I’ve been reflecting quiet a bit on the ego, and how often I see it being perceived as some sort of dark and unspiritual entity that at times takes over, causing us to act in shadow and “unevolved” ways, getting in the way of our progress and evolution. In most spiritual circles it’s often said that we must transcend it, “get rid of it”, or enter a war with it to “kill the ego” …
Some questions I would like to pose:
• Wouldn’t the very act of those voices telling us to kill it or get rid of it be ego driven?
• Wouldn’t it be from “the ego” to deny, dismiss, hate and label it as unspiritual and dark?
•What if the ego was more than some evil villain? What if we allowed ourselves to see the “ego” as a collection of different parts of us bringing forth aspects of ourselves that are being suppressed and shamed. Simply parts of us looking to be seen and heard!
These are parts that carry deep emotion and memories from our upbringing and traumas —The depest parts of us that are not subject to the socially acceptable laws of time. These parts that are triggered by events and old wounds that occurred long ago which still affect us with penetrating immediacy, influencing and reflecting in our actions and behavior as if they were inflicted yesterday.
With this shift in perspective, we could then become witness to our own impulses and urges; be it anger, desire, lust, regret, fear, fulfillment and OWN them. Enabling us to observe our thoughts and emotions, formerly seen as from the ego, from a place of acceptance, creating a dialog to identify the root and therefor truly beginning to heal (aka remember.) Instead of fighting, masking, or ignoring them.
Just as love brings profound healing to our relations; recognition, understanding, and acceptance of all our internal parts brings a powerful depth of internal healing. It is then, through the acceptance of our truth that we allow these hurting parts that were once exiled to be integrated back into our wholeness!
In our upcoming April women’s retreat, Becoming Your Own Sacred Lover, we explore these aspects. Becoming Your Own Sacred Lover is a feminine shamanic Goddess awakening, where the medicine we are reclaiming is our own wisdom through voice, through breath, through release, through nature, through healing the wounded child, the wounded mother & father line in our DNA, through heart-womb presence and listening to our parts, through tending our sisterhood, through braving the path into our darkness for rebirth.