that might be good or bad. That allows us to if we need to make different decisions, do different things and grow or move in a different direction.

So that's self reflection. Number two is self awareness, which is just the ability to recognize and understand what's going on with us and for us our thoughts, our emotions, our drivers, our behaviors, sometimes those in the moment behaviors, and how all of that stuff affects both you, me and those around us. It involves being conscious of our internal states, feelings, motivations, thinking, desires, as well as being aware of how we're perceived by others in different situations.

Remember that beta perception. Self awareness intersects with emotional intelligence and helps us manage our responses to situations, make better decisions or more informed decisions, and align our actions with our values. It allows us to identify areas or needs where we need to grow, where we need to learn, unlearn, develop better relationships, navigate life with greater intentionality, consciously shaping

our life through this awareness. Number three, so self knowledge number three is the understanding of your own personality, values, belief, strengths, weaknesses, emotions, and motivations. This involves having a clear sense of who you are, what drives you, so your reason, your reason for doing stuff, your motivator for doing stuff or motivators, and also to understand what matters to you, what is really important to you, what do you want from life?

And self knowledge goes beyond self awareness as it includes like a much deeper understanding of the self, not just a momentary awareness, but a real deep comprehension of your inner workings, how you are and why you are the way you are. Self acceptance, yes, number four, is the process of fully embracing and acknowledging all aspects of yourself, both good and bad, strengths and weaknesses, without undue criticism or self loathing, while also knowing that you've got the

capacity for growth, learning development, doing better, positive change. It means recognizing your imperfections, mistakes, and limitations, but not letting them define you, define your self worth or your perceived value instead of striving for an unrealistic version of perfection. Self acceptance is it's really about cultivating compassion and understanding for you, for yourself and accepting both the good stuff and the bad, your achievements, your strengths, your flaws as

part of your unique identity. But also self acceptance is not some people get this, or maybe this is some people's interpretation. It's not my interpretation that that self acceptance is, Oh, I'm terrible at that, I'll always be terrible at that. To me, that's self limitation, but it is it is so for me. An example of self acceptance for me would be there have been times where I've intended one thing, but I've done I've been offensive to people I never

wanted to, or some people find me intimidating. I will do my very best, that's just something I know. I'll do my best not to be that, but I have to accept that there are certain people that won't like me. There are certain people don't like the way that I

communicate that's okay. Nonetheless, I will strive to be the best version of me, so that, by the way, I will never create optimal connection with everyone, but I'm going to kind of aim for that, knowing that I'll never quite get there, but hopefully what I'll get is further down the line, closer to that end of the scale.

Number five is self regulation, and this is the ability to be able to manage and control our emotions, thoughts, and behaviors in different situations, to create positive shift, to improve our operating system in real times social outcomes, to build better habits, and to achieve long term goals. And also with self regulation is a big part of it, I believe, is being able to be able to perform under pressure, responding to challenges and impulses in a balanced,

thoughtful way rather than reacting poorly or emotionally. And like you know, the whole concept of equanimity is being able to be the calm and the chaos, And so for me, quite often self regulation means not saying something I'm thinking, you know, impulse can emotional management, being able to lean into that uncomfortable thing and just be there, be there without reacting inappropriately being able to delay gratification, being able to not talk when sometimes I really want to talk,

but I have an awareness that it's not the right time, or it's not the right situation or the right person. So that self regulation number six is self improvement. So I guess in the context of this conversation, self improvement just refers to the ongoing process of consciously working to be better. It's that process that I'm always in the

middle of. You're always in the middle of to enhance your knowledge and skills and behaviors and thinking and overall well being in a way that aligns with your values, your belief setting, constantly setting and resetting goals, making deliberate and conscious attempts to grow emotionally, mentally, sociologically, practically, physiologically, perhaps any area of your life where you seek to improve, learn, grow,

evolve with that be better. This is the process, the process, and you know self help is self help is pretty much a product these days, but truly, at its core, self help or personal development, or in this example, self improvement is a practical process that we can put ourselves in the middle of. Daily number seven. We're getting there.

Self actualization is the process of realizing and fulfilling our potential, perhaps not our absolute ten out of ten, but self actualization is where we're now starting to be where we wanted to be, achieve what we've been wanting to achieve, produce the results that we hope we would, and now we're doing it. We're actualizing the thing or things that we set out to do. It's getting to where we wanted to go in inverted commas, while still having other

journeys ahead of us. I think most of us, you know, realize that that the final destination is death, but between now and then, you know it's going to be peaks and troughs, and we're going to get where we wanted to go, and hopefully there'll be some joy and satisfaction and sense of achievement in that, but there's always going to be something new. Now. That doesn't mean we can't take joy or we can't be super grateful for what we're achieving. But the self actualization part is I've done this,

I've achieved this, I created this result. This is great. I'm full of gratitude, but also I need to keep growing and learning. There's more that I can do. But self actualization is a really important part of the overall journey. Self transcendence is number eight. This is almost my favorite part because or my favorite kind of concept, because for me, it's really about having a purpose bigger than me. It's about it's about not being all about me, and it's

about serving others. I guess self transcendence can be considered almost like in this paradigm, while it's literally the final stage, but in terms of our own development, like the final stage where it involves going beyond personal fulfillment and takes us to that place where we focus on contributing to the greater good, connecting with a purpose larger than me, like humanity, like nature, like other people, the greater good.

