It is the power to burst out of mental imprisonment, rise up, and own a dominant mentality.
Every person is born a slave. From birth, each of us are dependent on other human beings for survival. We are conditioned towards information, and powerless to choose our masters. We do not have control over what is fed to us – into our body and mind. And that is all ok; that is how life works initially. The issue is staying enslaved way past the sentencing term. We must aim to avoid that. Free yourself from the chains by any means necessary. Take note of the following signs of imprisonment & go heavy on breaking loose:
1. Timidness to display your true colors and thoughts, due to fear of the masters’ perceptions
When you critically think about it, being fearful to be yourself and think for yourself is the silliest thing ever. We are all going to die at some point, and generations after your death, literally zero people will know – let alone care about – 99% of the relatively minor things you have said or done. Of course, all things matter, but that’s more-so for yourself and your judgement day. The value in your actions do not come from another human being’s interpretation, and therefore, hesitation in acting should never manifest due to others interpretations. You should never place a higher value on what you think others think over what you think.
Yet, here we are in 2019 and the masses – at least in my experience – seem to be tip-toeing around what they say and do. The root cause of it is most people are so ignorant to critical thought. It is not a secret at all that once you are on your deathbed, of course you’d regret not being your true self and/or you’d appreciate that you were your true self. So take yourself there right now. Don’t not say something that would be beneficial to your inner circle, don’t not say something for concern of how those in your community will perceive it, don’t not do something for fear of misinterpretations of your attack (Law #29), don’t not be something to accommodate disillusioned perceptions, etc. Emancipate yourself and let loose your authenticity.
2. Cultivating anger to bathe in victimhood, instead of using it to get pissed off for greatness
Those people whose passions are geared toward the negatives (what’s wrong) and not the positives (what is desired) may still be enslaved. Of course every person finds themselves down in the sewer at times, but the difference is how one feels during that time – Are you uncomfortable being that way, and motivated to rise higher? Or are you content in your sorrows, and prefer to stay there? Notice where your energies and anger is directed to – If it is directed towards others more-so than yourself, that is a bad sign. When going through adversity or an injustice, a free-minded person will think inward – he or she will search for answers on the inside and fuel that fire within to light up positive rage to power initiative in escaping the current situation. Be very conscious of where your anger is being brewed, and which direction it takes you.
3. Little urgency in planning an escape & rising up towards a better future, due to contentment with the plain mental nourishment force-fed to you
How do you think slaves stayed slaves? It was an either/or scenario – They could either remain slaves, or choose to go down another route (risk escape, death, etc.). Whatever decision chosen in the past was difficult because all options were treacherous. Thankfully, it’s different today, at least in the United States and most regions. Major issues arise when people convince themselves that all options are still treacherous and given this false belief, people’s urgency to escape imprisonment is weak. This section is deep because it transcends just words – people say cliches all the time to dream big, work for success, etc. but who’s really living that? Who is truly chasing after their visions and leaving behind all traces of laziness and disempowerment? A lot of people are stuck playing a video game, and it’s like they’re still on Level 1 even after all these years. And they know Level 2 exists; they just convince themselves Level 1 isn’t so bad so they might as well stay there. Avoid that thinking. Always push the envelope and advance to heightened levels in life.
4. Attachment to the opposition & prideful of the imprisonment
Some people can’t exist without something holding them back! It’s like a basketball player acting like he wants to fight only after his teammate comes to half-heartedly hold him back. Without the teammate there, he could have fought back. But he instead waited for the appearance of resistance to then act like he really wanted to. He’d prefer to use his teammate as an excuse, rather than attacking the opposition in the first place. Deep down, he never wanted to fight back. Just like how some people don’t really desire to fight over obstacles; they just desire the false appearance of fighting over obstacles & value the attachment to obstacles.
