Exploring the Layers of Authentic Self

Understanding The Authentic Self - Discovering Who You Really Are

Estimated read time: 1:20

Summary

Join Leo from Actualized.org as he delves into the concept of the 'authentic self,' challenging common perceptions and offering a transformative perspective. Leo explores how people often use notions of their 'authentic self' as excuses to stay within their comfort zones, hindering personal growth. Through a detailed exploration, Leo introduces three layers of understanding the authentic self, pushing listeners to view self-actualization as a dynamic process of relentless growth and evolution rather than a static state. This video encourages challenging your current beliefs and comforts to tap into untapped potential, ultimately leading to a deeper realization that the authentic self is a continually evolving, limitless state.

Highlights

Leo uses Heraclitus' quote to illustrate that we are never the same person and are constantly evolving 🌀.
The 'authentic self' is not a lazy, unchanging state but an ever-evolving, ideal self you strive towards 🔄.
Being 'natural' can be a trap, keeping you in your comfort zone and away from self-actualization 🌱.
Whatever you perceive about yourself is influenced by external noise and not necessarily true 🎭.
Understanding there is no fixed 'self' can open up boundless possibilities and freedom 🌈.

Key Takeaways

Your 'authentic self' isn't past or present you, but the future self you continuously strive to become, unlocking vast potential 🚀.
People often use 'authentic self' as an excuse to remain comfortable, which hinders true growth ⚠️.
Personal growth is a dynamic process; your identity is not fixed but constantly evolving like a verb 🌊.
Our self-images are shaped by random external influences; they aren't the ultimate truth about who we are 🤔.
Realizing there's no 'authentic self' can be liberating, freeing you from the constraints of ego and self-doubt 💡.

Overview

In this eye-opening video, Leo from Actualized.org takes us on a profound journey of understanding what it means to be your true, authentic self. He challenges the typical idea that our authentic self is who we are right now or who we have been, suggesting instead that it's who we aspire to become as we strive for self-actualization. With a passionate delivery, he ignites a spark for self-discovery and continuous improvement, encouraging us not to settle in our comfort zones.

Leo explains that the concept of 'self' is fluid and ever-changing. Leaning on ancient philosophical insights, he paints a picture of identity not as a fixed entity but a dynamic process. This mindset lays the foundation for immense personal growth, dismantling the illusion of self-imposed limitations and embracing an expansive potential for change.

Ultimately, Leo pushes us towards a light-bulb moment where we see the 'authentic self' as a verb, not a noun. It's a transformative realization that liberates us from preconceived notions and societal pressures. By releasing the need to cling to a static identity, we open ourselves to a universe of possibilities, becoming more aligned with our highest potential.

Chapters

01:40 - 05:00: Understanding "It's Not Me" Excuse In this chapter, Leo from actualized.org delves into understanding the 'authentic self' and explains the 'It's Not Me' excuse. He uses the analogy that 'no man ever steps into the same river twice, for it is not the same,' emphasizing the dynamic and evolving nature of human identity.
05:00 - 10:00: Exploring Levels of Authentic Self The chapter begins with a quote from Heraclitus about the ever-changing nature of a river and a man, setting the stage for a discussion on personal development.
10:00 - 18:00: Authentic Self vs. Lazy Self The chapter "Authentic Self vs. Lazy Self" discusses a common psychological defense mechanism where individuals claim that certain self-improvement suggestions are not reflective of their true identity. The text explores how this attitude can serve as both an excuse and a self-imposed limitation, preventing personal growth and change by using authenticity as a justification for maintaining the status quo.
18:00 - 26:00: Self-Image and Beliefs The chapter 'Self-Image and Beliefs' explores the concept of identity and self-perception. It highlights the speaker's internal struggle with activities and lifestyles that they feel do not align with their true self, such as socializing, being passionate, thinking positively, meditating, being fit, caring about nutrition, and engaging in nightlife activities. The speaker expresses a disconnect between their actions and their self-image, emphasizing a search for authentic self-identity amidst conflicting beliefs and behaviors.
26:00 - 35:00: Concept of No-Self The chapter 'Concept of No-Self' explores the idea that personal identity is not fixed and is highly flexible. It discusses how people often associate themselves with certain activities or traits, such as socializing or being a leader, and declare things that they are not interested in or not naturally inclined to do, such as learning a new language or being creative. This highlights the fluid nature of self-concept and challenges the rigid definitions of identity.
35:00 - 42:00: Conclusion and Call to Action The conclusion chapter reflects on the journey towards becoming a millionaire. The speaker acknowledges that simply talking about wealth or having a strong work ethic are not enough to achieve this status. Instead, it requires continuously pushing beyond comfort zones and embracing ongoing challenges and efforts. The call to action is implicit, urging the reader or listener to identify and overcome their own personal barriers to success.

Understanding The Authentic Self - Discovering Who You Really Are Transcription

00:00 - 00:30 hey this is Leo for actualized.org and in this video I'm going to talk about understanding the authentic [Music] self no man ever steps into the same river t twice for it is not the same
00:30 - 01:00 river and he is not the same man that is a quote from heraclitus in this video I want to address a really important foundational Concept in personal development and that's the concept of the authentic self one of the things that I hear from people as I interact and Coach them and read all my YouTube comments
01:00 - 01:30 is that I see people coming up with this excuse you can also call it an ego defense mechanism you could also call it a a way of thinking or a model of the self which goes something along these lines they'll hear some suggestion that I make that they should enact in their life and then they'll come back with this kind of thinking but Leo what you're suggesting that isn't me
01:30 - 02:00 not me talking to girls that's not me being passionate about life that's not me thinking positive that's not me meditation that's not me being fit and caring about my nutrition that's not me going out partying clubbing going to bars that's not
02:00 - 02:30 me socializing schmoozing with people small talk that's not me studying hard being a good student that's not me focusing on one thing at a time instead of multitasking that's not me leading others being a leader that's not me learning a a new language that's not me doing art being creative that's not
02:30 - 03:00 me being a millionaire that's not me talking dirty in bed that's not me working hard having a strong work ethic being disciplined that's not me pushing my comfort zone that's not me and the list goes on and on and on and on and I'm sure you've got your one
03:00 - 03:30 or two things that you think maybe you should be doing in your life but then again your mind says but maybe that's not me maybe that's not like my real personality maybe that's not like my authentic self what would my authentic self do in this situation would my authentic self try to be more funny or would my authentic self want to to have the kind of dry personality that I have right now maybe that's the authentic Me Maybe the authentic me is the fat me the unhealthy
03:30 - 04:00 me not the healthy Me Maybe the authentic me is the one who thinks negatively who has all these angry thoughts and depressive thoughts maybe the authentic me is the shy me who doesn't want to go and socialize and isn't very extroverted maybe the authentic me is the follower the passive me not the leader not that bold individual who goes and commands and dominates other people
04:00 - 04:30 maybe the authentic me is just living the simple kind of life that I live right now not living some sort of grand extraordinary ambitious kind of Life maybe the authentic me isn't good with women or isn't good with men or isn't good in a marriage or isn't good in a relationship or isn't good with kids maybe the authentic me isn't very artistic is not talented in art he not talented with languages he not talented with math is not talented with science he not talented with personal development or some other area of life
04:30 - 05:00 this a very dangerous thing this game of is it me or is it not me and I want to go and dispel at various levels we're going to dispel this this idea of authentic self actually at three different levels all right there's three layers of depth here and each layer goes deeper and deeper and deeper the third one is incredibly deep you might not even be ready for it right now but I'm going to give you a hint of it and you're going to need to
05:00 - 05:30 get over this isn't me idea in order to grow yourself because this is one of the most tricky and kind of like just stop you dead in your tracks methods that your brain has from preventing you from growing because take a note as soon as you say that something isn't you something isn't authentic to who you are that immediately cuts off that
05:30 - 06:00 possibility forever from your life forever you're never going to ever master that area of your life just because you said or you believe in your mind that this thing isn't really you why because there is this in congruity now between what maybe you feel you could be but then what your subconscious mind thinks that you actually are this is getting getting into the concept of
06:00 - 06:30 self-image which I have a whole video on you can check that out I'll link it below it's called self-image but we're going to go even deeper here right even further than self-image and really take a look at what it really means to be your authentic self because I see a lot of people getting confused here and I use this label authentic self and sometimes I use it in different ways so it does get a little bit confusing a little bit tricky let me help you guide uh let me help guide you through some of these uh some of these weeds here so here are the three levels that we're to tackle this at number one is the
06:30 - 07:00 following the authentic you isn't your present you and it's not your past you it's who you will become after full self-actualization happens which is an ideal you're never going to be fully self-actualized you're always going to be working towards that ideal but here's the first mistake that most people make is they think that their
07:00 - 07:30 past is somehow giving them a sense of who they are and that that's kind of their authentic self that's not your authentic self that's like your weakest version of your possible self right when I talk about authentic self I'm talking about your most evolved ultim highest possible potential
07:30 - 08:00 in life this means that if you did everything perfectly in your life then you would be moving towards this ideal if for the next 30 or 40 years in your life you worked your ass off every single day working and expanding yourself in every single part of your life that you could think of that would get you towards your authentic self that's how I use this concept when I talk about it in my videos this is very different than the way that most of you think about it
08:00 - 08:30 because a lot of people will use this idea of authentic self to stay in some sort of comfort zone right and say oh but that's not you know that that requires work that requires labor and and discipline and effort and you know that's not that's not really me that's not what I'm talking about that's not really your authentic self so that's the first level and I'm going to go into more details on this but I want to give you a preview of the next two levels so the second level is really the uh going
08:30 - 09:00 back to the original quote from heraclitus at the beginning of this video and it's this interesting idea that who you are is constantly changing we like to speak about a self myself yourself authentic self he's being authentic she's being authentic she's this way he's that way but what are we really talking about this is this is a conceptualization a theoretical notion if we take a look at at real life
09:00 - 09:30 who are you if we say that you is the common sense notion that we have kind of the unenlightened notion that you are your body you are your brain and your mind if we say that okay let's say that's you then even if we take that idea which we're going to expand on later but let's take that for now what is that that's a system right that's a system comprised of billions of neurons trillions of cells all working in coordination together molecules and chemicals and proteins and fluids and
09:30 - 10:00 organs all this stuff interacting really you can think of your body almost like a like a country right what is a country a country is just an abstract label for actually what for uh a chunk of the globe the physical geography of the globe um it's also the ocean and the water that's there surrounding the territory you might say but it's also all the people in it it's the ideas that people have so it's just very very AB ract highle idea country right but we
10:00 - 10:30 speak about countries as though they are real entities really um that's kind of a simplification that we have in our mind well it's the same thing when we we talk about you who you are is constantly changing every second every minute every hour every day every year your body is changing it's not staying the same your mind and your brain is changing so in a very real sense we can say that there is no you you you is
10:30 - 11:00 always evolving always shifting you could be growing you could be declining you could be thriving you could be dying you can be aging all of us are aging right so this is the second level and I'll talk about more about that in a minute but then we have the third the most advanced the deepest level and this is the level that says that really there's no such thing as you at all
11:00 - 11:30 even the scientific model that says that you are your body and you are your brain and your mind and your thoughts that even that is illusory not only is it that all the molecules and chemicals in your in your body and your brain are changing uh but this idea goes so deep that it says that you're even more than that right you literally are the whole of experience and the whole of reality not just your body
11:30 - 12:00 and your thoughts so on this level this idea of self authentic self is just a total fiction and it's complet a completely ridiculous Concept in fact this is a concept that creates a lot of suffering in your life but this is a very advanced level so I'm not going to go into too much detail on it here uh check out my videos on enlightenment which I'll be shooting a lot of which will help you to understand this idea if you're curious about it and it's a very fascinating and a very important idea for you to start to understand and to start to actually practice and living your life but let's go back for a second to some of these uh
12:00 - 12:30 initial levels that we talked about so this initial level the first one which is this idea that the authentic you is the self-actualized you who you will become if you expand yourself in all the different areas um of your life uh really this is this is the idea uh of this distinction that I have between the lazy self and the best self see all of us if we just kind of leave ourselves on the natural
12:30 - 13:00 trajectory of our own life what is that that is really us being our lazy self that's kind of us running on the same track and doing the easy stuff in life the stuff that's convenient and comfortable the stuff we know we can do the stuff we're very confident in we're very sure about and a lot of people frankly they live their whole life this way after they go through their teens and their 20s they experience all the natural growth that they're going to experience once they get past 21 they pretty much
13:00 - 13:30 start to Flatline and plateau and their life just kind of keeps going like this and it's just more of the same and the same and the same and the same because really what was happening is that in their teens and in their 20s they were experiencing lots of natural growth because your body's growing your brain is growing new new ideas are coming in there you're getting a lot of education and schooling so you're just kind of getting acclimated to the world once you're acclimated as an adult then you're pretty self-sufficient and you can maintain yourself on this consistent
