Episode 38- Letting Go of the Lies

What's going on. Evolve Mastery family Princeton Clark here, and I am super excited to bring this podcast episode to you guys, to everybody out there on podcast land. I'm also recording this podcast live right now, and so I just want to first off give a shout out to everybody who has been following, everybody who has been supporting the podcast and showing love, all of you out there who are doing the work, who are evolving through self mastery, becoming stronger, wiser, more efficient versions of yourself. Thank you for supporting the Evolve Mastery podcast for everybody on Instagram live right now. Thank you for joining as we record this podcast live.

But, guys, have a special topic for you guys, if you weren't on my Instagram live, the topic of today is letting go of the lies, and we're going to be talking about understanding the stories and the frameworks and the programs that you create for yourself that keep you bound in, the things that keep you from moving into what you say you truly desire, the things that are keeping you from manifesting the things that you say you want at a soul level. We're going to talk about how to clear out the noise, how to clear out the things that are keeping you from being the most powerful version of yourself because, guys, listen, life is not complicated, but we, through our creative prowess and creative potential, can make life complicated. And I want to help you guys make life a little more less complicated today, and so we're going to go ahead and dive into it. You know, guys, when I first begin my journey of self mastery years before I ever begin teaching, years before I ever begin preaching, speaking, educating, coaching, all of that I had to get very familiar with the things that I believed about myself, because, coming out of the path that I came from, I didn't have a lot of self confidence outside of the things that I did in my ignorance. I was, I would say I was confidently ignorant for a very long time until I became confidently awakened to my power. And so what I want to help you guys do is wake up. And so the first thing that I had to really understand about my journey was that if I wanted to wake up in my life, then I had to address the areas where I was still asleep.

And you guys in podcast land on the live. Right now you may be saying, ok, princeton, how do I know if I am still asleep in my life? And to that I say it's very easy Look at all the areas where you are not walking or operating from a state of joy. Look at all the areas where you are not walking or operating from a state of peace. Look at the areas of your life where you are not walking or operating from a central state of love, showing up every day in your most powerful self. In those areas you are still sleepwalking through your life. But I'm going to help you guys wake up and if you will lean into what I share with you today, you will walk away with this with some new insight on how to look at your life.

But going back to when my story first began, or when my journey to awakening and stepping into my power first began, when I started waking up to my own lies, for those of you who don't know my story, if this is your first time listening to the podcast, if this is your first time tuning in, I have not always been who I am. I have not always been the person that has spoken on stages, that had a podcast that reached 125 countries, that work with people like Tony Robbins and Dean Grasioce and got to learn from people like Les Browns, zig Ziglar, dr Wayne Dyer, I haven't always been who I am. I was abused as a child. I was molested between the ages of nine and 11 and struggled with deep depression. I was on medication for ADD and ADHD from the time I was in first grade all the way up until about seventh grade, halfway into eighth grade, when I stopped taking it, because even at that age, I had an experience in which I realized that wait a minute, I didn't have a problem, I actually had a gift, and the education system just didn't know how to teach someone like me. And so, as I grew, it was still years before I realized how to understand all of the different ways that I was perceiving and activating and actively connecting with the world and the energies around me.

I ended up barely graduating high school. I was in gangs, I was on drugs and I was an alcoholic before the age of 21. So I again, I haven't always been this person. I used to drink so bad I had bleeding ulcers I would literally throw up blood because I drink so bad. And I got married at the age of 21 thinking, you know what? I'm gonna give my kids the life that I've never had, the love that I've never had, but I didn't even know what that looked like, because I was so stuck in my own personal lie, I was so stuck in the illusion of my own programming that I knew that I wanted to experience it and I knew that I didn't want my kids to experience what I had experienced. But I didn't even know what that looked like.

But I will tell you this, and I always say this my kids were my greatest teachers. They taught me to dream again. They taught me to love again. They taught me to be present. They taught me to be adventurous. But even that didn't truly start happening until after the age of 23, when I tried to take my own life, and, happily, gladly, I'm so blessed that I failed and I sucked at doing that, or rather, the bullets sucked, because when I tried to end my life, the gun misfired.

