Self-Importance: The Silent Backbreaker for Modern Warriors Part 2
We’re a Mountain of Bad Habits (And That’s Okay): Tracking the Invisible Lion of Self-Importance
Welcome fellow Warriors. Students.
This is self-importance part 2 - though let’s be honest, this could easily be a 60-part series. Why? Because our self-importance is that huge! It’s that involved.
One of my favorite sayings is this:
We are walking mountains of bad habits.
And I don’t mean that figuratively. I mean it literally. Stack all your bad habits together - through ignorance, through conditioning, through all the causes we don’t even see - and you’d have a mountain. Not a hill. A mountain!
So never underestimate the power of your self-importance to control your life. Chances are, it already has. And if it’s done its job well - which it usually does - you don’t even know it’s happening.
That’s the difference between a warrior and the average person.
The warrior is cognizant of the forces inside them - vying for control of their consciousness, their thoughts, their actions, their emotions. And the warrior sets about, with powerful intent, to win that contest and wrestle control of their life back from their own self-importance.
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The Big Mistake: Hunting Something That Doesn’t Exist
Here’s something you must understand otherwise, self-importance will constantly fool you. And the pity of it is, you won’t even know you’re being played.
Self-importance, as a thing to hunt within yourself, is a fruitless task.
Why? Because self-importance itself doesn’t actually exist!
That sounds strange…It doesn’t quite compute. Self-importance itself doesn’t exist but its effects are very real. Its capacity to cause you pain and misery is unparalleled. You already know that part.
So think of it like this:
You are an expert hunter in the jungle. You’re tracking your quarry. The only problem? The lion doesn’t exist.
You’ll never see it. You’ll never get it. Because it doesn’t exist in the way it’s convinced you it does—in the way it feels it does.
To actually see that lion, you’d need a different set of eyes. And by eyes, I mean perception. In Toltec terms, seeing has almost nothing to do with vision. That’s a whole other conversation.
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So what does one do?
You become an expert hunter of your own self-importance - not by chasing a ghost, but by tracking the signs.
Even though the lion doesn’t exist, you’ll find its paw prints. You’ll find its watering hole. You’ll find clumps of fur caught in a bramble bush. Tangible signs of its passing.
In the same way, you can learn to track the movements of your self-importance by the signs it leaves behind.
Sign #1: Physical Sensations
Self-importance leaves tangible signs in your body. A certain feeling in your solar plexus. A particular kind of tightness in your head. A toxic, unmistakable flavor of sensation.
You can’t describe it - but once you start noticing it, you’ll go: ‘Oh yeah. That’s what he was talking about.’
**First training: Stay fully and completely inhabiting your body.** Because self-importance can’t move through you without leaving a physical trace.
Sign #2: Behavioral Patterns
Every time you deny life evidence in favor of being right - that’s a sign.
Life is presenting you with clear evidence of something, and you’re busy denying it just so you can be right.
Or the classic line I hear constantly:
> “Usually I’m not like that, but just this one time…”
So usually you’re really sorted, really together but it’s just this one time, isn’t it.
And here’s the kicker: It really does feel true to that person making that claim. They genuinely believe: I’m usually very good with sugar…slipped up just this one time. I’m usually very good with cigarettes…but just this one time. I’m usually fine with listening to others…but today..!
There’s nothing wrong with any of those choices. But notice how self-importance uses “just this once” to sneak past your awareness.
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The Path of the Warrior:
On the path of heart - the Toltec path - becoming an expert hunter of your own self-importance is mandatory.
Let me say that again:
You must learn to become an expert hunter of your own self-importance.
Not to destroy it. Not to fight it. But to track it. To see its signs. To stop being played by something that doesn’t even exist as a thing - but whose effects are more real than most of what we call “reality.”
This isn’t about being perfect. It’s not about eliminating our ego or becoming a blank slate. It’s about walking in freedom - freedom from the unconscious puppet strings of our own self-importance.
Walk in freedom, friends.