“If you want to improve, you must be content to be thought foolish and stupid.”
– Epictetus

On this episode, I talk about the ego (who you think you are). I get into the anxiety recovery path and how this opens you up to change and why this dissolves old beliefs. How can we move from one image of ourselves into another? I answer this and more on todays episode. 

• The ego is who you think you are. All of what you like and dislike are built up throughout your life. Everyday, we encounter things we do not like that stem from past associations. This sends us into a FRENZY. “I don’t like when this happens.” Well, could you be more than these mere dislikes?

   

• In the heros journey, before the hero becomes the hero, they are naive, living in their sheltered life. Like Bilbo in the Shire. Neo from The Matrix working his desk job. Luke living his farm life on Tatooine. When they get called out onto this adventure, into the unknown, what happens is that they discover parts of themselves that they never knew was there. Unseen potential. As the hero progresses throughout their journey, they take on great amounts of responsibility. Bilbo rises to the occasion and helps the Dwarves recover the Lonely Mountain. The limitations of his older identity are breaking apart and new parts of himself are being discovered.

   

• In recovery, I had to confront my suffering before anything else. I admitted to myself that things needed to change. That was my first step in moving forward. Then, more resistance (suffering) showed up when when I walked this new path. The ego says “this is not Brad, let’s go back to the old patterns.” Then I would feel like a failure because I would then listen to this inner voice and go back. In the heros journey, things get worse before they get better. The unknown makes the hero self conscious of all their weaknesses. Then the hero thinks “god, I have to learn how to fight.” Like Harry Potter learning the Patronus spell to fend himself from Dementors. YOU, venturing out in the unknown, is no different the the hero stories we admire. You are the hero of your life journey.

   

• You have to first be Selfish (capital “S”) before you can be selfless. The ego dies when you begin to serve your higher self. How can you take care of the people around you if you cannot take care of yourself? The information that will help put you in-formation toward your higher self is in the places you have not yet ventured. The unknown. The land outside of the ego. Eckart Tolle says, ” The moment you become aware of the ego in you, it is strictly speaking no longer the ego, but just an old conditioned mind-pattern. Ego implies unawareness. Awareness and ego cannot exist.”

For the whole episode, listen below: