The room was cold. The smell of peppermint was soothing right before bed. Wrapped in a soft blanket, the thought of hot tea was just what I needed to cozy up to re-runs of Sex and The City. I filled the kettle to the brim, turned the fire on high and scrolled online as I waited for the water to heat up.  Standing at the counter, snacking on cheese puffs, my thoughts took me to a place of irrational indignation. 

     Ever have a moment of awareness that confirmed  you were just a tad bit crazy? Like, when things calm down, you awkwardly look at your self and say “oh… so it wasn’t them” .  I have to chuckle when I think about the amount of times God spared me the embarrassment of loudly projecting my issues on to someone by voicing the foolishness that goes on in my head at times .  For many of us, when the truth of a matter surfaces, we realize our unreasonable actions or words had everything to do with something we’re scared to face, accept, say or do.

     

     The ego is a savvy, cunning, silver tongued  beast ready to sweet talk us out of our blessings at  every opportunity it’s afforded. Sometimes it’s dressed so well we think it’s other people’s problems. It’s fear in it’s fanciest garb.  It can appear as if it’s working for the best interests of ourselves or others; but deep down , it’s a wall of protection to keep us from exposing our fears and experiencing pain . It’s there to control our emotional climate. In my opinion, even the most extreme examples of an inflated ego are living on subconscious, continual reinforcements in the mind masking the truth of a void, fear or past experience. 

     How many times have we lied to ourselves and later took that frustration out on someone else? How many times have we ruined opportunities or moved in haste because of false perceptions?  I had moments where anger, fear, guilt or shame had me burning to a crisp inside. In auto-pilot, I either exploded or stepped over it before asking myself, “what am I really upset about?”. I’m sure I’m not the only one.

A  L O O K   I N  T H E   M I R R O R

     Before I thought of  the ego as a gaudy, chauvinistic display of behavior. Experience has taught me it has many faces. It can show up in our minds as making others “the enemy”, adopting victim mentality. It can show up as excuses or justifying harmful behavior to ourselves and others. I learned the ego can also use acts of kindness to control and manipulate others. The scary thing is that it can be done consciously and unconsciously. It could be at work and we be totally oblivious to it if we’re not tuned in to the sensations we physically feel when a circumstance presents itself.   

     The ego keeps us from learning, healing and identifying what binds us.  The truth is, the energy of pain NEVER goes anywhere until it is faced and processed in a healthy way.  It will stay inside ruining our lives until we chose to acknowledge it and journey towards the root of the feeling. The challenge for many of us is resisting the temptation of giving in to the emotional reaction of the feeling before examining it. 

T H E  G L O W  U P  M O M E N T 

    The glow up for me is realizing how deeply connected fear, shame or disappointment is to some of the wack stuff we think and do to ourselves and others.  I learned that experiences we never gave a voice to can be suppressed so greatly that we think its a part of our personality. The gem for me is realizing that the ego will automatically choose a hallucinative state of ignorance for us if we’re not cognizant of it. Why? Because it’s easy.

    I remember filling the kettle to  the top because I felt lazy and didn’t want to keep refilling it. When it boiled , it started to whistle.  The fire was blazing under it. The sound started off soft.  I took my time getting back to it. The sound got louder and muffled. There were breaks between it, then I heard splashing . When I got to it, the water was spilling out of the tiny hole in the top because it was filled too high and on the fire too long.

    I look at the kettle whistling as my spirit saying that something inside is in the way of my best life experience and it needs my attention. Pain is not easy to face but when we choose to, its only up from that place.  Wherever we fight the opportunity to grow our ego is running the show! Ego will try to control perception, people and things to hide the places we are really ashamed of . 

      I found that acknowledging when I am scared and quieting myself inside is the first step to see who’s really talking . Is it Me or my ego?  It’s stepping outside of a situation and looking at what I am really resenting .  Ego will keep us from learning and growing . It will deceive us in to thinking that people sent to help us are there to hurt us.

     When we refuse to confront what hurt us, fear has time to multiply itself with distorted vision, misplaced anger and  disappointment. Iyanla Vanzant  frequently talks about the stories we tell ourselves and the damage we do by neglecting our truth. That rings louder than it ever has for me . My spirit is like “ok girl… you ready? Let’s talk!”.

H O W

      In the past, I used to be hung up on the how . It used to pissed me off to read books and hear messages about shutting off the noise when it was a struggle to stop millions of thoughts rushing through my head. I found that sometimes I didn’t have access to a  guided meditation or music when those intense moments came.  I learned a great meditation trick from Esther Hicks to clear the mind that was very helpful. When thoughts are unclear and creating an undesirable feeling, find a sound in the room and focus all attention on it. Then count 5 deep breaths and short breaths. She said she would often use the air conditioner and focus on breathing and listening until the mind gets clear.  I tried it and it works.  Even 5 minutes of doing that made a huge difference . I set the alarm if time was limited. That exercise lifted tension, opened me up to see clearly and created the space receive guidance .

    It wasn’t until I heard a message about trust and where we are in relationship to it that I realized mine was shaky . I thought I trusted God but I didn’t. I was mad as hell. I thought I was sure of myself but I wasn’t.  I didn’t feel safe.  I had so many layers of protection. The same things continued to showed up over and over again in my life.  I didn’t realize that the things I was angry at, ashamed of and kept running from were opportunities to confront and heal my relationship with God and myself. No human being can reach inside and heal those wounds . What we can do is share our experiences, support and relate to one another on our journeys as we all heal through it.  

     Pride will have us thinking that someone helping us, is hurting us. Shame will have us living a lie as long as that ego is in power. It creates a false life and continuously feeds its shallow existence. It will have us blaming others for choices we made. Simply acknowledging to ourselves the truth of how we feel, at the time we feel it, makes it easier to resist  the temptation of shifting that personal responsibility somewhere else.

    I learned, simply admitting to myself , “I’m afraid” disarms my ego and allows the better to begin. Harnessing that animal is a daily job. Healing years worth of buried pain takes time. As we learn to trust the truth of who we are, we can clearly identify what we want and create the opportunity for good to come into our experience with out unnecessary thoughts and beliefs obstructing our view.