So I'm still here, but I always say it was in that moment that I realized that where I was was a product of my own choices. Where I was was a product of how I had chosen to respond in my life. It wasn't a product of what I had experienced. It wasn't a product of who had did what or who wasn't there, though that played a role in how I chose to see myself, how I chose to see my life as an adult male. That wasn't the reason why my life was not changing. That wasn't the reason why I was not getting the results. The reason I was not getting the results was because I had made the programming, I had given the stories such an identity that they had become a concrete manifestation of a personified idea of self in which I was presenting to the world, I was presenting it to my opportunities, I was presenting it into my relationships, I was presenting it into different situations and into different challenges, and as a result of a lack of personal belief, as a result of a lack of self-confidence, self-init, self-esteem, self-worth, that personified idea of self could not show up as the most powerful version that I had the capacity to show up as.

So, after my failed suicide attempt and having that major realization, I realized that if I had the power to create the life that I did not love, how much more power did I have to create a life that I truly loved? How much more power did I have if I started living every single day as if every moment truly was a gift, because, from the moment that gun misfired next to my temple every breath that I breathed. I knew it was a gift and I knew that I would no longer waste it, because following that week, I quit drinking cold turkey, I quit using drugs, cold turkey. I walked away from gangs and gang related activity and I isolated myself for an entire year. So that was just to catch you guys up If you've never heard my story and of course there's a lot in there, but I don't wanna stay in the story too much I just wanted to paint a picture of where I once was and what I came out of.

I often say I've seen more things in real life than most people see on TV. After growing through all of those experiences and having that specific experience, I took my life back. Now you may say, princeton, what did taking your life back look like? First, I stopped submitting myself and surrendering to things that didn't serve me. I knew that the alcoholism, the drug use, all of that stuff was an escape. And from the moment that my life changed, from the moment that I had my awakening experience following the suicide attempt, I realized that I had hit rock bottom and either I could make a choice to be a better, wiser, more efficient version of me or I could continue to play a victim, writing the same script in that life of insanity that I hated over and over again, and I decided that would not be my story. I decided, and I made a concrete decision, that I was gonna do whatever it took for me to become a stronger version of me.

Now, growing up in the Bible Belt, I didn't really know what that looked like. All I really knew was the Bible. So I went out and first steps. First I bought a King James reference Bible, a students Bible, a strong, exhaustive concordance, and I started studying the original languages. I started reading the Bible from beginning to end and I didn't go back to a building because even in the community that I grew up in, there were pastors who told my family that I was a lost cause. So I didn't trust men. But I was at such a state seeking, because my life had changed and the only thing that I really knew at that time, coming from where I came from, was the Bible. I'm studying from beginning to end. I'm reading and I'm growing and as I started studying the original language, I realized that a lot of it was being taught wrong, especially when I started diving into the Aramaic and the Hebrew and all that.

But long story short. I developed this intense hunger for information. I developed this intense hunger to grow. I developed this intense hunger to learn because you often hear people say well, you don't know what you don't know. Well, I knew what I didn't know. I knew that I didn't know how to love myself. I knew that I didn't know how to truly honor my life, and so I was simply seeking information on how I could live a better life, how I could be more active in my life in a way that it would create change in my life.

And as I began to study, I remember one day I'm sitting and I'm reading in the Bible, where it's the story of Jesus, where he's been crucified. Everybody has walked away from him, everybody has left him and he's hanging on the cross, he's been beaten beyond recognition, and I often say Jesus is my avatar. This is, I would say. I am not a Christian. I am a disciple of the message of Jesus. I am a follower of the path of love back into the kingdom within. That has awakened me to the power to not only love all things as myself, but to also love the world, love people as myself and realizing that we are all spirits on a journey, having different human experiences, and I get to share my experience with everyone else and I get to guide people, or disciple people, into that kingdom within themselves, to take their power back. So I'm reading the story and he's hanging on the cross and he's been beaten beyond recognition and I remember reading where it says he looked out over all these people who were yelling crucify him.

Now, keep in mind, coming from a place that I came from, where I felt that the world was against me, after being abused mentally, physically, verbally and emotionally, after being molested, struggling with deep depression, coming out of that phase after that failed suicide attempt, when I'm reading the story it had a deep grapple on my heart and I remember reading that as he looked out over them and I still get chills whenever I think about this. He looks out over them after being beaten beyond recognition, flesh torn from his body, nails in his feet and his hands. He's on this cross and he looks out over them and he says forgive them, for they know not what they do. And I remember thinking to myself teach me to love like that, because if I can't love like that, I don't wanna live. A love like that is unbreakable. And so, from that day, I even stopped seeing challenges.