13:30 - 14:00 even level if you want to and that's the easiest thing to do that's the most natural thing to do right requires no additional education no additional labor no additional development of skills no pushing uh of any comfort zones so that is kind of the status quo that's the default position now of course natural this idea of natural a lot of people also use this as an Eco defense mechanism and say
14:00 - 14:30 stuff like but Leo that's not natural to me it's not natural to me to go talk dirty to my girl in sex uh when I'm having sex with her it's not natural to me to go chat up a girl in a bar or a club it's not natural for me to work on this marriage it's not natural for me to go work hard on my career it's not natural for me to learn a new language you know it's not natural for me to uh earn lots of money it's not natural for me to be fit and healthy have a
14:30 - 15:00 six-pack so all these kinds of ideas uh but see this idea of natural what you're really saying there is that you don't want to take the challenge you don't want to take on the challenge it's too much struggle and what you really want to do is you want to stay comfortable you want to stay in your comfort zone and of course who can blame you who doesn't like being comfortable who doesn't like staying in their comfort zone all the time in modern society it's very easy to be comfortable you get a job that pays your bills and you're pretty much set at that point you
15:00 - 15:30 can get a comfortable apartment you can get a comfortable car you get a comfortable bed uh furnish everything you like you can find a comfortable guy or girl to be with and then you can just Coast you just Coast through life and you eat comfortable foods that make you fatter and fatter and fatter slowly over time destroy your health and um you just do kind of the comfortable stuff that's easy to do at work and that makes you mediocre and average at your work nothing's really advancing you're just kind of mediocre and average and you keep going and going and going going but it pays the bills so you know you're
15:30 - 16:00 happy you sit at home you watch a little television you play a little video games you uh go out to the movies once in a while do some fun stuff with your friends and that's a comfortable life it's not too hard to get that these days it's not but uh what happens there because of this idea of self-actualization and Abraham Mel's idea that self-actualization is actually not a luxury but it's a requirements of your
16:00 - 16:30 psyche once you get the basics in your life down you're not gonna just sit there what's going to happen is that your mind is going to slowly start to rot and your soul is going to rot from the inside out because you know that you're destined for something much greater in life you know that you have so much more potential you know that you could be doing something amazing for society you know that you could have an amazing impact you know that you have these strengths and natural talents whatever they are whether they're artistic talents business talents
16:30 - 17:00 interpersonal skills logical skills mathematical skills you know whatever you're really good at you know that you owe it to yourself to develop those and to work really hard on those so that you can really turn turn those talents to something that really shines so this idea of of being natural watch out for that what's natural is usually [ __ ]
17:00 - 17:30 and I don't know about you but I don't want a [ __ ] life I don't want a natural life I want the best possible life the self-actualized life and for that you have to have this expectation that you're going to be working really hard growing yourself for some people this seems scary and it seems like well why would I want to work so hard Leo like what's the point why can't just I just be like accepting of myself as I am just live this comfortable kind of
17:30 - 18:00 life like I said it starts to produce problems down the road for you you start to rot from the inside out and also the greatest fulfillment and pleasure that you get from life is not these low-level pleasures of satisfying some of your basic desires with food and sex and shelter but it's the high level pleasures of self-actualization work growing yourself pushing yourself and conquering obstacles being on that hero's journey in your life
18:00 - 18:30 living a life with passion helping other people in whatever way you want to help them by creating some amazing art or creating an amazing company in a business or doing some sort of charitable work or you know whatever lights you up that's where you get the deepest sense of fulfillment in life is when you're doing that when you're sharing your greatest gifts so I think you sense that and I think you know that you want that in your life right if you do you have to change this expectation
18:30 - 19:00 of your authentic self being who you were in the past or who you are presently that's not your authentic self your authentic self is what you're going to be growing to every single day when you're pushing yourself let me give you a sense of what your authentic self looks like because it's still kind of abstract I want to make it very concrete and don't think that this doesn't apply to you this description that I'm about to give you applies to you even if right now you feel like this is
