5 Master Areas Of Your Life

Taking control of your life is not always easy.

It comes with doubt.

It comes with removing the limits.

It comes down to where am I,

Where have I been,

And where do I want to go?

The entire scope of this podcast has been to teach you the small things that screw us up and take over.

To teach you that there are places that we can go even if the places where we have been have been hard and filled with abandonment and trauma and doubt and all the things that work to own us.

In today's one-on-one deep dive,

We are shifting.

We're going to go back to the beginning a bit and talk about the five master areas of our lives.

These places that everything we do think and feel are lived from.

It's the space that we can kind of shift and figure out where we are right now.

Life shifts.

We learn.

We change.

We shift with it,

Or at least we're supposed to.

A lot of times we don't,

And that tends to be why we're having problems to begin with.

I thought,

You know what,

We need to go back and really get into a space where we all understand where we're operating from.

That's really what I want us to think about right now,

Is where are we starting from?

Where are you?

Are you in the beginning of your journey?

Are you in the middle,

The middle being the hardest part?

Are you at the end of your healing journey,

Your growth journey,

Your expansion space,

Whatever you want to call it,

And now you're having to not necessarily recreate the wheel,

But understand exactly what you want,

Where you're headed,

And most certainly how you are going to get there.

In today's episode,

We're talking about what I call the five master areas of your life.

If you've listened to some or all of these episodes,

You may have heard me talk about this.

I call them the five areas of your life,

And I've narrowed them down because this is really where we are most impacted on the day-to-day,

And in our trauma,

And in our growth journey,

And in healing,

And like I said,

Anywhere.

These are the spaces that we live from.

You've probably seen triangles showing the importance of something,

Whether that's the food triangle,

Or the pyramid of mastery,

That's a Tony Robbins thing,

Or perhaps you've seen Maslow's hierarchy of basic needs.

You get it if you haven't seen it.

It is a stack of things from greatest to smallest,

Depending on where you're putting your focus,

Of things that you should have within your life.

My particular pyramid goes to five different levels.

Now,

Is one greater than the other?

The answer is no.

I believe as we grow,

As we change,

Our focus does too,

And so to stack kind of a stagnant piece together and say,

Hey,

I want you to focus on this and this order,

Really doesn't do a service to you in your spiritual,

Your mental,

Your emotional journeys.

For me,

If I was going to stack it and move the pieces around,

It would be more like a square and not a triangle,

Because it doesn't necessarily have to come to a head.

We just move these pieces around as we have our experiences,

As we live our journeys,

As we live our human experience.

If I were to tell you where we needed to start,

And we weren't moving our box around,

I would say at the most basic level,

We key into physical,

Our physical health,

Our physical existence,

Our bodies,

Our entire energetic systems,

Our physicality of life,

Including time,

Our environment,

Our connectivity,

And overall wellness.

What you'll hear as we move through all of these,

Is that one thing can be tied into multiple things,

Meaning multiple areas within our square,

Not our pyramid.

So the next thing would be mental.

The mental health,

The mental wellness,

Our understanding,

Our perceptions,

The way that our brain works,

Our connections,

Our ability to thrive,

Our purpose,

All of these are within this mental set.

Even our relationships,

Not only with ourselves,

But others.

Then we move to the next space,

Which is the emotional area of our lives,

Where we have meaning and connectivity,

Where we understand that the life we create is based on how we feel,

How we connect to everything around us.

And it's also about our environment as far as socially,

And also spiritually,

And we even talk about the way that we're living through our thoughts and our feelings.

The next step up is financial.

Understanding our purpose,

Our career,

These legacies that we're building,

And I don't mean just money,

I mean when somebody looks back on our lives and says,

Wow,

What did you contribute?

They're able to say,

They did this and it made me feel this.

So these areas where we're creating something sustainable to be left behind and used as sort of the marker of our experience.

And then the last one is spiritual,

How we're connected to something bigger than ourselves.

And that we give of ourselves in a pillar of self-growth,

Seeking meaning and value and purpose,

And living by your set of standards and values,

And finding inner peace and balance.

And it's the practice,

The self-autonomy and reflection that connects us with others and whatever you believe in,

Whether that is a higher power,

Or the universe,

Or whatever name you name your belief system,

Whatever it is,

Or maybe you don't have one and you connect with that because there's still a belief.

And these are our five master areas,

Physical,

Mental,

Emotional,

Financial,

And spiritual.

The wild part of the triangle or the square is that when one element is off,

Everything below it and above it doesn't sit correctly.

And so everything is off too.

What we were trying to do is no longer measurable or attainable.

It's no longer relevant.

Our time gets off.

Our goals become convoluted and hard to obtain.

What we were working towards gets off balance.

And so we want to get into a place where we find this center right down the center of the box and we know how to grow in all areas,

Knowing very well that not everything has to be worked on all the time.

