People with a loud mind, raise your hand!
Having a loud mind is very common. We can call it ego self or mind. It usually gives us instruction, going against our own intuition sometimes; for many people it has been the louder voice in our life. It takes different hats: judger, inner critic, self-hater. Some people call them sabotage mechanisms, but I don’t like It, because it has a negative connotation. I also find the term ego as a negative connotation as it has been misunderstood for too long now. Or rather not misunderstood, but in popular social media, all memes are asking normal people like us with a very human experience to dissolve the ego or quit it, good luck to do that if you are not a monk living as an hermit. I agree with the philosophy that we should live from the heart and soul than the mind and ego, but let’s not deny the mind and ego their place in our human experience!
What is the motivation of your ego?
Naturally, Most of us have pushed away or fought these mind/ego based thoughts for a long time, for the good reason that we can sense the inner conflicts they bring, we can also sometimes judge these thoughts as shameful or unhelpful.
I'm so tired of hearing these so called “spiritual” quotes or all the spiritual by-passing that we hear about like:
"Quit the ego" - then may be quit being human?
"ego vs soul" - Is there a football match field in my body? Do we need a winner?
"7 ways to dissolve ego" - So do I dissolve my entire foundation as a human and become a monk?
"Ego and love cannot exist together"- Actually they can, when I grew up my parents showed me both inconditional love and their ego brokeness, basically they showed me their being human in essence.
"Starve the ego" - Starve your humanness?
All these quotes are actually harmful. Yes very harmful, they make you fuel your inner conflict which can already be high. The ego actually reacts according to how your personality was formed as a child. The ego is also a very normal part of the human experience. It usually reacts to hurt, it tries to protect you from pain or hurt to re-occur. The main goals of your mind-based/ego-based thoughts and sabotage mechanisms:
Protection and safety: it is ensuring that you don’t get hurt again
For you to be loved the way you learnt to be loved with your parents
Helping you to look for the love your mother and the recognition of your father (especially if these came with entanglements/abuse when you were young)
All these goals can clash with each other, and there you have it burnout, insomnia, depression, addiction, mental illness, unhealthy coping mechanisms; your mind is confused and your heart doesn’t have a voice anymore because all the parts in your mind are trying to figure out how to make sense of life, yet they can’t work together. It will bring self-doubt, anger, pride, depression, loneliness, sadness, shame, fear. It will make you believe all sorts of things about yourself: I'm not good enough, I'm not worthy...
Befriend your ego, you will be amazed!
What if instead of pushing it away, you started to befriend your ego and all the parts of you that you usually fight? What if you befriend and welcome in your space depression, insominia, guilt, shame, “bad thoughts”.
A very simple exercise to befriend your ego self:
Identify a part of you, an emotion or a thought that is ego based and that you usually push away.
Close your eyes and visualize it in your body. does it have a color, a shape, a texture, a movement, a sound? visualize it well and connect with it
As you close your eyes, tell this part “I see you, I acknowledge your presence, I am here to hold space for you, you have the right to feel how you feel”
Observe how the visual or the sensation in your body change. Is there any changes ?
Feel how it feels to give this part of you space instead of fighting it. Observe the change in the visual.
Tell it “I love you, I am sorry I ignored you, from now on I will listen to what you need”
Give a big hug to yourself
The ego got stuck in childhood, it's actually your inner child trying to get :
1. Love,
2. Acknowledgment of pain/suffering/ hindering feelings,
3. The right to feel what you need to feel
What if you allow what arises from your ego self?
What if you hold space for your ego's feelings and emotions?
What if you befriend the parts of yourself that you usually dismiss or try to dissolve?
Befriending your ego will release you
Once acknowledge the wounded part of yourself/ego will feel lighter, there is a release of some weight you have been carrying around for long. Suddenly you don’t need to fight internally, you feel lighter and relationships with others get easier.
You have more space for the real you and for your heart.
In the second part of the Key to Healing, I will talk about developing your intuition through loving your heart and soul.