19:00 - 19:30 totally not you this can be you and this must be you if you want to be self-actualized here it is your authentic self if you were that right now he or she would be confident completely confident assertive disciplined internally grounded in his or her own value vales emotionally
19:30 - 20:00 stable on purpose in life passionate deeply passionate about everything that you're doing in life having zero limiting beliefs of any kind believing not in a idealistic quick sodic kind of way but in a in a pra pragmatic kind of way believing that you can accomplish whatever you want to accomplish in life having that sense of strength and power having a high self-esteem knowing that
20:00 - 20:30 you deserve it knowing that you deserve enormous success knowing that you deserve enormous happiness in life having a desire to explore all of life not judging it but just wanting to explore and partake in it being fully self-expressive not holding back at all for anyone not being hemmed in by anyone's opinions of you having zero fears complete fearlessness being able to go in and
20:30 - 21:00 Tackle any kind of challenge in life any kind of obstacle any kind of project that you want without your fears holding you back it also means being 100% positive no negative thoughts of any kind seeing the world as a beautiful amazing positive place and wanting to make it even better it also means being social and
21:00 - 21:30 outgoing even if right now you're shy or introverted it also means being generous being generous with yourself being generous with your time and really being generous with the work that you're doing doing work that is promoting the good of other people and is making you fulfilled inside just by looking and seeing at the impact that you're having on the world it's being selfless it's not caring so much about a lot of
21:30 - 22:00 petty little problems in life but being more idealistic being more values driven being driven by higher Consciousness it's also having high Consciousness it's being in a high Consciousness State rather than a low Consciousness state which is the difference for example when you're meditating High Consciousness State when you're fulfilling your goals and your dreams and you're working really hard that puts you in a high Consciousness State low Consciousness state is when you're watching tele Vision or when you're doing drugs or when you're uh
22:00 - 22:30 stuffing yourself full of junk food being authentic also means that you're healthy fat is not authentic there's nothing authentic about being fat there's nothing authentic about being overweight there's nothing authentic about doing drugs or other kind of chemical dependencies or addictions so being completely clean completely sober and completely healthy and fit lean the way your body was designed to be your body was designed to be lean
22:30 - 23:00 whether you're a man or a woman it was designed to be lean energetic muscular full of Vitality that's authentic that's your authentic self authentic self also means that you're sexual highly sexual open about your sexuality comfortable with your sexuality whether you're a man or a woman speaking of man or woman authentic self means that you're comfortable being either very masculine or very feminine or if you're in between some you're comfortable with whatever position your
23:00 - 23:30 hormones have kind of placed you in in life but you're comfortable with that so if you're very feminine you're comfortable being very feminine if you're very masculine you're comfortable with that and you expand into it and you grow into it and you Delight in it authentic self also means that you're uh you're accepting of the other opposite pole of you as far as gender goes it means that you understand the opposite sex you don't hold resentment towards the opposite sex and it means that you can even partake in the opposite sex's
23:30 - 24:00 energy yourself sometimes if you're masculine you can be feminine and if you're feminine you can be masculine and you're okay with that you're comfortable with that you're secure with that being your authentic self also means that you're completely open-minded no idea offends you no matter how positive or how negative it is you're so openminded that you're willing to consider any kind of idea you're willing to consider that you're wrong you're willing to readjust any beliefs or models that you have about the
24:00 - 24:30 world and it just also means that you have this sense of nobility about how you approach life you always take the high road rather than the low road in whatever you're doing in your relationships in your interactions with people strangers family members the way you run your business the way you approach your career even the thoughts that you have they're Noble thoughts they're not Petty
24:30 - 25:00 thoughts so that's the picture right that's that's all the detail that fills in this abstract notion of authentic self now notice how different this is from what you might think your authentic self is it's very different and even right now as you hear all this you might be saying B Leo how can you be saying this you don't know me I'm a very unique person I have my own strengths and and personality quirks and everyone's
25:00 - 25:30 different you might say how can you say that everyone's going to be this way how can you say that everyone's going to be fearless and everyone's going to be masculine or feminine and everyone's going to be open-minded I say this because on a fundamental level we're all human beings and although there are lots of differences between us we have our little quirks and strengths and talents and and values and all this kind of stuff uh in the end a human being being is is pretty easy to Define once you