At that point, I'm only 23 at this time, guys but from that day, I started seeing challenges as my stripes across my back, testing my love. I started seeing the different things that came out of nowhere as an opportunity to love myself more deeply, to love others more deeply, to embrace the breath of life more deeply. And from there I started asking myself what can I start to institute in my life? What new habits can I create? What spaces of time can I create throughout my day to be in love in the moment, to be in love with my life, to be in love with my breath, and so on this podcast today, guys, or on this live, if you're watching live on Instagram.

Now, I just want to challenge you because, ultimately, all the lies that we believe keep us from entering into that space of love, all of the lies that keep us from moving in peace, moving in joy, moving in meekness and temperance and self control, all of those lies are what are keeping us bound from stepping into our power, stepping into our potential and stepping into our purpose. And so, if you want to get out of that insanity. If you want to start manifesting with the quote, unquote faith of a mustard seed, you want to start seeing the fruit in your life, you want to start creating healthier relationships, you want to start manifesting a more full and free lifestyle than it starts with understanding how to love yourself, love others and how to honor the moment, understanding that every moment is a gift. Because, see, it's easy to say tomorrow is not promised, the next moment isn't promised. But, honestly, how many of you truly live like it every single day? How many of you live like it in every single moment, understanding that my next breath is not promised to me?

See, people ask me all the time how did you grow so fast from the age of 23 to now, working with people all over the world, working with some of the best in your industry? How did you go from being this broke, busted, disgusted, alcoholic, suicidal, gang banging, miserable person that you used to be to being the person that you are now? And I tell them and I say I know it sounds simple, but I started loving myself with tenacity. I started living every single day as though it were my last. I started honoring my body, I started honoring my mind, I started honoring my soul. I started understanding that, just like me, everybody on this planet were just spirits on a journey trying to find their way. Everyone was stuck in this mode of trying to understand life.

But I came to learn and I came to realize that life is not about understanding, and I was recently talking about this on a podcast. Life is not about understanding things. Life is about experiencing things. And so I knew that if I wanted to create better experiences, I had to start being present in this experiences that I was given in every moment. And then, through my divine creative power, I had a chance and a choice in every moment to choose how I would respond. And I got to choose whether I was going to respond from a victim state, or whether I was going to respond from the story or the belief systems or old experiences, or whether I was going to take back my power as the author, the creator, the manifestor and the main actor in my movie and rewrite the freaking script.

So I started rewriting the script, I started changing my vernacular, I started changing the way that I spoke about my life, I started changing the way that I spoke about people, and this was practice over time, guys, I promise you I did not always speak this way, and that's something I always tell people. Because you hear me now and I promise you that this version of me that you hear now is not the version of me that I was when the journey first began. And so I want to encourage you because I know, with social media, when you first started looking and paying attention to everyone else and this is why I say I'm glad that I didn't have social media when I got started, because I didn't have the noise, there was nothing for me to compare myself to, there was nothing for me to look at and say I'm not like that, I don't have that, I'm not good, I'm poor, I don't have the money, I don't have the house, I don't have the cars. All I had was a mirror to look in every day and say Princeton, who are you going to be today?

Because no matter what I do, no matter where I go, no matter how I show up, every single day, I get to choose what version of me or what version of me or what version of Princeton I'm going to introduce to the world, I'm going to introduce to my life, I'm going to introduce to my children, I'm going to introduce through my business or through my personal connections and relationships. I get to choose what this avatar is going to create in the world, because this is nothing. Princeton is not it. Princeton is the conduit. Princeton gets to be the tool and the vessel in which I use to express my amnesty, I amness, connected to the I am of all that is God, source, universe, whatever pronoun you want to use. To me I just say love is what I am connected to, and so, as a seed of love in the world, I get to now portray that through this vessel. I get to portray that through this conduit that I see in the mirror and that I get to present to people every day. And it became a mission. My mission became love. My mission became peace. My mission became joy.

