Every day, I get up, slip my clothes on, put on my shoes and tie them, brush my teeth, wash my face, brew a hot cup of java, and go to work.

I don’t have to focus on HOW to do these things – I’ve mastered them.

There are basically five levels of skill acquisition:

Unconsciously Unskilled (UU) – in which I am unaware of a skill I might want or use later.

Consciously Unskilled (CU) – in which I become aware of a skill I want but am as yet unskilled at it.

Consciously Skilled (CS) – in which I’ve learned the skill and must focus on HOW to accomplish the skill each time I do it in order to do it correctly.

Unconsciously Skilled (US) – in which I do the skill without any further attention to HOW TO DO IT. Like tying my shoes, I can do it without thinking – I just do it.

Skill Mastery (SM) – in which I have MASTERED the skill. In this level of skill acquisition, I no longer must practice the skill to retain it because I have EMBODIED it. It is now part of WHO I AM.

Mastery, in its truest form is demonstrated by total relinquishing of control – which means that the ultimate test of Mastery is the ability to perform the skill without conscious control or attention.

You can’t teach skill Mastery – you can only experience it.

Since fear is often at the core of control, releasing fear tends to build mastery. In other words:

Mastering life and enjoying life to its fullest is surprisingly easy – JUST LET GO OF THE FEAR! Relinquish control!

Skills Mastery is the result of adequate practice before relinquishing control. As you achieve Mastery of Life Skills, you can let go of the “How To’s” :

• How to get your spouse to properly eat, sleep, chew gum, spend money, operate the toothpaste tube, treat you and the kids, etc.
• How to get other people to like you.
• How to make more money.
• How you’ll make that next payment…
• How to… whatever…

You see, Mastery is about “How to’s”. “How To’s” are SKILLS. When you learn HOW TO do something, you’ve learned a skill. As you practice your skill, you become better at it – until, in time, you can relinquish control of your “How To’s” and achieve mastery of them.

Even now, you have incorporated many mastered skills into your identity – you have become MORE overall because of your skillset. You no longer need to practice your mastered skillset:

• Eating with utensils, tying shoes, walking, running, etc.
• Parenting/spousing the way YOU do it
• Manipulating others to get what you want
• Moderating your behavior with self-talk (probably mostly negative)
• Reacting to your environment appropriately (at least to you)
• Judging yourself and others – and setting reasonable punishments for misbehavior
• Justifying your behaviors, thoughts, body image, economic status/level, social position, feelings, and identity
• Making yourself THE standard by being RIGHT most or all of the time
• etc., etc., etc…

What happens when you suddenly realize that one of your favorite mastered skills needs revision or termination? What then? You’re invested. You’ve integrated this skill into your being. You’ve tied it up with WHO YOU ARE.

“Oh, NO! I have to make a CHANGE to who I AM?!! Might as well just shoot me now and get it over with…”

Making the BIG CHANGE

You have an innate mechanism and strategy for mastering skills – probably based on strategic skills inherited from your parents and society. Not all of these strategic skills are maximized for effectiveness, however.

Trauma also tends to instill strategies – of survival unrelated to the actual events. In other words, if you just got lucky and survived a traumatic event – like a firefight/shootout or rape – your mind/brain will likely encode your actions taken during the event as a “successful strategy” for survival for the next time you encounter a similar event.

Unfortunately, such “strategies” are encoded as mastered “skills” without the benefit of higher brain functioning or reasoning – sometimes these “skills” are “practiced” though repeated trauma – as in repeated combat events, for example.

Until these survival “skills” are released, they will continue to be in force – often creating havoc in the life of the one so “endowed.”

RET and other forms of release technologies seek to restructure such negative strategies, beliefs, and skills by lessening their importance and relinquishing THEIR CONTROL over you. In that way, you create a NEW opportunity to acquire a new skill or skill set – one based on reason and conscious intention. Empty the bucket before you refill it – new wine in new bottles.

Releasing an old skill makes acquiring a new one so much easier. Letting go of the fear of changing as a first step toward acquiring a new skill makes the transition so much easier.

Master your fears by letting them go.

-JB