Tom Bast's Self Mastery

Looking for a safe place to contemplate life without being judged or told to change?

Do you believe that self-actualisation begins with loving who you are now?

For most of my life I suffered from a severe mental affliction, where I would tell myself horrible stories, which I call foul tales. When one fired up, I would pursue it until it was done. I couldn’t stop them. I couldn’t prevent them. Sometimes they would consume me so completely it was as if I was living in a nightmare, unaware of my surroundings. Sometimes they would come to such a horrific crescendo that I would black out for a moment from the impact.

Over the course of thirty years, I had conversations with a wide variety of people and discovered that many of us suffer from a similar affliction.

The reasons why we end up trapped in this way of mind vary dramatically. Some of us end up in it because of mind bending horrors we experienced in childhood. Some of us end up in it because of our passionate response to minor affronts.

No matter how we end up trapped in it, what we really need is a way out.

During a silent meditation retreat at a Buddhist monastery on an island in Thailand, I realized that the structure of the retreat could free me from them.

I distilled the essence of the ancient method I learned into this book.

Everything in it is tried and true. I did not invent anything new.

But the way I share these ancient methods is new. It’s told in a unique way. I assume that the reader is caught in the flow of foul tales and can’t escape. I know exactly what that is like, and so the book begins inside the nightmare of not being able to control one’s own mind. From there, I teach exactly what to do, moment to moment, to begin to dismantle the foul tales’s grip on our consciousness.

I’ve never read anything quite like it, and I have read vast numbers of self-help books. My book is designed to move us from the middle of our worst foul tales to a state of mind that empowers us.

I make no claim that the technique will work quickly. In my experience, it must be applied consistently for long periods of time. This effort will of course ebb and flow, but once you know the technique, you will always have a way to deal with the nightmare.

The technique I teach can, eventually, transform the energy we lose to foul tales into energy we can use to become the person we aspire to be.

In fact, I have come to believe that people who suffer from foul tales are actually called to a great adventure. The process of overcoming foul tales has the potential to move us from a state of profound mental dysfunction to a state of heightened awareness.

The uncommon intensity that we bring to foul tales can be transformed into uncommon intensity in the pursuit of self-actualization. Every curse is a blessing, and this is the blessing hidden in the curse of foul tales.

If you relate to what I have said here, then it is possible that the way I teach these ancient methods might have a beneficial impact on your own path. I certainly hope that is the case.

I believe that this is the most intimate reading experience I have created. If you embark upon it, I would love to know what you think of it. Please write me personally to give me input, suggestions, and to tell me your story.

Tired of being told you got it wrong? Want to know all the ways you got it right?

From the cover:

During a silent meditation retreat at a Buddhist monastery on an island in Thailand I realized that the structure of the retreat could free me from constantly telling myself terrible, negative, violently nightmarish foul tales.

Foul tales where I persecuted those I cared about. Where I vividly relived past traumas. Created new ones. And blocked myself from manifesting my dreams. An affliction that I actively battled for thirty years.

I distilled the essence of the ancient method I learned into this book.

Everything here is tried and true. The way I share it is new. So is the way I stitch the methods into a technique.

It’s written in a unique way, designed to move us from the middle of our worst foul tales to a state of mind that empowers us.

The technique transforms the energy we lose to foul tales into energy we can use to become the person we aspire to be.

I hope it helps you as much as it helps me.

Tom Bast