Mental Toughness :: Cultivating An Indomitable Spirit

Mental toughness is something that I believe most people just do not understand, because they have rarely been in situations where they have had to cultivate it. Don’t get me wrong, people are often in these situations, it’s just that they do not seem to realize that the possess a latent faculty, a latent power of mind and will, which can absolutely be developed in these circumstances. To really develop as a human being one must put themselves in these types of situations intentionally and regularly. This power is more than just mental toughness, but an indomitability of spirit, and of will, which we can, once cultivated, turn towards anything that we want to in life and become genuinely unlimited.

Mental Toughness & The Ego

When we push ourselves to the limits of our ability we are confronted by our Ego (Shadow Self, False Self, or Lower Self) because this aspect of ourselves is our limitation. All situations that bring us up against our limitations do this by putting us outside of our comfort zone, testing us in ways we have never been tested, and essentially posing a simple question: do we have the strength to go beyond? Our limitations as individuals are tested by challenges. Any challenges. You can face a fear, you can attempt to turn a weakness into a strength, you can learn something incredibly hard beyond your current level of ability and use that challenge to test yourself, or you could set a difficult goal, or try to run 100 miles.

It honestly doesn’t matter too much what the nature of the challenge is. The point is that it must be challenging, it must be something that is just beyond (or way beyond) our current level of skill and what we believe we can accomplish because only these types of challenges test our limits by exhausting us, causing us to question ourselves, and forcing us into a deep state brought about by pain, suffering, exhaustion, frustration, and sheer intensity, all of which tests us on the most fundamental level as human beings: our resolve, our will, our ability to deal with fear and with pain, our ability to deal with worry and hopeless, yet endure.

Even for those who are genuinely powerful, it is still the weakness in our character that is revealed: the liar within, the lazy person looking for excuses, the person who wants to quit, the person who is filled with self-importance who is afraid of failure because they’ll look bad in front of others, vanity, anger, hatred, and envy. Essentially the person who got us into – and kept us in – all the (emotionally and mentally) painful places and environments we have been in and created all our lives. The entitled person who thinks that they are good enough as they are and should just be given everything they want in their life without having to work for it, because they don’t realize that in order to become worthy of their loftiest dreams and deepest desires, they have to improve and refine literally everything about themselves, so that by the end they are essentially different people. Because they are not, at present, worthy or capable of those achievements. Strength and character are also revealed in those moments, found within an individuals ability to overcome and rise above the adversity they face, which is always the pull of their lower impulses, the pull of the Ego.

Most people don’t want to hear this: that they are not good enough to achieve what they want in their life. But it is true. This is a big part of what mental toughness and developing mental toughness is all about. Recognize your limitations, confront your weaknesses and the areas where you are lacking, and then lean into that limit with intelligence, creativity, resolve, and diligent effort in an attempt to become better, regardless of how hopeless it seems. Find the strength to carry on.

That is mental toughness. If you want to create an album, you would have already created that album if you were a good enough musician! You are not good enough at present, so become better. You would have already written your book if you had the knowledge, skills, and understanding to do so! The fact that you haven’t achieved that dream yet is literally proof that you are not good enough to achieve it. However, this doesn’t mean that you cannot become good enough. So place your attention there, and put in the time and work to achieve what you want to achieve. Become good enough, and recognize that it is the part of yourself that I call the Ego which is in the way.

The Ego or Lower Self should not be looked down on, even though it literally is inferior to the better, nobler, more powerful qualities of our nature. It exists and will always exist as the counterpoint of our highest potential. It exists as the part of ourselves that must be resolved in order to become better as human beings, and if you want to become a better person, you must go through it. Therefore I believe that our Ego – the sum total of all the flaws, limitations, pain, suffering, and darkness within us – is literally the forefront of our personal growth, not the part that is holding us back. It should not be shunned, because it is a part of ourselves. Ignoring darkness and limitation within us doesn’t make us better people, it just makes us ignorant, false, and perhaps slightly delusional. A large part of what mental toughness is is facing the limitation of the Ego, working on it and resolving it, for our Ego is literally the place that we should place our attention if we are seeking personal growth and development.

