July 14, 2019 Soul vs. Ego

I started driving a car before I could walk.  At least that’s the way I remember it.  When I was a toddler I would sit between Mommy and Daddy in the front seat of the car in my little booster seat playing with my very own steering wheel.  It was some toy wheel that attached to the dashboard and allowed me to believe that I was driving the car.  I remember it clearly.  I really thought that when I turned the wheel the car turned.  I thought I was really driving.

My wise loving parents let me believe this.  They lovingly played along knowing of course my father was really the one driving the car.  

I share this story not to show off my freakish ability to remember little things from my early childhood, but because this little story represents my experience of my life from the perspective of my soul and my ego.

In this story my ego is the child who thinks he’s in control.  My ego thinks it’s the one driving my life.  It thinks it’s turning the wheel and making my life turn along with it.  But it’s my soul not my ego that is really in control.  My soul lovingly lets me believe I’m in charge not wanting to spoil the illusion.  Just as I can look back on the experience of driving a car before I was a year old, and know it was impossible. I can look back on the times I’ve thought I’ve been driving my life and see that that too was impossible.

No matter what story I tell myself it doesn’t change the fact that I’m not the one really running the show.  I can think I’m in charge.  I can fear that I might make a mistake.  I can regret the choices I think I make but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m just the kid pretending to drive the car and my soul is the one with both hands on the wheel and foot on the gas.  

With this in mind I can begin to trust that it is impossible for my soul to make a mistake.  When I turn the wheel to the right and the car goes to the left as a kid I’d think something is wrong... but sure enough we get to where I was supposed to be going.  My soul knows more than I could ever know.  Even when I am certain I have made a mistake my soul is taking me to exactly where I’m supposed to be.

It’s hard in the moment to trust that this is true but it is my belief that eventually I will always come to see this truth.  There were relationships that didn’t work our that I thought I wanted and mistakes I was sure I had made. Looking back now after 23  years with my the love of my life I am grateful for every thing that ended those other relationships so I could be right where I am. 

In the mid 1990’s I was in the running for what I thought would be an amazing job.  WNBC in New York was hiring a morning show producer and I had applied.  This was my chance to move up from Sacramento and land a job in the number one TV market in America. I didn’t get the job.  My dream was shattered I was crushed and certain I had somehow messed up.  Maybe I blew the interview or made an error in my resume.  

Now I look back so grateful that I did not get that job.  If I had gone to New York City maybe I never would have left television news, maybe I never would have met my partner.  Maybe I would never have become a Hypnotherapist or moved to Sedona. 

Have you ever seen the movie “American Beauty”?  At the very end of the movie Kevin Spacey’s character has died and we hear his voice as we wash a plastic grocery bag float into the air.  He’s telling us how from where he is now, as he looks back at his messed up miserable life all he sees is the beauty and he’s grateful for every minute of his life and perhaps someday we might understand. 

I think we will understand.  Perhaps the moment I die I’ll be able to look back and see it all as divinely perfect and understand what my soul had in mind the entire time.  If that’s where I’m going to end up, then perhaps I can live there now.  

When in 2010 our catering company finally went under and we lost our home, our cars and the last of my retirement savings, I could have sat paralyzed and started looking for what I had done wrong.  Instead I asked, “What’s possible now?”  Every situation always makes something possible that wouldn’t be possible any other way.  Just by asking the question, the answer showed up.  It was time to move to Sedona.  I was finally free of Sacramento. With nothing to tie us down we packed up and moved to our favorite vacation spot and began to thrive.

As my clients awaken to the difference between their soul and their ego, they become obsessed with “killing the ego”.  They begin to define “ego” as bad and soul or spirit as “good.”  This again is the ego thinking it knows best and pretending to run the show.  The whole idea of stepping out of or getting rid of the ego originates in the ego.  The soul does not care.  Just as my parents did not want to stop me from having the fun of pretending to drive that car, the soul doesn’t want to stop me from experiencing human existence with an ego.  

The soul doesn’t really judge anything as good or bad.  I often tell my clients that the soul is like my friend who loves, loves, loves going to the movies.  He doesn’t care what the movie is, he just loves sitting in a big dark theater, smelling the popcorn, watching the flickering light on the screen and listening to audience react.  

I on the other hand am often the “ego” in this movie experience.  I sit next to him and ask, “Why did we pick this movie?  It’s too violent.  It’s too sad.  It’s boring.  It’s not funny enough.  It’s so stupid.”  His reply is, “It’s a movie!  Isn’t this great.  Here have some popcorn.”.

The soul is just like my friend.  It doesn’t judge my life.  It’s in awe.  “It’s life.  It’s dramatic.  It’s incredibly interesting.  It’s full of all sorts of adventure and feelings.”  The soul is just thrilled to be alive.  And our ego is full of complaints, judgments, dissatisfaction, and also praise, adoration and extreme satisfaction.  

I look out into my backyard and my human heart melts when I see a little rabbit with its cute white tail eating my lawn.  Then I streak with horror when the coyote races across the yard and snaps up the rabbit.   Yet my soul knows all is in divine order.  Coyote’s eat rabbits.  Welcome to planet earth.  This is how it is done here.  If I race out there to save the rabbit the whole eco system will fall out of order and most likely I’ll end up with a garden destroyed by rabbits and eventually more snakes will move in to eat the baby rabbits in place of the coyote.  My Soul knows all of this, and yet my human heart aches over the death of the rabbit. 

We are not meant to live our lives from the perspective of the soul.  That perspective is always there for us.  We can learn how to see our lives from that point of view.  We are allowed time out from the ego. When our hearts ache too much it is okay to get up and leave the theater for a few minutes and get more popcorn. We can get up and leave the ego any time we want.  

Stepping out of the theater that is our life can be deeply healing and intensely nourishing. These little trips out of the confines of the ego are the essence of the work I have done with clients since 2003.  

The process of shifting a core belief often involves seeing our lives from the perspective of our soul.  When we rise above the ego’s experience we can see that there really are no mistakes and that some day we will be grateful for it all.  We can trust that everything is always unfolding for our greater good and begin to see what is now possible in our life.

But know, and it is worth repeating our lives are not meant to be lived from the perspective of the soul.  We came here to have a very human experience.  We bought a ticket and walked into the theater.  I can’t enjoy the show from the lobby.  I can’t learn the lessons or experience the blessings unless I go in and take a seat and forget for a while that I am watching a movie.  

Remember your soul is driving your life and your soul does not make mistakes.  Remember to ask what is possible now when life shows up in interesting ways.  Remember to trust that everything is always unfolding for your greater good.  When these things become true at your core, your fear will dissolve and you will find yourself in happiness and joy.  You will be able to look at your life and see the beauty and be grateful for every part of it, just as it is.