So, it was settled. I made a conscious decision to let go of my big idea and focus on being until the new path unfolded. For me, being meant making space for studying, meditating, and writing every day. This felt like a luxury and a relief after 30 years of working really hard. And, deep down, in the place I was keeping my secrets, I started to bury a little bit of guilt about that each day.

My initial aim was to understand where I had gone wrong, and how my egoic thinking had brought me to this place. I could sense that the problem wasn’t the world, but rather, how I was viewing the world.

I was learning that to make the shift I desired, to live from the inside out, I was going to need to unlearn, or dismantle, the ego’s system of thinking, also known as fear-based thinking. This is not so simple, my friends. This is the thought system that dominates the world, and the thought system that was running my life for 45 years. 

The ego was still in charge, and all this focusing on being was making it very uncomfortable. Not to mention that it was still unhappy about the decision to let go of the big idea. You see, the ego doesn’t give up so easily. It yearns for safety, comfort, and certainty above all else, and it was committed to its goal of maintaining the world it had built. 

So, the conversation wasn’t over yet. About a week later, when I sat down to write, the dialogue continued with the ego taking a slightly different approach this time. The ego is nothing if not clever. Fortunately, I was a bit less willing to listen this time.

Ego: So, I have been thinking about this a lot since we last talked, and you know, none of what you are sharing here about this experience you are having, this path to “awakening” are new thoughts – this is not groundbreaking or anything that has not already been put out into the world. 

Jen: Yes, that is true.

Ego: So why are you wasting time on this? I am really asking. You know, because we are special and we are different and we should be doing something else, something much bigger, instead of just sitting around and reading, meditating, and writing in the middle of the woods!

Spirit: (stillness)

Ego: You know, there are millions of people out there that need help dealing with change. We could really help a lot of people.

Spirit: (stillness)

Ego: Look, I know you are on this journey to heal and everything, and I think that is… (awkward pause) really great and all, but how is sharing this and confessing all of our deep dark secrets going to help anyone? I mean, this could be embarrassing. Some of the things you could share may really hurt us. And for what? How is sharing all of our thoughts going to help anyone? I just don’t think it will. I think that this can only hurt us and what we are trying to build.

Spirit: In one human experience are all human experiences

Jen: Look, I have heard you and again, for now, this is what I am choosing. I don’t fully know why, and I don’t think that matters. I feel strongly in my heart that writing about this is what I am supposed to be doing. It’s not that writing about change won’t be a path that I pursue someday. But, at this time, I do not feel ready to write about it. I am not mentally healed, and I don’t want to do anything anymore to build up an external version of myself, or to keep striving to feel good by achieving some external form of success. I have been obsessed with this pursuit of success for far too long. I want to share from the inside out. I want to be healed inside and let whatever flows from there come from there.

After I nipped the conversation in the bud, I wrapped up my writing for the day with this reflection:

As you can see, despite, and because of, my commitment to healing, the conversation in my head continues. I know to be kind to myself about this as I am still very early in my journey. I recognize what the ego is doing, and I also recognize that I have not completely let go of the idea of writing about change. I know that the topic in and of itself is not inherently bad, and any meaning that I give to it is assigned by me. I know that if I were to write it through Spirit I could not falter. But, I don’t know how to do that yet. The voice of Spirit is not strong within me yet. I know that if I wrote about this now I would be doing it from the wrong place and for the wrong reasons – I would be writing through the ego. From the place in me that only cares about external success and all the trappings that come with it.

I want to do everything in my power to stop operating from that place. That place that creates attachments to things like “personal brand,” money, notoriety, admiration from others, and material things. I know intellectually now that all these things are temporary, they are not real, they are not protected, and they can all be taken away. They are the house with the foundation built on sand, the mirage in the desert, and they are never, ever enough. 

Attaching my identity and my worth to all of these egoic things has created enormous suffering in my life. And I am learning that there is another way of being in, and seeing, the world. I am aspiring to do everything I can, with the help of Spirit, to stop coming from this place in my life. 

After all, what could be more important than the healing of one mind, and one heart? If we are all really one here, there may be no pursuit that may be more worthy of undertaking.

Jen: (to Spirit) Thank you for helping me to remember to remember, to see anew, with fresh eyes and an open heart.