Why My Self-Mastery Practice Takes Forever (And Why That's Actually the Point)

I was playing a song in my head—one I'd worked on extensively a year earlier using the scanning breath. I thought I'd cleared all the emotional attachments connected to it. The melody used to stir up feelings I could identify and process, and after months of work, I believed I was done with it.

Then, a year later, the same song surfaced in my mind. And I felt something completely different.

It wasn't the familiar emotion I'd worked through before. This was another layer entirely—a feeling I didn't even know existed, connected to memories and attachments I'd completely forgotten about. The song hadn't changed. My ability to perceive what was buried inside me had.

That moment crystallized something I've been reluctant to admit: I've been practicing self-mastery for several years now, and I can't recommend it as strongly as I once did.

Not because it doesn't work. It does. The scanning breath is effective and, as far as I can tell, remarkably safe. It addresses root causes rather than symptoms, and I'm genuinely better off than I was three years ago.

But it takes a hell of a lot of work. And it's slow. Painfully slow.

Why I Can't Recommend Self-Mastery Practice As Strongly Anymore

When you start any self-mastery practice, you imagine a clear trajectory: identify problems, apply technique, resolve issues, move on. But emotional baggage doesn't work like that. It exists in layers, like an onion. Peel one away, and there's another underneath—one you couldn't even perceive until you'd developed the skill to sense it.

That song I mentioned? A year ago, I lacked the awareness to detect what I can now feel clearly. My ability to notice internal connections has sharpened dramatically. I can sense feelings that were always there but remained invisible to my earlier, less-trained awareness.

This isn't unique to me. I was talking with my son recently about his own journey with emotional attachments, and after our conversation, I had a sobering realization: this is going to take him a long time. It's going to take me a long time.

My baseline emotional state has changed dramatically over three years—my worries have dropped to about a quarter of what they were. I'm looking forward to even more dramatic changes over the next three years. But "dramatic" is relative. We're talking about years of consistent practice to see substantial shifts.

The Medication vs. Root Cause Difference

Here's how I think about medication: imagine you go to a doctor and say, "My foot hurts." The doctor punches you in the stomach and asks, "How does your foot feel now?"

Your attention has moved to your stomach. You've forgotten all about your foot. The pain is still there—you're just not noticing it anymore.

When I took painkillers for a bad tooth once, that's exactly what I observed. The medication did nothing for the tooth itself or the underlying problem. It just redirected my attention away from the pain. For acute situations, that can be valuable. It's good in a pinch. But it doesn't solve the underlying problems I had, and I don't think medication would have helped me address my emotional baggage.

Self-mastery practice, by contrast, doesn't redirect your attention. It asks you to focus directly on the pain, observe it, understand it, and dissolve the emotional attachments that create it in the first place. This is why it works. It's also why it takes so long.

The 10,000-Hour Reality of Emotional Mastery

You've probably heard that mastering any skill requires approximately 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. Mozart practiced for 10,000 hours before becoming a magnificent composer. Athletes, chess masters, surgeons—the pattern repeats across domains.

I've come to see self-mastery practice the same way. Learning to master yourself—your emotions, feelings, reactions, and responses—follows the same rules as mastering anything else. You have to devote enormous amounts of time.

Here I am, several years in, and I'd classify myself as a beginner or low intermediate. I'm certainly much better off than before, but I have many, many more hours to go before I'd consider myself advanced.

Most people won't do this. Not because they don't want to improve, but because they're looking for something closer to a three-month course or a weekend workshop. The 10,000-hour reality eliminates most potential practitioners immediately.

What "Advanced" Actually Looks Like

For me, advanced self-mastery means having no attachments to other people or things. In a sense, no desires—and yet enjoying everything. When I sit still, my mind is empty because I'm not being pushed this way and that by emotional attachments demanding I think about them.

Neurosis is gone. Worries are gone. I'm calm and at peace within myself.

But this isn't a static, passive state. It's a condition of constant vigilance and alertness, because new forces are always acting on you to create new emotional baggage. Advanced self-mastery practice means you can recognize these forces as they arise and address them before they take root.