A major sign of imprisonment is creating manifestations inside your head of opposing forces, and acting like simply the presence of them is a sign of your strength. No, it doesn’t work like that. Nobody gets a cookie for experiencing adversity (fake or real) – heck, you don’t even get a cookie for overcoming adversity because there are no cookies! Even if there are actual obstacles, injustices, adversities, etc. that are holding you back – fight over them. Don’t use them as some sort of badge of honor to gain sympathy from people because that only weakens your mind and power. Overcome whatever is opposing you because at the end of your days, your potential is not going to say to you, “Oh it’s ok. Stuff was opposing you, and because of that you didn’t succeed and had to surrender. That’s ok; it’s not your fault. There’s always next life.” Humans aren’t cats; only one life available. Therefore, punch your opposition in the face repeatedly – move onto the next one, and take pride only in defeating the opposition, not just experiencing the opposition.
5. The backwards mindset of fear collection: Actively being on the lookout for opportunities to validate your fears, instead of being on the lookout for ways to destroy them.
This is tied with being attached to the opposition – searching for answers to prove fears correct is a destructive mentality. Be wary of your thoughts if you recognize that deep down, you WANT SOMETHING TO BE TRUE. If that’s the case, your brain will surely distort new information to match whatever you want to be true. And if that idea is illogical or disempowering, that is very dangerous. For example, I’m not a very experienced driver and there’s some fear when I’m out there on the road driving again due to that. If I had an enslaved mind, I would seek out excuses and shape information to validate the fear. Instead, I seek out knowledge to up my confidence and destroy my fears. I have a positive psychology to be victorious over the fear, not a negative one to live in victimhood of the fear.
Empowerment Parenting
How a person was raised is a big contributing factor to the presence of an imprisoned mind. It is a parental duty to empower and set a child free, and many parents tragically fail at doing so. It can be a cycle: If a parent is still enslaved, that destructive mentality will extend to parenting. As a grown adult, a parent has the obligation to not use how he or she was raised as an excuse. Somehow someway, the disempowerment needs to stop. All adults can and should free themselves.
If a parent’s chains are still on, there is no doubt the child’s chains will only strengthen. Take note of different parenting styles. One parent shows their child examples of injustices he will face, and explains that society puts people that look like him in prison. Though this parent believes he is simply telling his child the harsh reality of the world, what he is really doing is unintentionally diminishing his child’s light and creating a negative environment for that child to succeed. Simply by emphasizing to a child potential future instances of his light being diminished, that in and of itself is diminishing the child’s light. Because what this parents fails to realize is that light sources aren’t found on the outside; they’re lit from within. The parent is overly concerned with imprisonment on the outside, instead of fighting against imprisonment on the inside. Sadly, the parent’s attempts to stress potential negative or diminishing factors in the child’s life are consistent blows to the child’s psyche & internal dialogue. And at a certain point, the fire on the candles will be blown away, the child’s fears will devour his dreams, and he’ll remain imprisoned forever … That’s the real harsh reality.
And even if the parent is correct in his perspective of the world working against his child, why tell the child that? What good does that do? Isn’t it better for a child to believe that he can accomplish anything he puts his mind to, as opposed to a child thinking he is destined to fail no matter what? Isn’t it better for a child to believe he can be his authentic self in all situations, rather than having to act fake out of fear in certain situations? Again, even in the case the world or a situation actually is against him – isn’t it better for the child to come to that conclusion himself, rather than be force-fed the negative perspectives of the parent? Let the child go hard in chasing after goals & living authentically, and be reeled in later if need be – rather than conditioning a child to start out hesitant, timid, and cautious due to warped perspectives. It’s much easier to dial back efforts & adjust, rather than to dial them up again later on. Overconfidence is preferred over a lack of confidence, and being too real is preferred over being fake. A child’s mind is constantly evolving – if there’s bullshit in the world that needs to be addressed, it is the parent’s responsibility to fight that, not create a toxic mental toolbox in a child’s head. If you are in a position of power as a parent, teacher, etc. – don’t paralyze a child’s mind by instilling timid attitudes that restrict freedom of movement towards positive goals. It is your responsibility to empower, not take any power away.
