The journey toward emotional and spiritual freedom is not easy nor quick. For starters, life is filled with challenges because it’s the result of past karma, and it’s constantly changing.
Also, the future is always unknown, which produces fear and resistance from your ego. It’s your attachment to things and people that disturbs the fluidity of life, creating pain and obstacles from destructive, fear-based actions, both conscious and unconscious.
Since ego is your identification with the body and mind, those painful experiences and impressions shape false identities that trap you in revolving yet outdated patterns of perception that distort your experience of reality. But once you embark on a journey of self-exploration, what may have appeared frightening or painful in the past gives way to the real purpose of your life.
If you understand that everything that happens is meant to happen, and that nothing that isn’t meant to happen can happen, because your life is a personal movie for self-knowledge and spiritual growth (see Your Life-Movie Is a Dream Within a Dream), then you can surrender to it, dropping all the fears and pressure you’ve been carrying.
When you start investigating your false identities, unraveling negative patterns and beliefs that disconnect you from yourself, you gradually uncover your soul path and purpose. Your own life guides you toward the truth of who you are through the experiences you undergo.
You Are Not Your Ego-Mind
For instance, when I was young, my father favored my older siblings and would often put extra demands on me if I wanted what he offered them freely (money, trips, privileges, stuff, etc.). I felt unloved and discriminated upon, but those experiences also pushed me to seek something more real than the power dynamics I witnessed everywhere.
In time, I developed detachment, self-awareness, and discrimination, and became more independent and self-sufficient. Rather than dwelling on being alone or left out, I realized I was free to be one-in-myself and walk my own path, while my siblings were fixated on external validation and material things.
Yes, I used to feel ignored, unheard, and out of place. But years of self-discovery made clear that my so-called wounded aspects were distortions of self-perception others were simply reflecting back at me. I could question and disbelieve them, thus managing my energy to make better choices. I was able to transform my experience of life by taking full spiritual responsibility for my reality and my happiness.
Feeling out of place nudged me to find the way out of the self-centeredness making me feel different, self-conscious, or isolated until I realized that what I had been looking for was a deep connection to myself. But if I hadn’t experienced such dissatisfaction, the desire to transcend the ego-mind wouldn’t have been aroused and I wouldn’t have found the way to feel at home no matter what.
In truth, we are always alone, but not because there are no people around us we can interact with or love; it’s because the ego-mind creates a sense of separation and isolation to provide individualized experiences and maintain the delusion of duality. It cannot exist without it. You can see it for what it is and embrace the process of individuation (or self-awareness) as your path to the eternal Self you truly are.
True Power Is Mastery Over the Ego
The investigation into the ego-mind leads to its dissolution, gradually setting you free to simply be as you are, where you are, without struggle or resistance. Anything external that causes you pain is really nudging you to look within, to discover that what you keep looking for is already in you—as the real you.
It’s a matter of shifting your perspective to comprehend that:
- All pain is caused by the ego-mind attaching you to false ideas about yourself, such as: “I am alone, unloved, sad, or hurt,” or “I feel betrayed, used, abused, insignificant,” or “I am depressed, anxious, awkward, different,” and so on.
- These ideas are projections of past impression that have no reality in the present except as memories and identifications. Through them, the ego holds the control of your perception by disconnecting you from yourself. But they’re just ideas; it’s your identification that reinforces them.
- Once you refuse to believe these ideas, all the pain they carry disappears, and inner peace emerges as your true nature. You achieve this through self-knowledge or devotion.
- Being alone is not a punishment but the core of your human condition, since you are an individual soul with an individualizing ego. But this allows you to find your unique path toward your true Self—which is One, limitless and free.
- Feeling small (ignored, unimportant, etc.) helps you develop humility and compassion for others, which is how you diminish your ego as well.
- Feeling hurt prods you to look within to understand where your pain is coming from and seek something more real and bigger than the limiting ego that causes it.
- Struggling with obstacles or opposition helps you develop the strength and discipline to overcome your own limitations and utilize your full potential.
The key is embracing your life as a personal movie reflecting an outdated self-perception. Nothing in it is without meaning or purpose, but the ego-mind colors it with past emotional energy to remain in control of your behavior. So contact me today to get the guidance and support you need to see what you cannot see and clear the path toward emotional and spiritual freedom!
© 2021 Yol Swan. All rights reserved.
2 comments for “How To Turn Your Weaknesses Into Strengths”