In this video I’m going to be talking about why we get stuck on the path of transformation and what to do when we find ourselves at a point of impasse, or in that stuckness? Before I do, I want to let you know that I wrote a book for you. A line living and loving from the true self is a comprehensive map of how to come back home to the truth of who you are, and how to honor this deeply sacred place within yourself, as you connect with the people in your life. This is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
I also created these self-guided alignment cards. There’s 48 cards in a deck, and each card has a wisdom teaching and a sentence stem to support you in living and loving from your true self. And these are available on my website. So I want to share a personal story with you as we begin here. I remember when I was feeling really stuck and small in my life, like I had been killing parts of myself to fit into this small mine constructed box, and I could not find my way out of these patterns. I was so conditioned to be accommodating and pleasing and nice that I had disowned my desire for so long that not only was it hard for me to honor my desire, it was extraordinarily painful for me to even take a guess at what it is that I was wanting and to overcome that pattern, and not only to know that I wanted something, but then to ask, for. It took so much courage that the only reason that I did it was because I was suffocating in my life, and I had to create some change.
But that point of impasse before I made that change and the way I fell asleep to those same patterns after I overcame them. continue to happen that I I have been very, very just fascinated by these points of impasse, and I also, you know, see it in my clients quite frequently, and I’ve come to call them ego traps. The way the mind constructs obstacles that prevent us from living our truth from being authentic, for honoring our desire for honoring ourself is so pervasive and overcoming. These ego traps can seem terrifying. And yet it is essential, if we are to truly stand in our sovereignty, and truly stand our sacred ground in alignment with the truth of who we are. So some common ego traps that I have seen over the years happen when a client is beginning to deepen and open into themselves, and they’re seeing their patterns and they’re ready to transform. And they are coming into more fullness in their being. They’re more awake and aware than they are hyper-identified with their ego pattern.
And so they’ve shifted away from that identification with their small self, and they’re more in their expansive True Self. And then the ego comes and sets a trap and the ego is trying to convince them to keep listening to it and the thought might be something like asking for what I want a selfish right, which is a very, very young developmentally. thought where the person hasn’t yet learned how to honor what they want, and be curious about what other people want and navigate relationships with differing desires. Another ego trap is, I can’t forgive myself because I keep doing this pattern and so I’m only going to be able to forgive myself when I’m perfect, which is another ego-trap to keep a person looping and feeling small and not enough and hyper identified with their pain. Another ego trap is. I want to find love, but I’m never going to find love unless I love myself first.
So there’s this trap of like. I don’t know how to love myself. I can’t find this deep self love. And so I’m never going to find love outside of myself anytime. The mind convinces us of a definitive scenario for our life. The mind is keeping us trapped in this small box in an attempt to find control and the thing with ego traps is that they become so familiar, and human beings love familiarity. And so sometimes, even though the ego trap is painful and suffocating, the familiarity of staying small and listening to these traps can be seductive. and the discomfort of trying something new. Seeing other options on the menu opening up to infinite possibilities. can be quite frightening. And the way to meet these obstacles is by recognizing the predictability of them.
So the thing that I love about humanity is that our condition patterns are fairly persistent. So our personality development is complete by around the age of 10, and it stays pretty consistent throughout our life and our personality lives in our ego. This is where our identity, who we think we are lives. And so our ego thoughts and our personality patterns can be quite predictable. And this is wonderful, because once we can see the pattern of our ego, and we can predict this typical way that we think that we believe that we show up to life. We can then create experiments for ourself to find our way out of these patterns.
So for myself, what I did this was many years ago, and I’ve written about it in both of my books, but what I did was, I was starting to see the way that I was accommodating, and I was a chameleon, and I acted as if I had no opinion and so I created one situation for myself. I was going to a party, and I said, I’m not going to do that at this party. I don’t know what I am going to do, because I quite honestly had no idea other any other way to be my. Those had been my personality for as long as I could remember. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’m not going to do that. So even if I just sit there and not talk, and just feel the discomfort of not following that impulse. I’m going to do that.
And what I learned during that time is that the ego patterns and the the ego traps and the obstacles that the ego create is actually an attempt at regulating the nervous system. When we are scared we, the the mind, wants to find some sense of certainty. So beneath my condition patterns of not knowing what I want, was the fawning response of the fight. Flight-freeze, fawn, trauma, response. And so I needed to move through that fawning response and feel all the discomfort of not being in that fawning of being okay and being accommodating. And that’s what I learned at that party. I felt all the discomfort of not regulating by betraying myself and finding the different truer way, and the new path is uncertain. The only way through it is through it, and we are the only ones who can do it.
I truly believe that our personal growth and transformation is not going to happen alone on a meditation cushion, or even in therapy or coaching. This is where we cultivate awareness and awareness is important, but the transformation of our growth happens in real time when we choose to do the different, truer thing. And so with that, I just want to remind you that at the Institute for spiritual alignment we have many courses available to support you and living and loving from your true self. We have the live, your alignment course, and spiritually aligned relationships which are courses for everybody, and we also have many courses to teach you how to facilitate alignment. If you are a therapist or a coach, so please check that out on our website the spiritually aligned com, and thank you so much for listening.