25:30 - 26:00 study human beings for a long time you do a lot of research on psychology and you study this stuff you see that pretty much there's like this Baseline level of what a a really proper uh example of a human being is kind of like an Exemplar of of a true human being and this is what it is this is kind of what it all boils down to if you're deficient in any one of these areas and it's hard for you to even imagine that you could be extremely confident and assertive and have zero fears and be sexual and be healthy and
26:00 - 26:30 all this other kind of stuff well that's because you've got a lot of bad social conditioning past traumatic events bad psychology negative thinking limiting beliefs poor self-image poor self-esteem low self-confidence all this stuff for you to work on this is all stuff that is kind of like you might think about it this way like um I think I've made this analogy before imagine like you're the sun this bright shine Sun this like uh
26:30 - 27:00 Fireball of energy and you're just bursting with energy right uh with energy in every direction just like rays of light shooting out but when you're born as the son and as you're growing up in your in your early years through your early 20s what happens is that it really gets gets like caked with lots of grime and dust and smudge and for some people there's so much Grime and smudge on this sun that maybe there's like one little shooting out in this direction maybe there's like
27:00 - 27:30 a little Ray shooting out in that direction just like a couple uh and you think that that's the authentic U that's not the authentic U the authentic U is who you are when all that Grime is removed and that's what I'm telling you with all these little characteristics that I just mentioned all these details um that's who you will be now don't get me wrong you're still going to have your own individualities right your own character strengths are going to be in there your own you're still going to have weaknesses in there in certain places you're still going to have your own preferences you're going
27:30 - 28:00 to have your own values so you're still going to be very different and very unique from everybody else that's out there but stuff like confidence this is a very general characteristic you can be confident about doing your art somebody else could be confident about doing their business somebody else could be confident about the marriage they're in or something else like that so confidence is kind like a very broad characteristic as is assertiveness as is fearlessness as is passion as is being social and outgoing all of
28:00 - 28:30 these things are just kind of like um almost like tools in your tool belt and when you're a fully authentic human being you have like a full tool belt of all these tools that you can literally uh manipulate anything you want in any way that you want and then it's up to you to choose which tools you use maybe certain tools you'll never really need other tools you'll use a lot that's where the customization comes in but overall you want to have this uh you know this freedom to do whatever you
28:30 - 29:00 want with your life okay so really right there everything we just talked about that is covering that first point about the fact that your authentic self is the fully self-actualized self now let's go on to the second point about your authentic self really not even existing because you're constantly changing all the time see a lot of people they'll say that the self uh is a thing as though it was a noun
29:00 - 29:30 right I am a noun I'm a thing I'm a person but actually you're not a noun what you are on this second level that we're talking about is you're a verb you're not you you're being you and being is a process this is a dangerous thing to do is is something called nominalization this idea where you take something that's actually a an active
29:30 - 30:00 process and then you transform it with language and Concepts into like this static thing which doesn't actually exist in reality right now I'm talking to you and my brain is rewiring itself as I'm talking to you I'm literally changing as I'm talking to you as I'm hearing what I'm saying that's creating more insights within me that's giving me even deeper understanding of myself all in the span of this this video that's happening right now so who I was when I started shooting this video is not who I am right now in the middle of the video
30:00 - 30:30 and when I finish this video I want to be a little bit different it's a subtle difference it's not a life transforming difference but you know what over the years these little differences add up and they can produce enormous changes which is how you can have someone who is Fat their whole life then get skinny be shy their whole life then get really confident be horrible with money then start earning millions of dollars be horrible in business then create a billion- dooll business be horrible in
30:30 - 31:00 relationships or marriages and then find his perfect dream girlfriend or boyfriend and partner for life this is how this stuff can happen and although it's rare it's not the norm you can have this happen in your life it's just a matter of being conscious about wanting it and going out there and pursuing it and also knowing how to do it having the right tools strategies mindsets so be careful about this don't don't put yourself in this little box and tell yourself that you're this noun