I'd also have no limiting beliefs, because those beliefs are fundamentally rooted in emotional baggage. The voice that says "you can't do this" or "people will judge you" or "this is too risky"—all of those are emotional attachments speaking, not reality.

How New Baggage Forms (Even After Years of Practice)

New emotional baggage forms when people interact with you in emotional states. Someone is angry at you, excited around you, dumping their sadness on you—all of these create new attachments if you're not careful.

But there's another source I've only started noticing in the past four months: the Zeitgeist, the German word for "spirit of the age." The emotional climate of a particular time period creates its own kind of baggage.

When I reflect back on my youth, I can sense the emotional atmosphere of that era. It had a particular feeling—a thermometer reading of that time—and that atmosphere created emotional responses in me that became baggage. The Zeitgeist is always changing, and each era creates new flavors of emotional attachment.

This is why advanced self-mastery practice isn't about reaching a finish line. It's about developing the skill to recognize and address emotional baggage as it forms, continuously, for the rest of your life.

What Detachment Actually Means (And Doesn't Mean)

I need to address a common misconception, because when I talk about removing emotional attachments, people often think I'm describing becoming cold or indifferent. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Let me give you a simple example: I really like coffee. Every day I enjoy drinking it, and I have a desire for coffee. I know that using the scanning breath, I could get rid of that desire. I have every intention of doing so eventually—it's just not high on my priority list right now.

But here's the key: I know that once my attachment to coffee is gone, coffee will taste just as good when I drink it.

Losing your desire for something is not the same as losing your ability to enjoy it.

The same principle applies to people and relationships. If I'm not attached to people, I'm still fully capable of loving and caring for them. In fact, I think I'm even more capable of genuine care. The emotional attachments we have to people often create barriers—jealousy, bitterness, envy, anger, disappointment. These negative emotions arise from attachment.

When you remove those attachments, the negative emotions disappear. What remains is your core self, which can choose to care and love. This is connection, as opposed to attachment. It's based on choice, not reaction.

Before and After: How My Worries Dropped to 25%

Let me give you a concrete example from my teaching work with junior high school students.

Junior high is an extremely social age. It's almost impossible to make English conversation topics more interesting than the students are to each other. Their attention constantly gets pulled to chatting and socializing during class.

In this situation, I have to become stern with them. I tell them to be quiet and focus on the conversation exercise at hand.

Here's what's changed: since I'm not attached to them, I don't mind what they think about me or whether they're upset with me for being stern. When I'm firm, they listen and do what I ask. If I don't set boundaries, they end up chatting the whole period and learning nothing.

In the past, I would have cared deeply what they thought about me. Now? I care about 10% as much as I used to. I'm not totally free of caring what they think, but I'm considerably more liberated than before.

So I can be stern—and that not only gets them doing what they're supposed to do, but it helps them build their English skills.

Here's the crucial part: when I'm being stern with them, I'm actually quite calm inside. I'm not agitated, upset, or angry. I'm convinced they can sense that calm, and I think that's why they respond so well.

This is what caring from a center of calm looks like, as opposed to reactive caring. I'm not reacting to my fear of their disapproval. I'm acting from a clear understanding of what will serve them best.

Before my self-mastery practice, I was constantly worrying about what other people thought of me. That worry has gone down to about a quarter of what it was a few years ago. In fact, almost all my worries have diminished to roughly 25% of their former intensity.

That transformation didn't happen through positive thinking or affirmations. It happened through thousands of hours of observing, feeling, and releasing the emotional attachments that generated those worries in the first place.

Who Should (and Shouldn't) Do This Work

Quite simply, I think everyone should engage in some form of self-mastery practice. If we were all less attached to each other—less reactive, more capable of acting from calm centers—we could care for each other in much deeper ways than our current reactive patterns allow.

But realistically? Most people won't do this.

Not because they can't, but because it requires a level of commitment most aren't prepared to give. You can't just set a goal and expect that to carry you through thousands of hours of practice. You'll give up along the way.

