#Metoo Why I’m escaping the abusive relationship of my ego and its pernicious henchmen

“Your story doesn’t hold a candle to who you really are?”—John O’Donohue

I’ve heard all the stories: Weinstein, CK, yada, yada! And here’s what I know.

There’s not a misogynist alive that’s half as bad as the abuser in my brain. Perhaps you know him? The voice that tells me and everybody else that’s living and breathing that something is wrong, that something needs to be fixed.

The Course in Miracles calls this voice the ego. It’s the opposite of love and it shows up as fear. It’s a big fat liar and, pardon my ****, it’s full of shit. It runs on three main themes: “Do Something. Fix this. Run.”

It shoves us away from what we’ve been put on this earth to do—to love, to connect, to create ridiculously beautiful things.

I’m currently compiling a playbook of the ego’s many manifestations. Here are just a few:

1.The ego encourages us to find our identity in a psychology manual. Let me just say that you will never ever find even a single clue to your true reality in a psychology book. The DSM and other psychological “theories” are basically a rogue’s gallery of the ego. And as long as you insist on staring at their symptoms, you will never contact the deep interiority that exists within you.

2.The ego tells us security, money and more, more, more is the holy grail. I saw a funny cartoon in the New Yorker the other day. A forlorn caveman, dressed like Fred Flintstone, is sitting in a cave with a half dozen giant boulders. He says to his partner: “I thought getting bigger rocks would make us happier, but I guess I was wrong.” One of the ego’s craftiest ploys is to make us believe that material things—fancy houses, expensive purses, etc.—is what’s missing in our lives.

3.The ego encourages us to look for the flaw in the tapestry. Amazing miracles are happening around us, literally 24/7, and we completely miss them all because we’re focusing on the problem. I’m sure that when Moses put out his staff to part the Red Sea, there was a follower or two complaining about the mud in their sandals. This gigantic sea was literally separating into two, leading them to the Promised Land and they were focused on the gunk between their toes.

To put it bluntly, the ego is a destructive force that rises up pretty much every time we get close to the land of milk and honey.

But here’s the good news. Nary a single one of the ego’s stories is in any way true. And since we’re the ones who created the ego (in a misguided attempt to protect ourselves), we can let it go at any time. We can connect with the true part of our Self—our sea-parting magnificence, the unwounded part of us that the ego has never been and will never be able to touch.

Pam Grout is the author of 19 books including E-Squared: 9 Do-it-Yourself Energy Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality and the just-released, Art & Soul,Reloaded: A Year-Long Apprenticeship to Summon the Muses and Ignite Your Daring, Audacious, Creative Side.