So again,

Have you ever played that game Jenga where you're building this tower and you take something off and everything still stands?

That's how this pyramid,

Your five master areas of your life should feel and look.

But when you pull the wrong one and everything gets a little wobbly,

The entire tower may fall.

And that's exactly what I'm talking about.

When things are off balance,

You can tumble everything or you can stack everything,

Move something to the top and realize,

I don't always have to be focused on everything all at once,

But give more attention to sort of this thing.

So why are we talking about all of this?

Why is this important?

The reason is we have to start finding some balance in everything that we talk about.

It's very specific,

Right?

Build self-love,

Find self-trust,

Be emotionally safe,

Find some affirmation.

Think about your physical health.

How are you eating?

How are you sleeping?

How are you showing up?

Are you in burnout?

How is your spirituality going?

Are you reaching your personal goals for your finances?

How's your mental health?

And it gets to be so damn overwhelming.

I know for the people that come and see me every week,

We talk so much about balance and I will hear all the time,

I thought I was over this.

And the truth is we're not necessarily over it or done with it.

We just laid it down for a minute and there's nothing wrong with that.

And in this conversation today,

I want you to take away just that factor.

When you are in a space of learning,

In a space of growth,

Of change,

Of healing,

Of doing the trauma work,

Or some call it the shadow work,

Of finding yourself,

Of getting into this alteration of life,

Understand you're going to work really hard on some things or you're going to have to put something down because there's not enough room to do all the hard things at one time.

You mentally and physically,

Spiritually,

Financially,

Emotionally,

Mentally cannot handle everything at once.

We crack,

We tumble.

The hardest part of my job is leading somebody into a space that is measurable,

That is obtainable,

But is so hard that I am afraid that they break under the pressure.

And so it's all about balance.

And that's the conversation we're having today is how can you live in these five masters of your life and maintain some kind of balance?

So let's talk about some of the things we're going to begin to focus on a little bit more congruently,

Meaning we're shifting the podcast,

We're shifting our learning together into more of a framework.

If you do this,

This occurs,

We pick this back up,

We set this down.

That's really what I'm talking about.

I think that doing that will help you see yourself in a more sustainable,

More effortless,

More valuable way because you won't have to work so hard and get lost in the work.

I'm seeing that a lot is people are getting lost in their work,

Whether that's with me or they're listening to a different podcast or they're listening to a book or they are working with another therapist,

They're getting lost in the work.

So let's talk about the physical and let's just go to the place of the physical body.

You know,

What are your goals related to your physical self?

I've been thinking about this a lot.

For me personally,

I want to offer my thought process as I have reached what people call middle age.

It doesn't feel like it,

But here we are.

I've been watching what my own father has been going through in a physical decline because of illness and I've been thinking a lot about how do I want to maintain my body?

How do I want to take care of this vehicle that guides everything in my human experience?

Because I don't want to be a burden on the medical system.

I don't want to be a burden on my children.

Not that my father is.

That's not what I'm saying,

But I'm saying for me personally,

I don't want to be a shell of myself while my mentality,

While my emotions and my spirituality is in full force and that I have full capacity to use those to my best experience.

So for me,

Working out,

Watching the food that I eat,

Making sure that the chemicals that are in everything doesn't consume my body in a negative way.

Making sure that I drink a gallon of water every single day.

That's a huge thing that I focus on every day.

Making sure that my minerals and vitamins are correct.

Those are the things for me because it is something that I can incorporate into my daily life that is very,

Very simple for me.

That doesn't mean that it's very simple for you.

Many people struggle in this area when it comes to physical.

They are not sure about their physical health.

They're not sure how to get started on a fitness or a health goal.

These things feel very obtainable,

Especially if you've struggled or you have a lot of limiting beliefs about the physical body.

So where are you?

What does it mean to be safe in the body?

What does it mean to feel good in the self?

What does it mean to physically take care of the body?

What are you doing right now?

And can you get a little bit more specific about what you want inside that physical box?

Of course,

I want you to start small,

Right?

Don't burn down the house.

Don't try to reinvent the wheel,

But instead start small and deciding what do I need?

This is going to allow us to move this piece into a place of importance and decide where are we right now?

We want to keep everything obtainable.

Now let's talk about goals for the mind,

Living in this master area of mentality.

It's similar to the first with the physical body,

That we want to keep our mind active.

Are we learning new things?

Are we growing?

Have we been practicing self-authority,

Self-care,

Self-trust,

Self-respect,

Self-love?

Have we been practicing peace?

Have we been paying attention to what's happening in the mind?

While our physical health is incredibly important,

We also have to think about the extensiveness of our mindset.

What we think about grows.

What we do in our head becomes the action in which we take because it's the feeling that drives us.