When we face extreme internal adversity, the Ego rises. It is only in these types of situations where we can develop the quality known as mental toughness. Mental toughness is our ability to experience, confront directly, whether and endure each and every one of the negative thoughts, emotions, and recollections that rise to the surface within us during these times of adversity. To continue moving forwards on the path that we have chosen regardless of what the self-defeating and limiting voice within us is saying – because that voice was simply defining and enforcing our previously conceived boundaries as individuals, which when exceeded, bring us into new territory as people. No matter what we remember, no matter what comes to the forefront, even when what emerges are memories of the most terrible, vicious, harrowing and painful experiences we have gone through. We therefore have to learn to love this voice, because the more we hear it and face this adversity, all this means is that we are becoming better and more unlimited humans, the horizon of our potential always receding. Learn to love it.

People often think that mental toughness is a quality revealed in competition against an opponent, being independent of your opponent and not sinking to their level of play or potential dirty tactics, which would not phase a person who is “mentally tough.” While these are definitely situations and examples of mental toughness, the real opponent is always within. It is always you against your lower impulses, your Ego which is always dragging your mind off purpose, throwing your emotions all over the place, telling you to quit, telling you you aren’t good enough and not capable, not worthy, obstructing your focus, concentration, and the orientation of your attention, just by perpetually reiterating in your mind all your previous boundaries.

The highest level of mental toughness occurs when you regularly defeat the small voice inside of you. When you can listen acutely to the self-defeating voice of Ego, but instead choose the True Self by remaining true to the path you have been inspired on, and not being seduced by all the varied voices (both inside and out) that are always more than willing to give you any possible reasons why you should turn from your path.

If you can defeat the voice inside, which is literally saying the things most dangerous to you, because only that voice has access to all of your glaring flaws, weaknesses and darkest secrets, most of which you have never revealed to another soul, some of which you even hide from yourself. These rise to the surface right when you are at your lowest point, too weak to ignore them any longer. How can any other person harm you, when you have that within you? What can another person say to derail you? How can another person ever be as destructive to you as you could be to yourself? (Excusing physical harm of course, unless the individual is both uncommonly keen and especially close to you. In that case, they can strike with daggers that go deeper than nearly anything.)

Developing Mental Toughness

Firstly, mental toughness without a well-tuned emotional, moral, and spiritual guidance system can be dangerous. For mental toughness is essentially the ability to endure mental, emotional, and physical pain. As a general rule the more pain that you have, the more divorced you are from spirit, so you could easily end up mistakenly attempting to endure that pain with your admirable mental toughness while doing something that is in practice completely divorced from who you are, where you are getting nothing out of your actions, your work, and your life and are not growing in any considerable way, just enduring. Every fiber of my being rebels against that thought and always has, so I wouldn’t recommend it.

Mental toughness is something that we can choose to cultivate directly. However, in order to do so we must put ourselves in severe discomfort, in situations where we have no confidence, where we are pushed beyond our limits because we are outside of our comfort zone. There is no other way to cultivate mental toughness.

With that being said there are any number of ways to develop mental toughness, because really it is a philosophy of continually throwing yourself into challenge after challenge in life just beyond your level of ability, in areas that you are genuinely passionate about. It can literally be anything, so I won’t give you any specifics per se, just a general understanding of the right themes so that you know where to look when finding the right ways for you to personally test your limitations.

Seek Mastery :: Find What To Be, And Go Be It

Finding the right reasons for doing something (as well as having a finely tuned emotional, moral, and spiritual compass) are even more essential than cultivating mental toughness, because they ensure that you cultivate mental toughness in a way that is beneficial. What are you really going to gain by just making yourself suffer? Most people are already suffering and don’t need more of it. Instead they need a way out.

The main reason why people suffer unbearably is because they do not know who they are. Personally, the further along the spiritual path and path of personal development and mastery I have traveled, the more that I have had to suffer. This is because the challenges are greater the further you go, the mental-emotional blockages are more deeply nested, tangled, painful, and intense as a greater degree of the Ego must be confronted.

This will be the case with everyone who is on this path and who has begun spiritual awakening. However, I have always had the strength to endure because each stage revealed more powerful truth of who and what I am, which gave me confidence born not of pride but self-assurance, because I found that I genuinely love, respect, and am proud of everything that I have accomplished and the challenges I have overcome. Moreover, the challenges at each stage tested my resolve, revealing and forging character so I was prepared for what came next, and at every stage what I was fighting for came a little bit closer and became a little bit clearer.

Therefore if you are going to develop mental toughness, do so by facing a worthy challenge. Develop yourself in some way. Try and become a better human. Learn and seek to master something you have always wanted to master. The constant effort, struggle, and process of getting better at something, of refining skills, acquiring and polishing knowledge, and always learning something new is the greatest crucible for cultivating yourself and developing mental toughness – if what you are doing is in alignment with your True Nature.