I stopped focusing on the noise, I stopped focusing on what I had created, the personality to be, and I started being something new. You may say, but where does that go and where does that start? It starts right now. See, this goes back to what I said in the beginning Life is not complicated, but we do complicate life as the creative beings that we are. Every action or thought that we give power to, rather, is creating a perceptional reality that only we see, only we can perceive and respond to, and every other person on this planet is experiencing their own perceived reality. This is another reason why I don't argue with people. I don't hold grudges with people. People see what they see as a man think. It's so that man becomes so. Regardless of what someone else does or what someone else says, they are responding to the perception or the stories or the programs that they have ascribed to and given meaning to and, as a result, that's how they see the world, that's how they see you. So I don't get caught up in the noise. I'm not looking at someone else's world and then judging my world because my world doesn't look like theirs. I'm not them, they will never be me.

I am an original blueprint. You are an original blueprint, but you got to ask yourself what design will you give power to? The design of the story? The design of the lie? The design of lack of self-worth, lack of self-awareness, lack of self-love, lack of self-empathy? What design are you going to give power to? Because the blueprint you're only going to be able to build based on the blueprint that you design. What will your blueprint be? Get clear, get really still when you get home or you get to a stopping place, and I want you to write out the story of your life. What does it look like? Who are you uninterrupted? Who are you if the noise didn't exist? And this is something I had to ask myself. Who am I beneath the lies? Who am I beneath the illusions of a lack of self-worth? Who am I beneath the judgment? I am powerful, I am creative, I am destiny, I am consciousness and flow, creating itself and form, and I get to choose what form I take on. I get to choose what I get to experience. So, whether you're watching me live on Instagram right now or you're listening to the podcast recording, when you have a chance, I want you to sit down and I want you to ask yourself who am I uninterrupted?

If I didn't think this way, if I didn't give power to these thoughts, how would I be living? How would I be communicating? How would I wake up and start my days? How would I respond? In a way that creates more joy in my life? How would I respond in a way that creates more peace in my life? How would I respond in a way that adds value not only to my life, but to those who are connected to my life, and I really want you to sit with that because, see, another thing was because I didn't have all the noise when my journey began, I really had a lot of times to just really find peace in the quiet, even in the darkest moments. Letting go of the former version of Princeton, I sat with myself and I got comfortable in the darkness, because it was in the darkness that I learned to shine my light and see, a lot of people are afraid of the darkness, but the darkness is where you meet yourself. The darkness are the parts of you that you've been running from In the darkness. That's where you meet your spirit, saying you're worth too much to stay here. You've been making excuses not to use your power. You've been waiting for people to validate you when you were validated, before you were born. You've been playing the victim when you were born to be victorious. And when you get comfortable facing you and you get comfortable taking accountability for how you choose to respond to your life, that's when your life begins to change. That's when your life begins to evolve. That's when you begin to step into newness.

To journal, I used to meditate, I used to pray excessively. I was doing it all the time. I was always having that inner dialogue, doing that deep observation. When a negative thought would pop into my head, I would take a deep breath and I would pause and I would say Princeton, why are you thinking that? And then I would say wait, why am I giving power to that? If it's not in the flow, let it go. If it doesn't serve you, it doesn't deserve you. You choose. You choose what you give power to. And so every day, through the habit of repetition and paying attention, I became intentional with what I gave my power to. I became intentional with what I gave my life to. I wasn't seeking this person and that person and this person and that person. I was seeking to love me.

Because I'm gonna tell you this right now it doesn't matter how many events you go to, it doesn't matter how many books you read, it doesn't matter who you could get the greatest mentors in the world, but if you haven't learned to love yourself yet, it does not matter. If you have not learned to take personal and spiritual responsibility over your life, the personal and professional development stuff will always be lacking. There will always be something that is limiting your ability to show up powerfully, your ability to create the life you truly desire, because you are giving power to the lies, you are giving power to this personified idea of self that doesn't serve you and it doesn't deserve you, and so I want you guys to think about that today. I want you to really ask yourself what am I given power to right now that does not serve me? What am I giving power to right now that does not deserve me? And how is that power that I am given to that being taken away From the potential or purpose of the vision that I have been given? And I want you to sit with that, I want you to breathe on it, and then I want you to ask yourself how can I start giving this power to the things that light me up? How can I start being more intentional with what I give my time, my energy and my focus to Get clear. Get clear how can you start responding that way?