We have to think about in periods of difficulty or loss or grief,

How do we bend?

How do we change?

How are we malleable and how do we do enough to keep ourselves out of a sense of avoidance and distraction and moving through what we need?

What do you need in your life when it comes to your mindset?

What do you need in your life when it comes to your mental health?

Are you healthy?

Are your thoughts healthy?

Remember that all of us experience negative things and therefore we're going to have negative thought patterns.

But when we are in a space of that 90% of things are good and about 10% are rough or uncertain or a little rocky or sometimes even bad,

But we only focus on that 10%.

We put all of our eggs in that basket and we feel like life is domineering us in a way that is not healthy.

But if we take periods of time where we focus on our mental health and put goals on improving our lives through our thought process,

Our positivity changes,

Our mood changes,

The way we relate to the world changes.

So how is your mental health right now?

Is it a focus?

Should it be a focus?

What is the relationship between you and you?

And how is it feeding you between your ears,

Right?

Then let's go to emotional health.

Of course,

We're talking about emotions and feelings and these are the places in which guide you in everything.

But where are you within your feelings understanding?

Do you know what your emotional definitions are?

If you've listened to this podcast,

You better because we talk about it a lot,

Right?

But where are you in your emotional health?

Do you understand the awareness?

Do you understand how your thoughts and feelings affect you?

Do you understand that your emotional health and wellness impacts you on the level of motivation,

Action,

Behavior,

And results?

If your emotional health is not well,

You're experiencing ups and downs all the time you're riding this roller coaster.

You don't necessarily ask for help because you don't even know that you need help a lot of times.

Remember,

We talked about,

Or maybe you're hearing it for the first time,

When our emotions are keying,

Our amygdala turns off.

Our logical space does not have the ability to help us in those moments.

And so our stress level goes way up.

Our cortisol floods our body.

We have a hard time sleeping.

We have a hard time even catching our breath.

And when we can't catch our breath,

Our nervous system is a mess.

And so we then pull away from our emotional connections,

Our positive communities,

Our loved ones.

We don't communicate the way that we should.

We don't feel safe.

So where are you in your emotional health?

Do you feel good?

Do you feel connected?

Do you need to put some thought process around where your relationships are?

Do you need to think about if you are okay?

Do you need to think about how you feel?

These are important things that we really need to think about.

Then let's go to financial,

Your financial area,

This master area of your life.

And of course,

We can talk about how we get there,

Whether that's through career or business,

Or setting some other goals,

Because life can evolve really quickly.

And we forget to set goals every month when it comes to our finances.

And then all of a sudden it hits the fan and we're scrambling.

It happens.

It happens to me.

It happens to everyone.

Right?

And so we want to create this model in our lives that allows us to focus in a way that's healthy.

So if we look at career and purpose and time,

What are these things in your life?

Where are they?

Do you feel connected to them?

Do you feel good in the way that you are showing up financially?

Are you financially healthy?

Do you need to decrease debt?

Do you need to decrease the things that you're doing on the day to day?

Do you need to increase your savings?

Financial struggles are one of the stresses that most adults face throughout their lives.

And it becomes the piece of the puzzle that pushes off just enough that everything else tumbles.

The thing is,

Most of us,

At least in the United States specifically,

Really have been taught that the measure of our success is based on what we have.

So if you have the nice car,

The nice house,

The nice things,

The nice clothes,

Then you must be set,

But at what cost?

So where are you in that category?

Again,

I ask,

Are you financially stable,

Healthy?

Do you need to increase your savings?

Do you need to clear out your debts?

How are these things impacting you?

And then we talk about comparison.

Are you in a space where you want to be?

Do you have long-term goals for your ultimate career?

And I will say to you,

If you are my age,

In your mid-40s,

Or you're maybe even in your 20s,

Or you're in your 60s,

And we're either starting or we're starting to think about maybe closing it all down,

Understand no matter what goal it is that you're trying to achieve,

That you can do that no matter what age you are.

Put your focus,

Think about what you want,

And then decide how exactly am I going to get there?

What do I want from it?

Maybe you want to change positions.

Maybe you want to change your life,

And by changing your career,

You change your experience.

Whatever it is,

What needs to go into that box when you're examining things?

What needs to go in there?

How much time and energy are you putting into those things?

And then the last master area of your life is spirituality.

Now for those of you with either spiritual or religious beliefs,

It's important to set goals relating to your spirituality.

Maybe you like to attend religious or spiritual ceremonies or events,

Or maybe there's something in your belief system that you want to practice,

But you haven't made time.

Where are you in that process?

What's important to you?

Why do you think it will support you?

Making time for these practices helps elevate all of the other pieces of the box.

Making time for the things that you're passionate about will take away some of the difficulties that you have in your life because our practices remind us that there is center,

That we have the ability to get into a space of happiness,

Of joy,

Of understanding that there is more for us than just our troubles.