31:00 - 31:30 this thing actually you're a process that's always evolving so have faith that changes are happening within you all the time you just need to direct them in the in the right direction a little bit your brain is literally changing itself every minute good the next point I want to talk about is that you have to realize that this self-image that you have which is a bunch of beliefs about yourself you have a self-image that tells you how beautiful you think you are how attractive you think think you are to the opposite sex how good you think
31:30 - 32:00 you'll be in business how good and talented you think you are at art or at math or at science or at learning or at any other kind of skill in life you have a self-image that tells you how good you think you are as a human being how much value you feel you have in society relative to other people your self-image tells you how how often you think you'll succeed versus how often you think you'll fail and all of this is beliefs and these beliefs they've all been installed simply
32:00 - 32:30 through your upbringing a lot of people they get very attached to these beliefs and they say well this self-image this is really me this is who I am no you got to you got to be a little bit less serious about it the fact is that your self-image has been shaped largely by influences outside of your control literally by a random fluke luck you happen to be born in a certain country at a certain time in so in in modern society you happen to be raised in a certain type of family go to a certain type of school hang out with
32:30 - 33:00 certain types of friends watch certain types of TV engage in other certain types of media movies and magazines and books and all these things a lot of them were just random someone gave you a book you read it it changed some part of your self-image you watched a random show on the television that changed your self-image somebody called you a bad name at school when you were growing up that affected your self-image your parents maybe they neglected you that affected your self-image but all these things are very random they might have been totally different just complete fluke Randomness
33:00 - 33:30 kind of like noise in the system uh and a lot of people what I see them doing is they take this noise and they're they get attached to it they say oh this is me this is me this is who I am don't tell me to change this I'm proud of who I am there's nothing really to be proud of in this noise don't take it too seriously sure I mean be proud of your accomplishments and be proud of the
33:30 - 34:00 challenges you went through in life but don't be so attached to it so clinging to it that you're so closed minded now that you can't expand yourself more don't don't don't use this idea to to limit you all your ideas in your self-image should be enabling you to expand even further that's what I want so don't turn your past behaviors your past successes and your past failures into a definition of who you are because you're an undefinable thing
34:00 - 34:30 you're a limitless thing literally your potential in life is so amazing so vast you could take your life in any direction you want right now literally any direction you want you don't even imagine all the directions you could take it in because it would it would overwhelm your brain probably give you a headache but it's all there for you some of it might seem a little more natural than others some of some of those options might seem a little more challenging or easy than others but you know what that that's fine that doesn't necessarily mean
34:30 - 35:00 much so here we're going to wrap up with this with this level number two and I want to talk a little bit about level number three because this is a much deeper level and this level really starts to Boggle your mind really starts to mess with your concept of identity because we think about this identity we're so attached to our identities but actually what you can come to realize through lots of mindfulness work looking into Enlightenment this idea that I'm talking about now is going to
35:00 - 35:30 is going to start to bleed into Enlightenment and really what we're technically speaking uh is is this idea is that simply your identity is literally a concept and a concept is a figment of your imagination everything that is a thought that you have in your brain is a conceptualization of reality it's like a a fiction of the real thing that's out there and this is the this is the case with
35:30 - 36:00 who you think you are and what you can actually discover this is kind of a freaky thing to discover this is the most freaky also the most threatening thing that you can discover is that you literally who you think you are including this body and this mind and this brain and your your past history that that is a a fiction it's a very elaborate fiction created by your brain by your ego and uh what you'll really learn is that there is no authentic self because
36:00 - 36:30 there's no self period what there is is there is just life living itself and what you are is you are just pure awareness pure awareness of life is what you are of course I'm saying this kind of like as a as a story to you so whether you believe it or don't believe it it won't get you far this is something you can only you can only encounter directly through lots and lots of introspection hard work which I'll
