The ego-mind has been your main identity, your point of reference as to who you are in relation to others. This allows you to choose an individualized path and find your own way to navigate life. But because the ego was formed in childhood, and according to the environment you grew up in, it maintains the imprints of that first cycle as patterns of perception that keep you emotionally stuck in the past.
So on one hand, the ego-mind gives you individualized experiences, and on the other it limits those experiences with the impressions of preceding ones, coloring anything new with the same perception you shaped growing up—that is, according to the needs, expectations, and unresolved issues of those around you. It’s not just social conditioning I’m referring to here.
Your soul reincarnated through resonance (and karmic ties) with other souls, in perfect divine synchronicity, choosing the right environment to help you reactivate issues you left unresolved in previous lifetimes. These are the dynamics you experienced and also internalized as one big aspect of your ego—what I call your ‘sense of otherness‘—while the other aspect, your sense of self, remained more authentic but also small and quiet.
Your Life Is Both Soul-Guided & Colored By Ego
Such is the paradoxical nature of Consciousness: when the mind is directed outward, it creates the world, but if directed inward, it leads to the true Self. This is reflected in all of life, as well as within the ego-mind, because growing up you were mostly focused on those around you. Now, since your life path is both soul-guided and colored by ego, it turns into a tug-of-war of sorts, with your soul leading in one direction but the ego-mind pulling in the opposite way.
So when you set out to accomplish something with a clear sense of purpose, whether it’s learning a new skill, switching careers, starting or expanding a business, quitting a bad habit, or seeking personal and spiritual growth, the ego-mind will create resistance to keep you in the same place. Intellectually, you know what’s best for you, or what you’d like to accomplish, but emotionally you’re stuck in the past (although you may not even recognize it as the past), resisting the desire to spread your wings.
Resistance takes as many shapes as your ego can fashion, because it has access to your subconscious and knows what to throw your way to stall or stop your process—especially if this process is about emotional or spiritual growth, which means taking back the control ego has always had. Here are some ways your resistance may show up when you try to follow a new direction:
- You have doubts about your goals or desires;
- You feel unmotivated, judge yourself or procrastinate;
- You get distracted with family dramas or relationships, other people’s needs, or financial or health issues;
- You feel like you need to do more, train more, learn more, and keep waiting to be ‘ready’ to make changes;
- You believe you should figure it all out yourself without guidance or support;
- You take on more than you can chew and get overwhelmed;
- You jump ahead of yourself, leaving gaps in the process that create confusion;
- You feel like you should be someone other than who you are or already know what you don’t know;
- You keep dropping the ball, going back and forth between your goals and a sense of hopelessness.
These are just a few examples, but your resistance can simply make things fuzzy or color your life gray to make disconnect you from your goals or desires, bringing forth unconscious guilt. In this case, guilt has nothing to do with doing something wrong; it results from going against your egoic sense of otherness (i.e. other people’s needs and expectations you’ve internalized).
Self-Awareness Leads To Emotional & Spiritual Freedom
Unconscious guilt gets triggered whenever you’re trying to express who you really are and what you really want, choosing to pursue your own aspirations, and freeing yourself from patterns of codependency created with self-defeating beliefs and needs—the need to be good, liked, loved, responsible, useful, or right, and the underlying belief that your value only comes through the perception of others. These keep you emotionally trapped in the past, when you learned that to deserve love you had to meet the needs of those you loved; you couldn’t be loved for simply being and expressing yourself.
Since the ego congealed when those patterns were getting shaped, it acts as a gauge determining if and how you may be pushing things outside what you interpreted as acceptable growing up. In other words, it keeps you ‘safe’ in your comfort zone and pulls you back when you attempt to stretch beyond it. But stretch you must, albeit slowly to avoid greater resistance, if you desire to free yourself from the dictates of the past, stuck in the wounded child archetype. Here are some tools to help you live a more mindful life:
- Carve the space and time to sit quietly and reflect on your emotions every day: What feelings did you experience that you’re still carrying? What impulses did you follow (or not)? What thoughts or impressions kept coming back throughout the day? What previous experiences are these pointing at that you must now let go of?
- Embrace all your emotions and bad habits without judgment; simply observe and accept, from a place of love and compassion. Remind yourself, you don’t know what you don’t know and life doesn’t come with instructions. You learn as you go and as you do things. It’s okay to make mistakes, the purpose of life is living it and learning about yourself in the process.
- Nurture the curiosity to better understand yourself every day, through everything you think, feel, and experience. Dismiss the sense that you’re here to fix things, drop any preconceived ideas, and open up to the discovery of yourself by listening to your inner voice.
- Develop the discipline to follow through with your goals, even if briefly, every day; keep at it, in time you’ll create a groove that makes it easier to remain focused and anchored in your task. Small, continuous steps are better than big, random steps or no steps at all. Imperfect action is better than no action, but continuity is key.
- Ask yourself, every step of the way: “Is this taking me closer to my goal or is it moving me away from it?” Use this as a reference to recognize your resistance when things get fuzzy.
You can only grow out of the wounded child archetype by loving and strengthening your inner child—the sense of self you had to squelch or leave behind, neglected and unappreciated, while growing up—because it is the inner voice and intuitive wisdom of your soul. Guilt disconnects you from your inherent innocence, and fear blocks the love that is your true nature. Together they maintain the supremacy of ego and fashion emotional resistance in all shapes and colors. So contact me today to receive the guidance and support you need to realign with your soul, fully express who you are, and accomplish what you really want!
© 2017 Yol Swan. All rights reserved.