Figure out who you want to be as a human being, and then develop mental toughness by failing again and again at that thing, pushing past your limits relentlessly until you ultimately break through and are able to do that thing with your life. This way you will cultivate confidence, assurance, and a healthy sense of pride, accomplishment, and satisfaction in your work and (ideally) in your art. This is your greatest challenge, because this is literally everyone’s challenge in life. It is the challenge of becoming what you are.

Facing Yourself Is Mental Toughness :: Learn To Meditate

In order to develop mental toughness, you must face yourself. I said above that I wouldn’t give you any specifics, but I will always make an exception for meditation because there is no more important practice as meditation is literally the spiritual practice, and the path of personal mastery. As I described above, mental toughness is the ability to endure pain and suffering while confronted with the worst of yourself and limitations. Thus the goal is to ultimately become so centered within yourself, to have every thought, emotion, action, and habit flow directly from your genuine self with your intentions and vision so clear and powerful that there is nothing that can shake your resolve to complete what you have started.

Life will always test it. That is something that I know for sure, and I also believe that the greater your ambitions and life purpose, the greater the change you are trying to effect in your own life and in the world, the more thoroughly that you will be tested. Moreover, at the same time as your resolve is tested, so shall you be too. Your mind, emotions, strength of will, and character will be put under so much pressure. However, this is precisely what you want because any breaking that occurs under that pressure reveals wholes and weak-points in your identity, which are aspects of you that are false, your Ego. Remember that, and prepare yourself.

To discover this certainty, which more than anything is genuine character, or utter genuineness and truth in your expression as a person, you must first know yourself. There is no practice more challenging than meditation, because it is the practice of confronting what is going on within us.

On the one hand, every person will discover great power, beauty, and potential – qualities beneath the grime of the Ego that we can be genuinely proud of, which give us confidence and inner strength. However, we must also face a twisted, tangled web of deceit, pain, suffering, and emotions complexly tied in with intense experiences that are always distorting our thinking, emotions, and behavior (regardless of what stage we are at) into erroneous and limiting patterns. Facing and untangling this web requires more mental toughness than anything else in life, if done properly, and those who doubt that no nothing on the subject. Period.

Most people recoil on instinct to intense pain. It is a very rare person who can inflict pain on themselves intentionally, which is what turning inwards in meditation will inevitably do from time to time. Keeping your attention inwards on the pain, breathing through it without taking our attention off it while at the same time finding a sense of separation, detachment, and thus release from that pain through the resolution of the emotional complexes and limitations of self which cause and perpetuate it, while genuinely feeling it, is like trying to hold your hand on a hot iron. It is not easy.

That literally is mental toughness at its deepest roots. It is one thing to defy the pain in the body, but the pain in our minds and emotions, within the depths of our soul without the filters that ordinary people have built up within themselves to heightened states of awareness? Now that is very challenging to do. This is why ancient spiritual seekers used to practices some incredible, intense, ascetic practices such as standing under a cold waterfall for hours, walking across hot coals, meditating in a loin-cloth in the snow in mid-winter, intense fasting, and the like. All of this was to essentially build mental toughness, because mental toughness and the spiritual path are inextricably linked.

Daily Training :: Challenge Mind & Body Each Day

On top of seeking mastery and the practice of meditation, the last suggestion that I would make for developing mental toughness is a daily physical training regimen. With the addition of periodically (but regularly) setting yourself various physical challenges that are difficult and challenging, testing your limitations and your capacity to endure pain. Within reason of course, I don’t want any of you dying on me out of foolishness. (And I accept no responsibility.)

The first thing that I do every morning is my morning training which consists of mental, physical, and spiritual discipline. For the mind, I study my languages first (with Anki). I only study sentences to simultaneously build grammatical understanding and vocabulary within a context of meaning, which engages my mind with pure memorization practice.  (Though admittedly I wasn’t thinking of mental discipline when I designed this routine, it was just the best time of the day to do languages and get them out of the way!

However, I believe that the mind is trained even better, though in a different sense, with physical training and meditation. Next I train the body (to some degree) with asana practice (which in Sanskrit mean’s “posture” which are the physical practices within the much greater more extensive spiritual practice called “yoga” referring to union with spirit). Asana is predominantly a physical practice, and not inherently spiritual/energetic unless you are practicing Kundalini Yoga, which is yoga in its definition because it combines the majority of the limbs of yoga. Asana is just a good way to start the day, to release tension, increase flexibility, and get the blood pumping. Perfect for getting into spiritual practice, which is meditation. I strive for at least 30 minutes of meditation, usually more, like 45-60 minutes because you cannot get truly deep with any less.