And when we go through difficult period of times or we're feeling lost or whatever it might be,

We have enough to hold on to,

To help us feel grounded in this experience,

To feel good.

And we have to have that because we want to work in our own best interest.

If we want to work in our own best interest,

We have to look at our activities,

The things that we're doing and asking ourselves,

Are we showing up in the way that we should?

You know,

If we want to be physically active and improve our health,

We can't skip exercising or we can't let ourselves off the hook.

We can't have the sugar and the fried food and say,

It's only for today.

And then do the same thing tomorrow because our short term get offs will often create a chain of behavior that it's hard for us to get back into our best interest.

If we know that long term,

We have a better quality of life when we spend time with family members or friends are doing the things that we love,

But yet we're not doing that.

What happens to our mindset?

If we think about our finances,

But we aren't saving and instead loading up our Amazon carts,

Is that thing going to help us?

Or are we going to long term be adding more to a space that isn't going to make us feel good and all of a sudden we're paying for things that we shouldn't?

Long after we've used them,

Long after they've been thrown away.

If we're not healthy in our emotions,

But we're spending a lot of times being emotionally dysregulated,

What do we need to change in the environment of the emotions?

Everything has some kind of counter,

Some kind of experience that's created when we show up in certain ways.

And the entire point of this conversation is about learning to get into balance,

Getting into balance in the different pillars of your life,

These different master areas,

Spiritual,

Financial,

Emotional,

Mental,

And physical.

Where are you and what needs to be looked at?

If you are in a space right now where you are not feeling good and all areas of your life are chaotic and things are not well,

You need to understand we need to make a plan.

If you're ready for big things to change,

You're ready for big things to happen.

We have to have an understanding of what we need to do first.

We don't need to say,

Okay,

Tomorrow morning,

We're going to wake up,

We're going to meditate and we're going to get our finances together and we're going to emotionally be okay and we're going to give gratitude and we're going to think good thoughts and we're going to exercise.

But all you've been doing for the last four months is sitting on the couch and eating the bag of chips and feeling like crap.

It's going to be a hard leap.

And then you're going to feel terrible because you didn't do what you told yourself you were going to do and you break your promise and then you don't hold yourself accountable.

And so we have to back up.

The whole point of this is,

Where are you?

Where are you right now?

In all of the places that you've been and all of your experiences and all the things you've worked towards,

Where are you?

What do you need to be doing right now?

How much self-compassion do you need to be giving?

How much joy and understanding do you need to lean into in order to begin to create change?

This is the art of self-examination.

It can be tricky and many people struggle to do this,

But if you want to make progress,

You have to know where you are.

If you want to build your life through the mind,

The body,

And the spirit,

You have to remember that that comes with effort and work.

And if you want to make changes,

We cannot go in like a hurricane and blow everything down.

We have to go in with the understanding that small steps create big improvements.

You have to be willing to balance your experience.

Lay down what is not necessary right now.

If you have high blood pressure and you're close to a stroke and your doctor is saying,

Hey,

You need attention right now,

And yet you're worried about your spirituality,

You're focused on the wrong thing.

Or if you are in an emotional deficit right now and everything feels heavy and you can't get out of bed,

We need to be working on that.

Where are you?

What do we need to do to balance?

Grab a piece of paper and create a box.

Give yourself five layers.

And I want you to put in the order of importance right now,

Based on your life,

The five master areas.

It doesn't have to be like mine.

It doesn't have to have spirituality and financial and emotional,

Mental,

And physical.

It can be whatever,

But plug in where you need to focus the most.

The bottom is the heaviest piece that holds everything else up.

I want you to remember that.

So if you need to be working on your emotions,

That goes down there.

However it is,

Put these five areas in your box based on what is most important to you.

The top is going to be the lightest thing that you have to carry.

So is it financial?

Is it emotional?

Is it mental,

Physical,

Spiritual?

Put it in and then decide in each area,

What's one thing that you need to focus on?

What's one thing that you need to do to help change where you are or elevate where you are?

Right now,

We want to live in a standard of growth where we're finding inner peace,

Living life to the fullest with mindset and mindfulness and happiness and self-reflection and connectivity and peace and safety and wealth in our mental,

Emotional,

Physical,

Spiritual,

And financial health,

Where we're taking time to invest in ourselves and build,

Where we can look across the table and say,

Hey,

Best friend,

I'm so glad that you're here.

What do you need to focus on?

That's where I want us to start,

Because when we do,

It becomes the essential step into getting our lives together.

Thank you for taking the time to listen to this episode.

Please take the time to review this conversation and follow me here on Insight Timer for more courses,

Meditations,

And additional conversations.

Until next time,

Be kind to yourself and others.