It's about shifting from individual growth to collective wellbeing, fostering compassion for others, altruism, and a sense of interconnectedness. And I guess in this stage self transcendence, people often seek meaning through you know, something a bit more than self

help and dollars and practical outcomes. Quite often this is where people open the spiritual door in an attempt to you know, transcend just all that normal nuts and bolts of ticking boxes and fulfilling to do lists and reaching goals, and it's kind of it represents a broader, more outward focused way of living where the individual you me in

the middle love it all. We find meaning, We find joy in being part of something bigger than ourselves, in contributing to the greater good, that is those in our world, be that our immediate world or the greater world. All right, So that wraps up a kind of an overview of all of those. So what I'm going to do to finish this off is I'm going to I'm going to give your practical example working through those eight constructs, all

those eight components that process. So number one, remember number one was self reflection, and so I'm going to use a and this is the start of the eighth steps, So self reflection. So the reflection for this example is and I'm going to refer this. I'm going to use me as an example, so no one else gets offended. And then you can you can use whatever a kind of idea or subject or topic or issue or question to be the genesis for your eight steps. So self reflection.

What am I like? So this is what I'm focusing on for this example. What am I like around others? What am I like around others? How am I around others? And by how am I? I mean professionally and personally and emotionally and socially and energetically. Notice how some people have got great energy and you want to be around them. I love that. I love that, and it's almost inexplicable, like what is that about? I don't know. There's something about that person. They have amazing energy. I love being

around them. So self reflection. The starting point for these eight steps is what am I like? Number two self awareness? So this is me talking about me, and this is all an honest reflection. Self awareness times and this has been when I say a self reflection, this has been true for much of my journey. Over time, I feel like I'm transcending or at least improving some of it. So, but definitely all of what I'm about to share has been relevant for me. If not now, then definitely at

some stage. But much of it's still relevant now. Self awareness Step two. Here's my self awareness. Sometimes I try to impress people, which is ironically unimpressive. Sometimes self awareness I overtalk and under listen. Sometimes self awareness what I'm doing isn't working. Self awareness. Sometimes I can be intimidating.

Someone said to me the other day we were talking and I may have been overloading them with information may or may not have your honor, And they just looked at and they went, you're a lot, You're a lot. And I laughed, I when I am a lot. And then they said, in a good way, it's awesome, but fuck you know. And I know that about me, And sometimes I get excited, and sometimes sometimes in my excitement to share, to teach, to inspire to coach, I actually

missed the mark. So Number one self reflection is what am I like? Number two self awareness I just shared with you. Number three self knowledge? So what do I know about me? Based on that initial reflection? What I know self knowledge. I can be insecure, which impacts how I am socially. Self knowledge. I periodically suffer from imposter syndrome. Self knowledge. I have historically felt not smart enough at times. Self knowledge. What I know is, which is reflecting on

self awareness. I can be intimidating. What I know is I don't want to be intimidating self knowledge. How I see me, how I see me is typically not how others see me. Urgo the impetus for my PhD research, self knowledge. Sometimes I bang on about stuff that excites me as I shared a minute ago, but not the other person. Step four is self acceptance. Self acceptance. Some people won't like me and some will, and that's okay. Self acceptance. My good intentions won't always have good outcomes.

Also okay, kind of unavoidable. Self acceptance. I'm flawed, but I will work hard to improve, grow, learn and do good in the world. Self acceptance. I've made many mistakes when interacting with others, and I'll probably make lots more. Self acceptance. I'm not always a great person to be around, but I can work to do better. Self acceptance. I will always coexist with my issues. And while the volume might go up or down on those issues self doubt, insecurity,

overthinking all that human staff and why. While I might be more or less impacted generally less these days, which is good, there's always going to be an element of that stuff on Planet Craig, and so the acceptance part is it's there. That's okay. I will coexist with my self doubt. I will co exist with those feelings of inadequacy periodically, and insecurity it's okay. I don't need to wait for all but all the inadequacy and insecurity and fear to vanish because it won't can coexist with that

number five self regulation. Remember the starting point for this was self reflection. What am I like for others? Self regulation? I will work hard to develop theory of mind. Remember, theory of mind is a construct in psychology that means understanding how other people think. So I will work hard to understand how other people think. This is an interpersonal superpower,