This is my morning training which generally takes about 2.5 hours. Then in the evening I spend another 2 or so hours doing strength and conditioning, as well as my physical art, which is martial arts predominantly. (Emphasis on the “arts” to a large degree, for movement and mastery of the body and mind, and because I think the movements and skills are beautiful. Though I cannot deny the practical, because practicality is fundamental to who I am.)

Every single day I do this for a number of reasons: it sets the foundation for a successful day in the rest of what I do because every day I begin with discipline. Therefore I face the weakest parts of myself first thing, stressing my mind and body while consciously orientating myself towards spirit, so that everything else in the rest of my day is easier. As a matter of fact, after I face this, the rest of my day is easy because all I really have to do is write, study, and play music, which, let’s face it, is my life and I was going to do it anyways.

There are all the “normal” reasons for a similar training regimen, such as providing a foundation in “mental, physical, and spiritual health” but those things don’t matter much to me. I am concerned with mastery, personal development, and spiritual development (attaining deeper states of integration with One Consciousness and higher levels of consciousness) and becoming powerful enough to effect change in the world. “Being healthy” doesn’t motivate me, though, to be fair, feeling good does. But that is more emotional than physical anyways.

Daily training is frequently painful, and hard, and I don’t always want to do it, but it develops my will because every time I defeat that weak part of myself, I become stronger, and its voice is less able to perturb my emotions and thoughts towards weakness (which I view as any of the negative bent of emotions: anger, hatred, envy, pride, laziness, etc). All of those are weakness in my mind because they are less powerful by far than love, generosity, selflessness, inspiration, passion, and enthusiasm. This builds self-discipline and mental toughness, which is necessary for growth and spiritual development.

The Importance of Mental Toughness

More than anything else, mental toughness is strengthened by challenging and developing yourself, by fundamentally seeking growth as a human being. To be honest, I have thought very little about mental toughness in and of itself, because, truth be told, it just isn’t that important. Not by itself in any case. I rediscovered the concept again a short while ago, and simply realized that I had it as a natural byproduct of throwing myself into harrowing challenges time and time again over my whole life as a natural byproduct of seeking to discover, cultivate, master, and express all that I am.

Perhaps you could say that this is because I have a natural bent towards growth and development, which is true. But the greater truth closer to the heart of the matter is that a sense of purpose and an ever-growing sense of spirit inspired – no, required – me to always put myself out of my comfort zone just to meet the demands of living my purpose and being true to myself, to the point that for a number of years it felt like I was literally failing all the time.

Every single day I failed utterly. Each new subject and discipline I learned and mastered was so hard and challenging that I felt like a talentless fool, like nothing. I never stepped back (and had few in my life to compare myself against) to realize that what I was learning and attempting was difficult even for the masters. So it was just me attempting to learn great things, and thinking I was stupid, weak, and talentless because they were difficult. (Which I knew deep down was not at all the case even in the midst of it, yet sometimes clouds cover the Sun, and I could know with 10% of my mind that I was on the right path and doing well, while the more superficial 90% was roiling in pain and self-doubt.)

So I persisted because I am stubborn and relentless, because I am driven, because I know who I am and what I am, and want to become what I can be, and because spirit inspired me every step of the way, emanating from the deepest parts of myself. As it does for all people, if they would take the time to remove some of the garbage cluttering their minds, emotions, and identity all of which is eclipsing a deeper transcendental experience of life, self, and reality.

Like I said, I never thought about mental toughness at all. I just kept on standing up again and again after being defeated because I knew that I had to. There was just no other choice, because there was so much at stake. Perhaps I am just stubborn.

However, now I know that it is far more than that. It really isn’t about “mental toughness” at all. In fact, “mental toughness” is probably the wrong term. It is about developing an indomitable spirit while trying to achieve something great, which for each individual is universally the seeking of the highest expression of themselves, ideally for the good of all those around them. Then, while attempting that, you will unexpectedly discover yourself to possess genuine power that you didn’t realize was there. Power in skill and ability, the power that comes from never giving up, from being indomitable, from being able to face enormous, crushing, intimidating obstacles, be terrified, yet still try anyways, and fail, yet try again, and again, until you succeed. Then you will look back eventually, and realize in hindsight as a matter that is quite ironically of very little importance now, that objectively speaking you happen to possess some degree of what people call “mental toughness”.

I think that is what mental toughness really means.