Good night, sweet ego mind.

"Confusion is the prelude to clarity."  ~Unknown

It seems as we begin and walk through this journey of life, we often “stumble” on what we would call moments of confusion.  Those moments when nothing seems to make sense and the things that we thought we knew start coming apart at the seams.  

As we open new doors to the truth that we always have known deep within us, things tend to get a bit crazy sometimes.  The key is to realize the “funk” you are feeling or seeing in your world is merely your ego mind trying to hold onto the world it has taken so long to build.  

The ego mind is the place in your mind that holds all your fear and doubt.   As you experience moments of “pain” in your life, you ego mind builds memory and starts to form beliefs about certain situations and people.  It does this to supposedly protect you.   And when you find yourself in a contrasting situation once again, the ego mind goes back into the data files and remembers what happened before and tells you to be fearful or paranoid of the new current situation no matter how inapplicable those old emotions may be to what is really happening now.

Freedom begins when we start to understand that the only thing that can ever cause us pain is our ego mind and these misguided thoughts.   But as we do that, we may start to feel a good bit of resistance.  It is a beautiful thing when we start to unravel old beliefs and just live in the present moment.  However, the ego mind isn’t a big fan of this and that is where the confusion comes in.  Your ego mind built all of these beliefs in an effort to do what it thought was best—protect you and it doesn’t want to let go that easily.   

I like to look at the ego mind as a strong-willed 4 year old that has always been allowed to go to bed whenever and as late as he chooses.  The 4 year old's parents (you) have tried a number of different methods and even bribes to attempt to convince him that going to bed is a good idea yet, nothing has worked.  The parents "win" every now and then and the child falls asleep.   However, they can’t seem to get a consistent schedule and get the child's behavior to truly change which is what they really want.  

Deep down the child is tired and does want to feel better but can't grasp that sleep is the way to do that. He wants to keep playing (think fearful thoughts) and continue to do whatever he wants (your ego mind reacting to outer stimuli).  That is what he is used to and that is currently what feels good.  Of course, the real consequences for this little one is feeling much worse the next day and not being able to function like he wants because he is so tired.  

So, the parents (you) decide that a consistent bedtime is truly what is best for the child and for them and they say they are just going to really buckle down and make this happen.  They start a consistent pattern of putting him to bed at the same time every night.   Naturally, the child resists.  And when I say resist, I mean throws an all-out fit.  The child fights it as he feels like something he cherishes is being ripped away from him.  

The parents however, remain consistent and loving.  They have made the decision and they are going to enforce it.  They have come to a peace about it and truly know they are doing the right thing.   They might experience a bit of anger, regret and guilt as they hold steady and watch the child struggle with this new reality.   They might even waver a bit as they want to comfort and ease the resistance that the child is feeling (you feeding into old beliefs and negative thoughts).  

However, slowly this sweet 4 year old does start to accept the new reality.   He starts to have better days where he is not so tired and gets to play more and feel better doing it.   He understands now that the parents are not going to budge and even can see that all the resistance the child provides is actually painful in itself.  The 4 year old starts to trust the parents and realize that they truly know best.  And finally, the child accepts the new schedule and goes to bed (trusts the universe) with ease and even happiness. 

As I started on this journey, it truly helped me to try and see my ego mind as this 4 year old who has just basically been allowed to behave badly for a long time.  It might help to know that the beliefs you start to release will all be “cherished” a bit different as well.  It will hang on to some of them a little tighter much like a favorite toy of our 4 year old.  And some will be released with ease.   It all depends on what beliefs you have and how much you and your ego mind have enforced them over the years.  

My promise to you is that it will get easier as you go.  Once your mind is opened, you can never close it again.   The more your ego mind understands that it is the one that is actually doing the damage that it has been trying to prevent, beliefs start to unravel everywhere. 

Basically, you are re-training your mind to feel safe and trusting.  There will come a point where it starts to understand that you are NOT going to budge.   It will begin to see that your only priority is to feel good and that you are going to have to work together to achieve this.  

And soon, you will lay it and all its fear down and it will sleep peacefully through the night.