Your ego develops to keep you safe from threats and dangers, that you may experience in life. It aims to protect you by closing you down and creating a hard shell (known as a defence, or a coping mechanism). It then judges and keeps you separate from others, so that in theory you won’t get hurt. This approach, however, does not work in the long term as it is fear-based, separating you from your True Self (TS)—your loving essence within. It is when you are open, gentle, trusting, accepting and loving that you develop the ability to connect with the loving source of energy, which is present in everyone.
Your ego thinks it is in control and running the show—yet it is the source of all your pain and suffering. It stops you from listening to your intuition, wisdom, or God. It convinces you that you need to compete with others, that you are better, worse, richer, poorer, fatter or skinnier. It is the part of you that convinces you, that you’re not good enough, not smart enough, and you need to struggle to be worthy of having a good life. The ego keeps you attached to striving and wanting more, feeling unacceptable as you are, and to being trapped by its power!
To find peace transcend your ego by understanding it with love and accepting as it is. Shining love on your ego, helps you to transcend the pain it can create.
Step-by-Step guide:
- Be aware that ongoing pain and reactivity, is a result of defences created by your ego.
- View your defences, for example, any; sadness, anger, hurt, grief or guilt with compassion and love. They are all part of our human experience and feelings that come and go.
- When you accept your feelings as they are, they will flow through your energetic system. This process gives you information about yourself, so you can respond with wisdom, rather than react from your ego in various situations.
- Focus on transcending your ego and connecting to your loving self, by creating a vision board to represent your TS. Your TS is; wise, kind, compassionate, loving, creative and intuitive, for example. Create a grid of the eight C’s to focus on living as your TS, and in each grid put a picture or symbol, representing all your TS qualities in the areas of:
- Compassion: something to represent when you are compassionate of others, without expectation, just because it feels right to you.
- Creativity: what inspires you? It could be art, music, a project that you admire, or it could be a representation of your creativity?
- Community: what gives you a sense of community?
- Clan: your loved ones, friends, family, colleagues, who represent the people, with whom you surround yourself with, that you love?
- Communion: how is spirituality expressed to you? How do you commune with the spirit, to connect to your natural source of love?
- Connection: what is it about you, that connects you to others and is your finest quality? Your loving heart, your kind deeds, your non-judgemental nature, and any other quality that represents you at your best.
- Caring: what is it about you that displays your caring for humanity? It could be comforting small children in distress (including your inner child), helping others in need or seeing the bigger picture, rather than getting caught up on more minor issues.
- Call to nature: it is a powerful force when it comes to transcending the ego and reconnecting to your natural loving state. Walking on the beach, in the forest, sitting by the ocean or a lake, for example, will immerse you in nature’s healing energy. You may feel emotional (let any feelings pass without judgement) and insights will come to you. In this natural process, your body’s wisdom will let you know exactly what it is you need to know.
Tip: Aim to be kind rather than right, in your interaction with others. Although this may sound very simple, it is often the hardest thing for humans to do, as the ego much prefers to be right rather than kind! However, see this as training for your ego, allowing you to tap into your kindness (your TS), letting that be an automatic way of being over time.
