The ego-mind is a construct of the physical body; the vehicle through which we experience the world. The ego-mind gets created as we experience the world, the people and events which in turn creates a construct of “self” – this is the “ego-self.” It latches on to identities of itself and creates an image of itself based on all the beliefs that have been collected over time. A baby has no ego-mind because there are no constructs to which it has become attached; there are no limits or barriers from preventing the baby from being- the baby exists and it is happy. There is no language which it must use and stop to think to use to express itself. It simply ‘is’ (‘I am’). As we ‘develop’ we attempt to put in ideas of who we are, based on numerous things including expectations of the world; societies, groups, teachers and ourselves. We begin to require and thus become dependent on external validity and approval of our existence. We lose grasp of our essential ‘being-ness’ as we are rewarded for our accumulations of all these ideas of self. The identification of ourselves as all these multiple concepts expresses itself as this ego-mind which clouds the underlying truth of who we really are.

The ego-mind doubts and creates thoughts that lead to self-sabotage. The ego-mind is always wanting the upper hand, always wanting to win. It needs to stay alive; to keep you in fear so it can survive. It is the survival of this multi-faceted external identity of the ‘you’ that has been created. It strives to maintain this at all times. No-one can say anything against it. It will contrive to keep you always defending yourself, to maintain this solid identity of who it wants you to be.

When a disempowering thought arises, for example, that of doubt, or something someone said or did, an ego flame is sparked. The worst thing you could do now is to engage with this inner (or outer) conversation as that is likened to adding fuel to the fire which will power it up further. What do you do? You back-off. In your heart-mind tell yourself to back-off. It is that simple. However, the ego doesn’t like simple- it can’t be that simple; it will say; you must give me attention and add your thoughts to this subject, reason it out with me, analyse it, take it up, take it further. If you engage with your ego-mind, you will only fall by causing a bigger and bigger fire inside you. How do you cool the fire? By backing off, you stop adding fuel to the fire and it soon dies down. You can say to yourself “I am not engaging with that.”

Simply notice that the ego flame has started and make the choice of deciding to back-off. With practice you will notice a growing sense of peace within you as you begin to engage less and less with the ego-self. You will be amazed at how differently you respond to situations or conditions and how good you feel by not engaging with it. Once you back-off, your heart-mind is able to lead; you allow the heart to take the lead. You will eventually notice, there is nothing within you that needs to be defended or protected; there begins to be less and less feelings of hurt, because there’s less ‘stuff’ in you that is there to get hurt. You may ask- “but if there’s nothing inside to get hurt, then who am I?”  Fear not. You will find again the ‘you’ that first came into this life; the pure, peaceful being that has come to experience this Earth plane. The clear consciousness that you are; the consciousness that is vast and connected to everything. Instead of collecting all these labels and identities of who you are, your task is now to release and let go of all of these. Disengage from the ego-self that wants to entertain all these external manipulations and programs to keep you trapped within it; that keeps you looping the same thing over and over again. Try something new and create a new path. Be brave, to live from this heart space. You know what ego feels like right? See now what it feels like to back-off away from that ego-flame and rise through the heart-mind; light and free.

Everything is a spectrum of love, the furthest away from love is fear. The more you start to back away from the ego-mind the closer you will come to knowing and feeling more of love. We live in an existence of duality and free will. Duality is required to expand our experience, because without knowing one thing how can we know the other? Without the darkness how can we know what light is? However, we do have the power of free will to assert our choice of what we want to experience. We always have a choice and that begins with you.