Another parent may instead show his child examples of opportunities to discover, stories of courageous and successful people, and explain that the world will empower him to succeed if he masters his non-cognitive skills. Instead of amateurishly defining the negatives of the world and articulating it carelessly, this parent emphasizes actions the child can take to overcome any potential obstacles, injustices, failures, negative energies, etc. This parent’s concern is not with the external at all or what might happen to the child – it is solely with the inside of the child, and what can be controlled. Mindset. It does no good stressing and dwelling about ANYTHING that is uncontrollable. Even in potential instances of adversity, this parent is not concerned with creating a fear. Instead, this parent emphasizes using the adversity and even power sources not even intended for use to empower the child (Law #20). The message is to define your adversity through meaningful action; don’t let adversity define you.
6. Minimizing responsibilities to lead your life: In situations where your control level is unclear, you will persuade yourself you are powerless
Life encompasses three kinds of moments: those in which you have no control, those in which you have control, and those in which your control is unclear. A characteristic of the imprisoned mind is inaccurately judging degrees of control. For example, perhaps you are job searching fresh out of college. Of course, there are many aspects of job searching that are uncontrollable – not every employer sees your resume online, whether an employer requests an interview after you apply, and your competition (who else applied). Then, there are many aspects where you have an obvious degree of control – your cover letter & how it’s perceived, how many jobs you apply to, your preparation before an interview, your communication skills during an interview, etc. An enslaved soul convinces himself or herself that these things don’t matter and whether he or she gets hired or not is not predicated at all on the aforementioned factors. This person will take pride in his or her powerless perspective.
And a powerless perspective is correlated precisely with a lack of personal responsibility, which has a far reaching destructive shock wave that plays a hand in all other characteristic traits. A lack of personal responsibility directly leads to a person dissociating actions from present life experiences. And this is perhaps the ultimate doomsday for everything else because to put it in simple terms – if you believe there is no correlation between your actions and the negative aspects of your life, then you must also believe there is no correlation between your actions and any potential positive aspects of your life. Therefore, you believe you have no control. You are powerless. So if your goal is to be empowered to accomplish every single thing you ever envisioned in life, then please do not go down the destructive path outlined here. Take personal responsibility for your life.
Gandhi – “You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.”
Mind-blowing yourself out of the chains of mental slavery comes down to controlling your mindset in all circumstances. During adversity, overcome it psychologically with a positive, determined attitude. Go through challenges along the path towards your vision, and face any resistance with an open mind. As well as an open stance ready for battle. When there is opposition facing you, go harder at achieving what you want, instead of putting energies towards contemplating the reasons for potential failure. Utilize effective cognitive defusion to look at your thoughts objectively, and then adopt the truest ones. Once you free your mind & thoughts escape the overcrowded lounge inside your head, everything is clearer. You understand what matters, and what doesn’t. And to each thing that matters, you do one thing indefinitely – Go heavy on it!
Inky Johnson tells a story at 48:14. He bought a mini 4-wheeler for his 7 year old son. After his son crashed while riding it and fell down in an area around his home, his son was confused and didn’t know how to react. Inky picked his son up, put him back on the 4-wheeler, and told him to “go heavy” on riding it – against his wife’s wishes. He knew that if he panicked and acted like his son got “shot 20 times” from the crash, his son would adopt the same hysteria and weaken in the situation. Instead, his son proceeded to continue riding the 4-wheeler and even said, “Dad, this is the best thing ever”, during his defeat of the obstacle. Upon arriving back home, Inky Johnson explained to his wife and mother-in-law why he put his son back on the 4-wheeler. (53:12) “The reason I did it was because if we didn’t attack the opposition, the adversity, and the challenge in that moment, it would have paralyzed him for the rest of his life – not physically, his perspective. There’s a quote that says your perspective can become your passport or your prison. It wasn’t about the 4-wheeler; it wasn’t about my wife. It was about teaching my son when life knocks your butt down, I need you to get back up and I need you to go heavy on it. The lesson was when uncertainty creeps in, I need you to get back up and I need you to go heavy on it. The lesson was when you taste a little bit of blood son, I need you to get up and I need you to go heavy on it. When things don’t go the way you want it to go, I need you to get up and I need you to go heavy on it!”