You need genuine passion for self-mastery.

Who Has That Passion?

People choose themselves. But from my experience, it comes from a sense of dissatisfaction with the status quo.

One day I discovered that the pleasures outside my body are pleasures, certainly—but they lose their ability to give pleasure after a while. Ultimately, there's no lasting satisfaction in external things. A new car is exciting for three months. A promotion feels good for a few weeks. Even relationships, when based primarily on attachment rather than genuine connection, eventually lose their ability to satisfy.

People who sense this lack of satisfaction in external sources are the ones who will naturally gravitate toward self-mastery practice. They'll have the passion for it because they've exhausted other options and found them wanting.

A Word of Caution

I should note that people who are extremely mentally unstable might want to approach this work carefully, perhaps with the assistance of medication and professional support. While I view medication as a Band-Aid, it might create a stable enough situation for someone to begin addressing their emotional baggage without reacting to it instantly.

As they release more emotional baggage through consistent self-mastery practice, they might find themselves in a state where they no longer need medication. However, some people may find that reviewing certain events and memories in their lives makes their mental health challenges temporarily worse. Professional guidance can be valuable in those cases.

What Keeps Me Going After Thousands of Hours

On difficult days—when progress feels invisible or I discover yet another layer of baggage I didn't know existed—what keeps me practicing?

The answer is simple: the good feelings I have now.

My average days now are better than my best days five years ago. My great days now are so much better than my great days back then that there's barely a comparison.

Based on that trajectory, I can imagine feeling exceptionally good all the time. And that great feeling isn't based on external circumstances—it's based on my lack of attachment to all the worries and cares that used to dominate my mental space.

I'm going to work and earn money regardless of how I feel about it. Being attached to that money doesn't make me earn more, and it doesn't reduce my financial fears and worries. In fact, attachment increases my fears and worries about money.

So I want to get rid of those attachments, keep working hard, keep earning money, and feel great without worrying about these things. That vision keeps me going on the hard days.

The Progress That Fuels Itself

In the past, I found progress with self-mastery practice to be sporadic and inconsistent. Now I find new progress every week, and it's rapidly progressing toward progress every day.

I can have genuinely productive scanning breath sessions almost daily now.

Here's what's changed: when I find a new layer of emotional baggage that I didn't even know existed, I get excited about it. It's an opportunity to work on something I can actually address.

When I feel down in the morning or worried about something, I get excited now because I know it's a real opportunity to remove more garbage from my system with the scanning breath. I feel empowered by this practice.

I know that anything that comes my way internally is something I can grab onto, work with, and make myself better through. That sense of empowerment—knowing I have a reliable tool that actually works—is what sustains thousands of hours of practice.

I feel totally empowered by the scanning breath, even though I still have lots of attachments to work through. In fact, I sometimes wonder what will keep me motivated when I don't have so many attachments left to address. But I suspect by that point, the practice itself will have become so integrated into who I am that the question won't matter.

The Passion Question

So here's where we end up: the scanning breath is effective. Self-mastery practice works. But it follows the same rules as mastering any other complex skill.

You need approximately 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. You need patience with slow, incremental progress. You need the ability to celebrate finding new problems rather than being discouraged by them.

Most importantly, you need passion—not just goals.

Goals get you started. Passion keeps you going when you're three years in and still consider yourself a beginner. Passion is what makes you excited to discover a new layer of emotional baggage instead of defeated by it.

I can't tell you whether you have that passion. You'll know it by a sense of dissatisfaction with external pleasures, a recognition that nothing "out there" will ultimately satisfy you, and a willingness to commit years—not weeks or months—to the work of removing the internal taskmasters that push and pull you through life.

If you have that passion, self-mastery practice will change your life in ways you can't currently imagine.

If you don't, that's fine too. There are shorter paths that provide real value, even if they don't address root causes.

But if you do have it—if you sense that dissatisfaction, that hunger for something more fundamental than external solutions—then welcome to the 10,000-hour journey.

It takes forever.

And that's actually the point.