My overactive ego mind - The quiet beyond the ego

As my ego mind is relentless it’s bound to crop up quite often along this blogging journey, so I thought I’d write something early on to help you get kind of where I’m at!

I spent years trying to build an identity that could withstand judgment, failure, and grief until, in later years I realised it was never about surviving the fall but about surrendering to it. And in the fall, we find truth. Well maybe some of the truth; or perhaps I have not been strong enough to find it all. There comes a point when the ego, in its tireless efforts to protect and perform, begins to fray. Not from weakness, but from the weight of its own expectations. It is here, in this tender unraveling, that something remarkable happens: the quiet self awakens or the Peaceful Warrior.

To quiet the ego mind is not to silence ambition or pride, but to hold them gently. It is like placing a hurricane in a glass jar - not to contain its force, but to observe it with compassion. When we no longer resist the storm within, we begin to see the sky beyond. Like my favourite quote – Fate whispers to the warrior: you cannot withstand the storm. The warrior calmly whispers back to fate: I AM THE STORM!

That irritating voice in your head, that always appears at 2am when you can’t get to sleep or the 1am in the morning after having one too many beers the night before. Quick to defend you and even quicker to boot you in the balls. In essence, when the ego mind is overactive, it crowds out the quieter, wiser parts of ourselves - like intuition, presence, or compassion. To quiet the ego mind is a tall order and it’s something I can only manage at times. I am grateful these times and as a good friend of mine always says: you’ve got to celebrate the small victories! (Gatsy baby)

We are not our masks, nor our milestones. We are the ones who rise - not because we held everything together, but because we allowed ourselves to fall apart. In my case, it wasn’t so much allowing myself to fall apart. I did not choose MS or ask for it (funny enough) I did have to choose to accept it though. And as the disease took care of me falling apart, both physically and psychologically, I rebuilt myself not physiologically but spiritually. To find out what I consider to be my true gift, well, you will have to read my forthcoming book! See what I did there?

This is the moment we step into the myth of Persephone - queen of the underworld, yet goddess of spring. Her descent wasn’t an end, but a transformation. Like Persephone, we must sometimes descend into shadow to uncover the seeds of our own renewal. The ego fears this descent, mistaking darkness for defeat. But it is only in the soil of surrender that new life takes root.

This is basically what The Gift of Being Broken is essentially all about.