Most of us understand the concept of cleaning out to make room for the new. Traveling light and not bringing (consciously anyway) baggage with us as we go down new roads. We forget sometimes when we are making resolutions about what we want to happen in the future, how we thwart those good intentions when we fail to properly ‘clean house’.
Amidst the noise of all of the things you think you have to do and the blitzkrieg from others of what you should be doing, I’d like to offer you a few moments of peace, through your journey that you can come back to again and again. You only need to try this once, to know if it will work for you. It’s that easy. Let’s begin the cleaning up and clearing out.
Your ego is not your friend. It isn’t naturally your enemy either. But if you have lived for a few years it has picked up reactions and defense mechanisms along the path of life that are not sustainable or helpful to the life you want to really live.
By the definition of change, even if you are ecstatically, joyfully happy now, the same ego things that are working for you now, will not work in the future.
Not changing is how the ego thinks. Sustainability is how Spirit thinks. Spirit knows you are a thread in the fabric of life. Other threads are always added and the garment itself is always changing. Ego has the false belief there is a finished garment waiting for you to purchase if you are good enough, clever enough, enthusiastic enough-which of course you never are.
Ego thrives on noise, information, input, doing, and attachment to results. It feeds itself with drama, and becomes more sophisticated through the years in the ways it presents itself to be ‘right’. Seek and do not find is the major dictate of the ego. Yet, it has the uncanny ability to pick the very things that will, if you transcend them lead to your release from it’s dogma.
Get clear ego is meant to be in service of your Right Mind, your Soul, your Spirit your God self—whatever name you want to call it-but it is this “It” that is in charge. Get clear this is the one decision you need make. If you make it-it is life changing. This one decision made, there is blessing of clarity: Ease and Grace become your modes of moving through earth school.
Ease and Grace are your traveling companions because All other decisions, you will step back and let Spirit lead the way. You have made the one that expresses your free will. This is the transcendence of the ego—not the vanquishment or conquering (as it is a part of you and life here in Earth School) but the right use of your ego mind.
I like to keep a checklist with me about ego behaviors. At the end of the list I will share how I use it. I do this because I can quickly transcend to my one decision and travel via Ease and Grace. This list is a compilation of over 25 years of experience, in my own life and the lives I have been blessed to work with. I hope you accept it as my new years gift to you for the one decision you may be willing to make, again and again during 2010: (BTW: another name for the list is energy leaks)
1. Incessant Wanting
2. Attachment to—anything
3. In the past with regret, or future with worry
4. Noise, distraction
5. Drama. Invite friends to get involved in Drama, by asking ‘their opinion
6. Denial of what is
7. Doing, more, faster, smarter-but still doing out of alignment with your spirit’s mission
8. Fear, and pretending it is ‘the truth’
9. Expectations, especially of self
10. Inconsistent
11. Lack of boundaries
12. ‘Right and wrong’ thinking
13. Judgments, opining and supposing
14. Lack of faith, vision, narrow-mindedness
15. Demands, defending, blaming, lying, avoiding
16. Believing your thoughts
17. Passionate about something that is not your business
18. Lack of empathy, understanding
19. “What about me” mantra
20. Martyr
At any moment of ‘dis-ease’: be it a tightening of my stomach, holding breath, a strong emotion, I check my list. Yup, it’s on the list. Darn. Then I ask, “Do I want to choose again”? Mostly I do-but it has taken years of practice to be able to say that. If I don’t want to choose again—stay stuck in the ego mud as it were-then I open myself to the observer and notice this is my choice. Isn’t it interesting, I note, “this is my choice”. I watch myself in this choice, I notice how the choice continues to deliver the stream of discomfort-and then I ask again. “Okey-dokey do you want to choose differently now”?
Eventually the answer is yes. Yes, I want to pull the plug on whatever the ego game is knowing full well it will bring a blessing. I always feel a wave of peace wash over me at this moment-and I smile-it’s so good to live in a kind and loving universe.
Ease and Grace are yours, for the One Decision. Life loves you that much. Good to know, yes?
All the best in 2010-and may your blessings be more than your ego mind could ever imagine, because you have left it’s dominance behind.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Karen Monroy, Ph.D., Leah Fisher. Leah Fisher said: RT @KarenKMMonroy: exactly what is the 'right use' of your ego mind? http://bit.ly/6Nm9On [...]
This was amazing. Thank you for the gift.
Wow. Nailed it. I do all those things and I cringed when I read the list. You are right it isn’t doing them, it’s not being willing to give them up, even when we know it doesn’t work any more. Happy New Year Karen and Thank You.