Will Practising Self-Mastery Mean I’ll Have No Feelings?

After The Three Levels of Leadership came out in 2011, readers followed up with questions on leadership, leadership psychology and self-mastery – all of them interesting.  So interesting, in fact, that I’m releasing my answers here as they supplement the “Three Levels” material and others may find them useful.  Here’s the fifth in the series.   I’ll post the others over the coming months…

Q5. You say you can experience feelings of joy while learning to be detached as you  grow your leadership presence by  practising self-mastery – but won’t detachment mean no feelings?

“Your assumption that if leaders practise detachment they won’t have any feelings is important… and incorrect.  So let’s start by being clear about detachment and attachment.

Attachment

‘Attachment’ means you desire certain conditions so strongly that your sense of identity, your place in the world and your mental state (especially your happiness) depends on meeting those conditions – and, indeed, avoiding the opposite of these conditions.

Thus, for example, a person can be attached to success, money, sex, power or many other objects of attachment.

Detachment

However, ‘detachment’ means being emotionally independent of conditions.  But note this next point because it’s subtle and essential: detachment is not numbness.  It’s the freedom to flow, leading to the joy of being alive without conditions.

So practising detachment in pursuit of self-mastery doesn’t mean a loss of feelings, but it will mean losing the False Self feelings that drive unhelpful interpersonal behaviour.  These feelings are fear (in its many guises) and pride (feeling superior, feeling you know it all, feeling you don’t need to grow).

Joy Isn’t The Same As Happiness

We also need to be clear on what I mean by joy.  You see, for many people the words ‘joy’ and ‘happiness’ are synonymous, but they’re not the same thing and it may be that when you say ‘joy’ you really mean ‘happiness’.

Happiness & Unhappiness

Imagine a line representing a continuum between happiness and unhappiness.  We can represent them as two opposite states like this:

Now if you regard happiness and unhappiness as a pair of opposites, as most people do, you have – probably without realising it – defined happiness as a conditional idea… meaning certain conditions have to be true before you can be happy.

For example, that you’re in a loving relationship, that you have a good job, that you have no debts, that you have $1 million in the bank, that your football team is winning trophies … and so on.  And therefore unhappiness flows when these conditions aren’t met.

Joy

But you see joy isn’t conditional.  And that’s why it’s not the same as happiness.  It has no opposite.  So building on the above diagram, you can depict the difference between happiness and joy like this:

So joy is not a position on the line between happiness and unhappiness – it’s not a compromise between the two.  Nor is it synonymous with happiness – it’s at a different level; an unconditional level.  If you’ve read any spiritual literature you may be aware that mystics have another word for joy: bliss.

My point is that self-mastery and joy go together.  The feeling of joy is an inevitable result of self-mastery.  Why?  Because self-mastery frees you from dependence on emotional conditions – or to put it another way, from the tyranny of emotional opposites.

Self-Mastery & Joy

The person who experiences joy sees and experiences life’s beauty, excitement and flow at every moment – and this is what it’s like to be in an advanced state of self-mastery.

In other words, the person who is well on the way to mastering her mind experiences joy regardless of outer conditions because her mental state doesn’t depend on them – she is detached.  She isn’t caught in the drive towards – or the flight away from – the pair of opposites.  There may be occasional exceptions, like the death of someone close to you, but they’ll be temporary.

So when you practise detachment on the way to self-mastery it leads to joy, flow and a sense of emotional freedom… not the absence of feelings.”

 

The author of this blog is James Scouller, an executive coach.  His book, The Three Levels of Leadership: How to Develop Your Leadership Presence, Knowhow and Skill, was published by Management Books 2000 in May 2011.  You can learn more about it at www.three-levels-of-leadership.com.  If you want to see its reviews, click here: leadership book reviews.  If you want to know where to buy it, click HERE.