Achieving Optimal Wellbeing By Harnessing the Inner Pharmacy of Mastery

• Science
• June 8, 2022
• 1 Comment
• Dr K Jayanth Murali admin

Consciousness is a peculiar experience. On the one hand, it’s a state of heightened awareness when you genuinely and deeply connect to the world around you. On the other hand, it’s an insular place where you experience a brief window of self-reflection and introspection. The term for this is “self-awareness”. You are aware of your thoughts, emotions, and behaviours for a moment.

For many people, this moment of self-awareness is fleeting, and for some, it’s brief but highly out-of-the-blue. For others, it’s a bit more consistent. For a select few, self-awareness is a constant. And what self-awareness looks like can vary. It can be a continuous state of gratitude or the driving force behind great relationships, or the basis for profound productivity. It can even be the fuel behind flourishing.

When it comes to self-awareness, there are two paths. You can either develop a constant state of self-awareness or live in the moment and get lost in your thoughts. Which path you choose is a personal journey that involves unlearning the habits of thinking that can drive you down the wrong direction. And the best way to do that is to harness the inner pharmacy of mastery.

What is the inner pharmacy of mastery?

Psychology Today, writer Dr Harriet Hall is the first to coin the words the inner pharmacy of mastery. It’s a framework for understanding how our thoughts and actions drive us toward optimal wellbeing. It also explains how our thoughts and actions can drive us away from it. In a nutshell, the inner pharmacy of mastery consists of 3 components:

1. Knowing What You Want: Whether what you want is a clear, specific, and attainable goal
2. Feeding Your Soul: whether what you do nourishes and feeds your soul
3. Owning Your Shit: How you respond to the things that happen to you is what drives the experience of control and mastery. So let’s take a look at each of these components and how you can use them to build the inner pharmacy of mastery.

Harnessing the inner pharmacy of mastery

The first step to harnessing the inner pharmacy of mastery is to discover what you want. Discovery is an essential step. You have to know what you want to be able to get there. It’s not about finding out what you want. It’s about finding it. So how do you do that? You can take five steps to build the inner pharmacy of mastery. Let’s take a look at each of these steps.

Step 1: Create an inner dialogue – The first step to building the inner pharmacy of mastery is to develop an internal dialogue. Your inner dialogue is how you talk to yourself when you have a bad day. Those negative self-talk phrases drive you to feel bad rather than be grateful.
Inner dialogue is a conversation you can have with yourself that helps you realize when you’re not being grateful enough when you’re focused on what you don’t have rather than what you do have and being unkind. It’s a conversation that helps you get to know yourself better. If you want to build an inner pharmacy of mastery, you need to know who you are so you can write your prescription. That’s why it’s essential to develop an internal dialogue.

Step 2: Identify your driving forces – Once you’ve developed an inner dialogue, it’s time to identify your driving forces. What pushes you? What motivates you? What keeps you up at night? What makes you feel good?
You need to identify your driving forces so you can harness them. Identifying your driving forces is a form of self-awareness that helps you understand your motivations. It enables you to choose your priorities and helps you stay on track. Once you know what you want, you can choose what you do based on what you want. That’s why it’s so important to know your driving forces to choose what you do based on what you want.

Step 3: Create a plan of attack – Once you’ve identified your driving forces, you need to create a plan of attack. And it is here the inner pharmacy of mastery comes into play. You learn a strategy to use at the moment so you can have the best possible experience – a state of flow. There are two types of flow. One is the flow you experience when working on a challenging task. The other is the flow you experience when doing something you love.
The goal with both types of flow is to put yourself in a position of mastery. So how do you do that? Well, you do it by using your inner pharmacist.

Step 4: Put the tools to work – Once you’ve identified your driving forces, but the tools to work. Admit it, you’ve been thinking about this, and you’re ready to write your prescription! Now, when you are in a flow position, do what you do best. Your best work is what you do when you’re in a flow position. The best work comes from a place of mastery. It’s what you do best. So let go of what you don’t love and flow toward what you love.

Step 5: Go to memory lane – Once you’re in a flow position, take action back and look at the experience. Grab this chance to be mindful of how you feel and what you are doing, which is also a chance to reflect and learn from the experience. You can see how you reacted, what you loved, and what you want to improve. This is a chance to write your prescription.

Go to memory lane once you’ve gone through the steps and completed your prescription. Remember how you felt and what you were doing during that experience. Feel it again. Get back to being mindful of how you felt and what you were doing during that experience. Repeat this cycle of feeling and doing until you get the same experience. Once you have the same experience, it’s time to look at whether or not you got what you wanted. If you did, go back to the store and repeat your prescription. If you didn’t, go back to the drawing board and figure out what you missed. Then do it again until you get what you want.

The bottom line:

The inner pharmacy of mastery shows us that when we know what we want, we can choose how we want to feel and do something we love.
That’s why it’s so essential to commit yourself. When you’re ready to write your prescription, take a step back and look at your life with a new set of eyes. Get to know yourself better. Then put the tools to work. DO what you love. FEEL what you love. DO what’s best for you.

 

Dr.K.Jayanth Murali is an IPS Officer belonging to 1991 batch. He is borne on Tamil Nadu cadre. He lives with his family in Chennai, India. He is currently serving the Government of Tamil Nadu as Director General of Police, Idol Wing CID.