If you have wondered what that inner voice is – the one that is self-critical, wounding or full of doubt – we are taking a closer look on this episode of Life is the Practice. Known as “the Egoic State,” the noisy, negative chatter so many of us carry within us as we move through daily life has the power to erode not only our inner peace but to destabilize and create meanness in the world at large. If only, like the plants and animals around us, we were able to naturally inhabit the planet from a place of oneness! Well, my friends, that is the goal of this closer look at what it means to move towards mindfulness. We look at the ego, where it resides and how it hobbles our ability to live an abundant life. My goal is to help bring awareness and provide you some basic tools to begin the work of taming that inner critic – recognizing and stepping away from what is known as the Egoic State. I invite you to join me in moving from a place of scarcity towards nourishment and unconditional light. All that you need resides within you!
Are you longing to live in a place of inner peace, abundance, and confidence? Had enough of self-doubt, fear, and a nagging scarcity mindset? Then I invite you to explore my online course. It integrates all the teachings I use in my 1:1 coaching practice and the wisdom I’ve acquired over 25 years of mindfulness and research. Welcome!
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KEY TAKEAWAYS:
- The Egoic State fills our experience with discontent and is at the heart of most of the problems we see in the world.
- Commonly thought of as egocentric or selfish behaviors, the ego actually means something quite different in the context of mindfulness.
- Humans tend to assign power to thoughts, but thoughts actually entrap us in mental activity that does not serve.
- The Egoic State with its noisy, busy thoughts leads us into existential confusion and despair.
- When we lack control over our attention, the ego takes over and becomes all-powerful – taking us out of our bodies and away from integrated life experience.
- What are some of the problems that an out-of-control ego brings into our lives?
- A state of separation and estrangement from our “selves” and the whole of humanity.
- No bandwidth for staying in the present moment, connected with our true natures.
- A sense of permanent inner emptiness, fear and insecurity.
- A constant sense of scarcity and incompleteness.
- Negative self-talk, overall low self-esteem and lack of self-worth.
- Here’s an exercise to bring attention to the Egoic State: Ask yourself about the negative self-talk that you experience and write those thoughts down in a journal.
- Too often we tie our sense of well-being to something conditional – a perpetually unfulfilled “what if” we hope to attain as a route to feeling complete in the future.
- The concept of “keeping busy” perpetuates a culture of disconnection and body abuse that prevents us from a true sense of unity and purpose in the here and now.
- There is an alternative to egoic spiraling: A simple practice, based on routine.
- Efforts to control how life unfolds are exhausting and useless, at best trapping us in unhealthy amounts of stress and at worst leaving us full of debilitating fear.
- There is an alternative to rigidity and scarcity: The decision to remain flexible and dedicated to life without attachments to imposed plans. It requires a permanent practice to stay present!
- The goal is to feel fully alive and embodied, in the here and now. At the beginning of the day, we can decide to trust the intelligence of life and give ourselves over to it.
- We have the capacity to:
- Push back against the Egoic State and reject the inner emptiness and oppressive thoughts this negative state of mind brings.
- Push back against materialism and complaint, comparison and attachments.
- About the tools we can use to dissolve the Egoic State:
- Cultivate and develop an inner presence.
- Observe mental and emotional processes.
- Refrain from judging thoughts that do not serve.
- Reset again and again, as necessary, to move back into mindfulness.
- Help the universe to experience form consciously by staying present to it.
- Remember that we humans can do what the world of animals and plants does so naturally – experience the planet as an earthly paradise full of beauty and abundance.
- The ego may try to prevent us from oneness, but we do not have to be seduced.
- We can resist the Egoic State by staying fully present to our shared humanity.
- By recalibrating our consciousness, we honor unity in our experience and align with the abundance to be found in cultivating oneness.
QUOTABLE:
- “If you pay attention to that (egoic) voice, you will realize that it … tends to be dissatisfied and obsessed with the future.”
- “When I am in the Egoic State, I am unable to recognize myself as one with life and have a direct experience of what science has concluded – that nothing exists in isolation from anything else.”
- “Our inability to recognize totality in ourselves makes us feel a permanent inner emptiness, as if there is something wrong with us, something missing. And this leads us to an experience of permanent scarcity.”
- “ ‘Things’ will never complete us. Instead, we remain stuck in a never-ending cycle of scarcity that pushes us to crave more and more and more. Nothing is ever enough. It’s an endless, exhausting loop.
- “By not recognizing ourselves as one with all of life, as part of a whole, we see ourselves as an independent entity, outside of the great system of life.”
- We become separate and defenseless when we are not living LIFE with capital letters.”
- “Our attention is focused – sometimes obsessively – on the future and on everything that happens outside of us. The result? We generate ongoing anxiety and tension in our daily lives. “
- When I dissolve the Egoic State, I resolve all the effects derived from it, or as they say in the Buddhist tradition: No Self. No problem.”
- “The practice is not about eliminating the ego, but about putting it in its rightful place. We are not looking for any extremes – neither being dissolved in the essence of life and divorced from the form nor totally lost in the ego and divorced from the essence of life.”
- “Being able to separate the mind from the ego from yourself is a game changer.”
- “The consequences of this game the ego plays are serious and harmful … The more we label each other, the more we destroy ourselves.”
- “We do so much damage to each other by relating from a place of separation, fear, insecurity, negativity … It all originates in the Egoic State.”
FURTHER RESOURCES:
- Juan’s guided meditations can be found here.
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