The greatest gift that I have learned in this lifetime is to live my life by these three phrases: Love your ego, love your life and lead by example.
Like many souls, I once believed that enlightenment was reached by ridding oneself of ego. In my early teens, I was so frustrated by the power my ego had over me that I broke down in uncontrollable tears. I asked the divine why I was struggling with detaching from my ego.
Then, like a divine lightning bolt hitting me I realized, “trying to rid yourself of ego is your ego’s work”. It had me chasing a ghost, spinning in circles distracting me of who I really was and what my true life purpose would be. If the divine had created me with my ego intact then there had to be a reason I had an ego.
That reason is my ego allows me to fully experience my humanity here on this earth. I started to be thankful for my ego instead of fighting it and I embraced what it had to say to me. I learned what my ego was fearful of and instead of fleeing from it I spoke to my ego with love and kindness. I thanked my ego for showing me what it was fearful of because now I knew what I needed to accomplish in this life. Our greatest fears can become our greatest accomplishments.
When my ego becomes very loud within me I treat it like a child having a tantrum. Are you going to love the child or try to rid yourself of the child as a result of the tantrum? Most would ignore the behavior and then deal with the fact that the child is just looking for attention, your ego is doing the same, it’s looking for attention.
Just as you would say to a child in a tantrum, you would say to your ego “I love you; however, I do not love your behavior. I am going to take three deep breaths and listen to the inner dialogue between my higherself and my ego, giving my ego the attention it is seeking.”
I do not choose to follow my ego’s guidance, I am however allowing it to do what it was created to do, give me choice and challenge my infinite self. That is it; the ego was created to give choice and perspective, our egos just want to be heard from within. The ego does not care if you follow its guidance, the ego just wants to be heard so that it has done its job because your ego’s role is to help you achieve greatness.
When I started to listen to my inner dialogue with my ego intact, my intuition became 100% clearer and I continue to evolve, learn, and grow through life with a greater sense of ease. I learned to love my ego and my ego showed me to love my life. I decided a long time ago to lead by example, share the gift of knowledge that was given to me about ego from the divine and to also shine my inner light so bright that I may inspire others to shine theirs.
It’s like smiling, if I keep smiling at you, you will eventually smile back. So I shine my light bright, so that you may feel safe, be encouraged and inspired to shine your light even brighter.
Very well written. We really have to come to trust in ourselves because nobody else can provide it for us.
I like this definition of ego, Tara, and your suggestions of how to deal with it.
Providing greater clarity and opening up our mind to other possibilities and creative outlooks is definitely an asset.