The ego is your inner victim. It makes everything personal. In partnership with pride, it focuses on how life does you wrong. The ego specializes in ignoring the part you play in creating your reality. It wants free passes. It diminishes your responsibility to your community, calling, or partner.
An ego-driven personality is both fearful of and in love with itself. It’s an unending demand for free attention and unearned accomplishment. A circular, image-focused, self-involvement cycle allows you to stay comfortable but stuck. You can’t act because you’re afraid of X, justified by Y. It’s a cop-out.
Self-crucifixion is ego. Abject self-loathing is as egoic as excessive self-admiration. The ego takes everything as a harsh judgment because it’s a projection of your self-judgment. Overthinking keeps you small and self-hating. You think you can fix yourself from within the confines of your mind. And, when you feel better, you’ll turn to the world. But, you never feel better.
The ego wants to rule. When life calls to you, the ego is the first to answer. It sounds like:
- Do it, but hold back.
- Protect yourself.
- Are you crazy? Don’t try that.
- It’s time to force a solution.
- Don’t risk embarrassment.
- Things aren’t moving as fast as I’d like. You should abandon faith and respond to this disappointment with self-destruction.
The ego loves “figuring it out” to avoid imperfection and prevent failure. Expect your ego to try to convince you that you need to keep doing what you’ve always done. And accept the same old, tired results. There’s no space for divine intervention when the ego works on its “solution.” Meanwhile, fear and avoidance of your innate purpose create a problem-centric, uninspired life.
You can stay in the easy inaction of self-pity for the rest of your days. But there’s a catch. You have to find an addiction to drown out the call of your Spirit trying to break through. You have to deny reality. Turn away from love. Reject a life of meaning, success, and purpose in favor of your self-pity snuggie.
Receding from life in fearful isolation is violence against your Spirit. At best, it results in mediocrity and, at worst, self-destruction. Thriving requires you to stand up and face the unknown. You have to risk your authentic Self, your vulnerable Self. So, most people cave to their fear and stay on the couch, lifeless and in pain. An evolution that starts with ego rather than Spirit is out of universal order. It has no spiritual support, no power.
Ego and Spirit can’t hold the reigns of your life simultaneously. You will suffer until you decide who it will be. Spirit disempowers the ego by revealing it as the toddler playing dress up, pretending to be the teacher. Everything lines up when you choose to be reborn in Spirit through nature, art, or service to humanity. You can relax when you give up the petty concerns of the ego in favor of a bigger picture. You can live rather than perform.
Recognize that your ego has been trying to figure out and solve your problems for years. Face the fact that as far as life strategies go, serving the ego doesn’t work. Stop solving, manipulating, worrying, strategizing, fretting, weeping, working hard, and feeling sorry for yourself. Try something else. Let down your defensive, controlling strategies and have faith. Turn toward your Self. Try listening to the still, small voice. Try trust. The universe will respond by delivering the life you didn’t dare hope for.
Song Accompaniment: Valerie June, Astral Plane
Artwork: The Art of Seth
All Song Accompaniments Playlist – Spotify
All Song Accompaniments Playlist – Apple
Read next:
Your Heart Is The Measure Of Progress (Not Approval)