Because once you start responding that way, that's when you truly begin to start learning what it means to love yourself, what it means to honor yourself, what it means to live Holy and completely in your life. See, because the reason people are struggling with depression and this isolationism and all the stuff that's happening is because they are so stuck in the lie. They're not living from a soul level, they're living from the external, and there's always going to be something on the external that you can always compare yourself to. I always say I don't compare myself to anyone, because there will never be, nor has there ever been, another me and there there has never been, nor will there ever be, another you. So how can you be the best version of you, how can you be the most loving version of you? How can you be the most powerful version of you?

It starts with a choice, it starts with going in and it starts with taking an account Of what you focus on, what you give power to, and this means extreme accountability. You will never hear me complain about anything that happens in this life. Everything, as I've said on plenty of lives, everything in this life is rented. I don't even own this body. I don't put breath In this body. So everything else outside of that is rented, because the moment this body stops Allowing the breath of my being to come into existence in this experience, everything else stops. I own nothing.

I respond in the areas that I get to respond in. I don't give power to what isn't going to serve me and what doesn't deserve me. I don't focus on other people's stories and the negative realities that they create as a result of those stories. I don't get caught up in the drama and the trauma of the world because it's all a program. It's all a collective collage of stories that people have either bought into or not bought into. It's all a series of paths crossing, energy being exchanged, and I get to choose which paths I get to stay in alignment with or which paths are not an alignment that I get to walk out of. I get to choose what energy I allow myself to continue to engage or what energy I allow myself not to continue to engage.

All the power is in me, but until I learned to love me, I didn't know how to navigate this world. I felt lost, but now I feel free because I've broken free from the matrix, and I want you guys to start really looking at your lives, taking a deep account and asking yourself how can I show up in the moment, responding in a way as if every moment is a gift? How can I take my power back, even when I want to be angry and I want to blame the world and I want to blame people and I want to blame circumstances and I'm leaking all this energy. How can I take my power back to be a stronger visor or present or free or fulfilled version of me? And I'm going to leave you guys with that. Really, sit with that. Maybe you might have to go back and listen to this podcast over and over again, but I want you to sit with that.

And I have several new episodes coming on the way here on the Evolve Mastery podcast and I also have a new segment, the next level mastery segment, that's going to be coming on the podcast soon where I'm coast hosting with my friend and it's going to be amazing. We've already done, I believe, six episodes. We just haven't launched it yet and we have a lot of new stuff on the way. But to everybody out there in podcast land, thank you for tuning into the Evolve Mastery podcast. If you guys are in a place right now and you're saying I want to grow, I want to expand, I want to go deeper, but maybe you're struggling to do it on your own, visit me at my website at PrincetonClarkcom. I have books, I have free audios. I even have an inspirational audio that you can go and listen to. That'll inspire you. If you're getting value out of this. I have plenty of other things coming. I also have a retreat that's going to be happening May 27th through the 30th and it's the rejuvenated soul retreat. We're going to be deep diving. If you are so stuck in the noise and you're looking to break free, it's going to be a very intimate experience. So a lot of things coming. But I also have some other things on the website. You can go check it out again. It's at PrincetonClarkcom.

But again, thank you guys for tuning in to the Evolve Mastery podcast and to all my people watching on live right now.

Thank you guys for sticking with me for the past 33 minutes and we're going to continue to have a conversation on live.

But to everybody in podcast land, if you're listening to this or you're catching the replay, I love you guys and understand you are a spiritual being having a human experience, but sometimes you're so in the human experience that you've forgotten how to tap into the spiritual essence of what you are.

So if you want to get deeper, if you want to become more connected to what you are, then I invite you to continue this journey of self mastery with me, but reach out to me on Instagram If you're not on live and this is the first time you're hearing this podcast. Reach out to me at PrincetonClark on Instagram or, as I said, you can go to PrincetonClarkcom. All my social links are there. Everything is there, but I'll be talking to you guys soon. Thank you again and until next time, continue to go deeper, continue to love yourself, give yourself space and grace to honor the journey, because this is your life and you never know when your last moment to take that last breath is going to come. So let go of the noise, let go of the lies, let go of the things that don't serve you and don't deserve you, and become the brightest version of you that's possible. Love you guys.