Most people go through life without truly understanding themselves. They think they know who they are, because they believe they are their story—their memories and regrets. But if you didn’t consciously choose the experiences that have shaped you, how can you be so sure you know who you really are and how you will react to future, unexpected events?
Our perception is shaped by past impressions, and the older we get the more memories and regrets we tend to accumulate, but you are a multi-dimensional, multifaceted soul, and different aspects of you get triggered or activated depending on the people you meet and the situations you face. More often than not, your mind wants to go one way while your emotions pull you in a different direction. It can be confusing and even paralyzing.
If you reflect on past painful events, you are likely to ask yourself, “Why did I make a choice against my best judgment?” How did I not see what was coming?” or “How did I allow this to happen?”Your own ego-mind uses past ‘mistakes’ to bring you down, because it wants you to believe you should be someone other than who you are, doing something other than what you’re doing—just like most parents during childhood.
If you’re not clear about who you are and what you want, this creates a sense of being “wrong” or “not good enough” that keeps you stuck in the wounded child archetype, even if deep down you know there’s great potential waiting to emerge. You can feel it, almost taste it, it’s ‘right there,’ and yet something prevents you from fully embracing and expressing it.
It’s the energy of the past. Not the past you consciously remember, where you may blame yourself or others, but the invisible energy of the dynamics behind those memories. The patterns that let the ego-mind be in charge, shaping your perception and life-movie. They’re weaved with negative tendencies—of lack of love—you’re meant to make conscious and get out of the way; and nobody can do this for you, this is your spiritual responsibility.
Your Ego-Mind Is Your Wounded Child Archetype
You can spend years and years in psychotherapy, psychoanalyzing yourself to death (hey, I’ve been there!) or doing this and that healing modality, but until you understand your past and its karmic lessons from a deeper, spiritual viewpoint, you’ll likely keep repeating the same patterns, perceiving yourself and others with the eyes of a wounded child and responding accordingly—with confusion, resentment, fear, and the need to judge or control other people’s behavior.
Why is this? Because you remain within the realm of the mind, and as long as you’re there, your ego is in charge. Where there’s ego, there’s no peace, no clarity, no love; it makes things fuzzy and creates a sense of self-importance (either as being “good” or a victim) to block your self-awareness and the ability to embrace all of who you are—the good, the bad, and the ugly.
But that’s what you’re here to do: to integrate all aspects of your soul—the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual, as you discover your true nature and let go of the past. Now, you can’t really let go of the past if you don’t see it clearly, from a broader, spiritual perspective, although that’s what most people do, pushing forward and leaving chunks of themselves behind, unresolved.
The ego-mind is an expert at creating self-images to skirt around the awareness of your own negative tendencies. It’s the voice that wonders, “Why is this bad stuff happening to me, if I’m such a good person, always trying to do the right thing?” It’s also the aspect that feels offended, frustrated, defeated, hurt, angry, depressed, manipulated, ignored, and so on, and tries to remain in control by judging and/or pleasing others. It keeps you stuck in the past, rehashing painful events and interactions, to avoid seeing their purpose and the part you played in them clearly.
This requires self-reflection, radical honesty, and spiritual responsibility, which means understanding that you are an infinite soul carrying impressions, memories, and karma from the past that shape your reality through your perception. People who believe they should focus only on the ‘positive’ are still entrapped by ego, avoiding aspects of themselves that will invariably show up in their reality again and again, because those are perceptual tendencies they came to heal (see The Difference Between Spiritual Growth and Spiritualized Ego and Do You Know Your Emotional Triggers?).
Only love heals, and you need self-love to heal the past. You also develop emotional and spiritual freedom through love, not rationalizing or trying to control your thoughts. They’re pointing at what you need to become aware and let go of, which is the energy behind those thoughts—the motivation and payoff of ego—weaving patterns of perception to keep you stuck in the mental realms. So contact me today to gain self-awareness tools, quiet your mind, and manage your energy to release the past and design a brighter future!
© 2017 Yol Swan. All rights reserved.
