that little voice in your head

 Right now my family is in the middle of a spring break from school. I woke up this morning to what looked like a giant party had happened in my kitchen. Which means my kids must have had fun. I don't really know, because for the first time in a long time I had a giant headache and went to bed early.

But I'm not here to tell you about all my personal life details, I wanted to share about the ego. The ego is the nagging voice in your head telling you what to think and what to do. I am not talking about the Holy Spirit, that voice is calm, quiet, collected and almost silent. The Holy Spirit communicates through the heart, the ego communicates through your brain.

My ego this morning tried to hijack my attention and make me feel afraid. “Why didn't you clean up last night?” “The kid who were over here are going to think you are messy” “Your kids won't have friends because your house is a wreck” “If you had a landscaped driveway your kids will marry better people” I am not kidding you, these are the crazy things it says! It's hilarious. (Ya'll, the ego voice is a HOOT and a HALF! I love listening to mine now.)

The ego talks LOUD, and FAST. It is the first voice you always hear. It is always trying to keep you safe. Yup, that's its only job: keep you alive. The ego is not the enemy! Without the ego I couldn't write these sentences, read or remember my own name.

 What this “mentoring” work that I do, and help others do, is learn to recognize the ego. Learn to listen to it (yes, I said listen). Learn how to validate it, comfort it, and calm it the heck down. The ego and body are a beautiful vehicle to experience human life and love and serve others.

When we have a wounded or fragile ego, it is on hyperdrive, superspeed, sonic the hedgehog mode (can you tell what show Tommy likes now?). An overactive ego will constantly be trying to REALLY keep you safe. This can look like:

• Constantly worrying (anxiety)

• Constantly complaining

• Constantly judging others

• Constantly judging ourselves

Sound familiar? That's ok. It is just the ego trying to get you safe again.

Last week in a session the words came to me: 

   MORE PROJECTION= MORE PROTECTION

When I hear myself, or someone else belittling others, nitpicking, comparing, complaining about someone else (or themselves) A LOT, I know that the ego is seeking a lot of protection. It does this by projecting its issues onto someone or something else.

For the wounded ego, It isn't safe to not be perfect, not be totally accepted, not have any flaws at all. It has to take any perceived weakness and blast it onto something else. If the ego feels like you are really not doing a great job at life and are going to be rejected by your loved ones, it will redirect those fears onto something else. “What if we don't have enough money for the bills? What if my kids fail algebra? What if I never lose the weight? What if I never find my purpose? What if things never change? etc etc etc.”

The trick about the ego is, is that it is a trickster! It knows it has to hide what it is really afraid of from you, or you will look at it. And if you really looked at what it was afraid of, deep down, you'd figure out the game. You wouldn't be afraid anymore, and the ego feels like it would be anihalted. Gone. Poof!

So what does it do? It throws a rock in a bush, so you try to find out what made the sound over on the other side of the trail. If you take away anything from reading this, I hope it is this little truth nugget:

The EGO NEVER LOOKS AT what it is REALLY AFRAID OF.

Try this trick out, next time you find yourself really worried or afraid of something, try out these few phrases (or adjust to your liking):

“I must be really afraid of something here.”

“It's ok to be afraid, that's normal.”

“Have I been afraid of (bothered by) something like this before? What happened in the end?”

“How can I see this with love?”

Your fears, worries, complaints, neurosis, issues, baggage, and faults are CUSTOM MADE FOR YOU. Not one of them is a mistake. They are all a part of your life for a purpose. They are guiding you back to remembering the truth of who and what you are.

You are a perfect child of God. You are loved and beloved. You are created to create beautiful, wholesome and loving things in this world. You are not a mistake. Your past was not a mistake. Your past mistakes were not a mistake. Every single choice and action is leading you back home, back to God. And you wanted to experience this, and learn how to experience this life and LOVE IT.

I'll leave you with this wonderful quote from Living Untethered by Michael Singer: 

“Remember, every moment there are trillions and trillions of things going on in the universe, but you only get to experience one. How can you not appreciate the one you got to see? You came down to Earth, and this was the experience you had. That's what your life is: the sequence of experiences you got to ex-perience. Learn to love and appreciate your past. Fully embrace it, thank it for teaching you, and let go of any judgment that there was something wrong with it. Your past is uniquely yours. It happened. It's sacred. It's beautiful. Nobody else ever had it, and nobody else ever will. Embrace your past, hug it, kiss it-love it to death.”

Have a wonderful week! And enjoy listening to that afraid voice in your head, it's here to serve you. I love you!