36:30 - 37:00 help you do I'm I'm going create more videos about how to go in there and do that kind of work but I just wanted to give you a little bit of a preview of where all this stuff is going because it's exciting to think about this stuff at least to me this is kind of where uh all of personal development ultimately leads to is this kind of idea of no self is a very very powerful idea so whether you think that you're you're this positive person or this negative person whether you think you have all these strengths and all these advantages to you or you think that you don't in the end what I'm telling you is that none of that stuff is actually real
37:00 - 37:30 these are just like stories in your mind now what's nice about this is that you no longer need to be like stuck in life because of this you no longer need to cling to stuff you no longer need to clean to yourself and you get this like sense of relief right because all of your tensions in life where do they come from they come from having to preserve this self-image that you've got constantly preserving it constantly fighting for it constantly being in this kind of survival uh Do or Die type of
37:30 - 38:00 mode and this makes you very frantic it also makes you very selfish it makes you very Petty and it really kind of like blocks you up when you can let go of that when you can let go of your ego when you can let go of some of your selfish and Petty desires then like you expand out right you expand you start to see yourself as being more connected with everything and when that happens then you're not held up by Fe Fe so much by limiting beliefs so much by all the
38:00 - 38:30 stuff and all the kind of monkey chatter going on in your brain you let that stuff go and then what you find is you find that you get your best performance in life you find that you just flow smooth as you're like a you're like a superconductor right you're a superconductor of life like it just electricity just like flows through you life force just flows through you you become very creative you become uh very disciplined very organized um very caring about others you really start to move towards this uh first level idea that I talked about
38:30 - 39:00 which is all the details of the self-actualized fully authentic self you really start to naturally just gravitate and kind of like flow towards that without having to work very hard which is really cool and watch is why I'm I'm so kind of excited about doing Enlightenment work for me and showing you how to do it so that's pretty much it that's a very deep deep deep deep understanding of authentic self hopefully this gets you a lot more clarity when I talk about authentic self from now on I want you to
39:00 - 39:30 to understand what I'm really talking about this higher level self not the petty self that you think you are and really what this just shows you is that you've got a lot of growth to do and there's so much potential for you there's so much you can have in life it's really a positive positive message this is the most positive message you could want is that uh you are this son and you don't need to worry about working too hard all you got to do is like wipe off that grime every day wipe off a little bit of that Grime a little bit of that Grime and like a new little
39:30 - 40:00 uh ray of light will shine through and another one and another one and another one in all directions and then soon enough if you can uh you know do this personal development Journey for a while and really work hard at it then you wipe away a lot of that gme then you can really shine you can turn into an amazing uh inspirational human being the kind of human being that you read about in a book or you watch a movie about or you hear a story about why do we have stories why do we have myths about these
40:00 - 40:30 types of people because they Inspire us they show us our Highest Potential they bring us to tears they make us emotional they Inspire us to live life to the fullest because you've only got one life and it only lasts for so long and that length of time isn't very long all right this is Leo I'm going to be signing off this is how to understand the authentic self really fascinating topic go ahead and post me your comments down below please like this video click the
40:30 - 41:00 like button if you did and of course share it share it with your friends throughout on Facebook the more you guys share my videos po the more popular they become the more I can release of them for free and finally come and sign up to my newsletter at act.org right here it's a free newsletter sign up and you'll be on track to get my weekly videos I release new content all the time my best content is yet to come I feel myself growing every day I feel myself more and more excited about the possibilities of shooting these videos every single day so many ideas to shoot literally I have a list of over a 100
41:00 - 41:30 videos that I'm going to make and I love taking requests from you guys for more ideas so feel free to shoot them to me email or comment uh down below so sign up and you'll be on track with that right because this process of wiping away the grime that's basically what we're doing that's a metaphor for what all of this channel this website is about how to wipe a little bit more of that grime off so that you can fully shine be your real authentic self and eventually get to a place where you
41:30 - 42:00 discover no self which is the ultimate realization that you can have in this life and it's a really powerful it's a really exciting thing and I'm I'm excited to help you to uh to progress on this journey no matter where you are from the beginning to the middle to the very very end so sign up and you'll be all set