this skill. I will work hard to understand how this moment is for the other person with whom I'm connecting, talking, interacting, problem solving, creating, whatever it is. We're on number five self regulation self regulation. I will listen more and work to be truly present when I'm in conversation, consultation, or any kind of personal or professional interaction. I will consciously

endeavor to develop metaperception and meta accuracy. Metaperception being my ability to understand how I am for others, metaaccuracy, how good I am at it. So I will seek to understand the Craig experience for my audience, be that an audience of one or ten thousand, on a podcast, whatever it is, Because if I can understand the Craig experience for my audience. Then I can create better connection, better report. Self regulation Number five, we're on. I will seek first

to understand and then to be understood. I'll seek first to understand the person in front of me. They're thinking, their words, their intention, their reason, their motivation, why we're here, what they're really saying. Then once I kind of get some clarity around that, then I'm going to try to get them to understand what I'm about. But first I'm all about them. And the last one under this kind of heading of self regulation is I will not overtalk

good luck without harps. Number six self improvement. As I said, this is the ongoing process, right, So self improvement, I will fully commit to the ongoing process of consciously working to enhance my personal interactions, how I am for others, my understanding of the personal persons in front of me, my communication skills, my self awareness, my situational awareness, and my capacity for in the moment focus and attention. Well, that's a big one. That's self improvement. Self improvement. I

will recognize my growth and evolution in this context. I will recognize it, i will lean into it, and I'll keep working on it. Self improvement. I will pay attention to my data. You and I are always producing outcomes, results. What we're doing in relationships, with our training program, in the gym, with our diet, with our spending, with our career, with our study, with all of our endeavors, We're constantly producing data. I'll pay attention to my data, to my results,

to my outcomes, and I'll respond accordingly. I won't keep doing what doesn't work. And the last one under the banner of self improven is I will have a greater understanding of the Craig experience for others. I will have that I am having that. I've developed that over the

last five, ten, fifteen years. I still have a way to go, but I have way more insight into that through various mechanisms and processes and protocols, like, for example, feedback from other people, like reading what people write about my talks or my work workshops, or I did a workshop yesterday. Obviously, as you know, we got some really beautiful feedback, which was nice. Sometimes I don't get amazing feedback.

That's okay as well. I want to understand what it's like being around me for others so that I can create the best connection and the best experience for others that I can second. Last one is self actualization. Self actualization. I am beginning to realize and fulfill my potential as a communicator, conversationalist, educator, coach, author and podcast Remember the starting point for all of this was what's it like being around me? Self actualization. I am becoming the best

version of me in this space self actualization. I'm creating better social outcomes for both me and others, myself and others. Self actualization. Some people enjoy being around me. That's a good thing. Self actualization. I'm less fearful, needy, and insecure in front of people. Self actualization. I'm becoming more person and less persona. That is I think at this stage

my journey, thank God, I should be. But I believe that I'm more authentically me, more raw, more real, more more almost private me in a public setting than I've ever been, and that's what I want to be. My goal is zero persona. I don't want to be a version of me for an audience. I don't want to be a version of me or you. I want to be me, and if you like me, you like me. If you don't, you don't if you're inspired or disappointed or frustrated or fucking entertained, it is what it is,

and that's okay. But the closer that I am to my private self remember public personal private secrets, the closer that I am to that kind of what is generally that version of you that's reserved for one or two. My goal is to be that version of myself for most people most of the time. To keep that door open, to be vulnerable, to be to be okay with embarrassment, to be okay with flaws and faults, to be okay with looking stupid, as well as all the good stuff.

And the last one in terms of my example, so self transcendence. Remember the starting point for this whole kind of little protocol with self reflection, What am I like to be around for others self transcendence. I will use my skills, knowledge and energy to serve others self transcendence. I will have an awareness and purpose bigger than me self transcendence. I will help others succeed self trans sentence. I will seek to understand the genius, wisdom, and guidance

that exists beyond the tininess of my mind. My understanding and my version of reality. What does that mean? That means that there's the there's the knowledge, the intellect, the wisdom, the small amount of genius that lives in my mind. But then there's all the rest. There's all of the rest of the genius, wisdom, intellect, guidance that exists in the universe beyond the very small parameters of my mind, and I want to tap into that and the last

one self transcendence. I will strive to operate from a platform of love, kindness, gratitude, and humility towards others. Now, obviously all of this is all of what I just shared with you. For me is true in that that's who I try to be and how I try to be. Obviously I don't nail that all of the time. But I just think that this this idea of or this framework of you know, being able to try to understand

ourselves with this you methodical kind of approach. I'm not the most methodical guy or protocol driven guy a lot of the time, but I think that this might might be a nice framework for some of you to use or not. Uh, you'll know, all right, team, love your guts, see y