Why do you resist things? You resist love because of your ego. Your ego will resist what your soul longs for which is love. It does this because it’s afraid. Your ego is afraid because it doesn’t want to be put out of business. Think about it. Everyone has an ego and for many people for most of their lives they were ruled by it until they come into awareness that they even have an ego and a soul. So for a long time, your ego believed it was the only one who existed. Like for many companies, their owners want to monopolize their industry. In the case of your ego, it wants to dominate you. It wants to be the one who has the best ideas, the one who controls, has the center stage and gains all the recognition and glory.
Your ego is also afraid because anything new is unknown. The ego wants to know everything so even though it may want to come up with the bright ideas to receive all the credit, it’s also scared to death of looking like a fool because it doesn’t know what’s going to happen 2 minutes from now. Up until this very moment, you know your life. You have routines, schedules and a life based on previous experiences, knowledge and things you have done over and over again. Stepping out and doing something different that changes your daily habits and routines is scary to your ego. Even if it’s something juicy and exciting. It’s still an unknown and new. The level of fear will depend on the person and degree of challenge the situation is for that person.
Ego will also resist things you have done before if it is associated with some type of pain. Your ego is holding on to the memory of that old experience and HELLO – why would anyone want to do something again that had some pain tied to it? For example – someone who is considering being in a romantic relationship again after experiencing a painful divorce. Well, if you want to love and be loved you have to be willing to take the risk. Just because you were hurt once before doesn’t mean you will be hurt again – especially if you have healed your wounds, learned better ways to communicate and relate, and have created/maintained healthy boundaries.
But your ego doesn’t know or believe you will behave differently in relationships. It believes you will behave the same as you once did before and that what happened to you in the past will happen again. Your ego is not your enemy. It is just trying to protect you. It doesn’t want you to get hurt again or look like a fool. It wants to be in control of your decisions because to your ego it knows best in these situations as based on your past. It doesn’t want you to trust your soul – you know that new guy on the block with all the fancy shmancy ideas who is taking over the world! But your soul doesn’t know you like your ego knows you – or so your ego thinks!
Your ego will resist. It will distract you. It will even try to sabotage you. All in an effort to not let the new guy, your soul, take over because again – your ego is afraid and is just trying to protect you. You might be saying to yourself – WTH?!!! How am I supposed to change and go after what my soul longs for if my ego is going to kick my butt the whole entire way? What can I do to love and be loved the way my heart wants me to? How can I stop my ego from resisting?
Here’s the game plan. Now it’s going to take practice. Lots of practice. It may not happen overnight but with intention and attention you can do it.
Step 1.
Acknowledge and validate your feelings. Talk to yourself like you would your own best friend. Tell yourself that you know this is difficult and anyone in your shoes would feel the same way. It’s ok to feel what you are feeling. Feel the feelings and then release them. It’s also not ok to hold on to your feelings and wallow in them. You wouldn’t let your best friend do that. You would make sure your best friend was doing everything in his/her power to feel better. Wouldn’t you?
Step 2.
Take the next step. As soon as you do that, you are letting your ego know who is the boss and it will come the “F” down. Don’t get lazy though…you need to keep showing your ego that your soul is in charge and what it originally thought as scary is downright exciting and awesome for you. For example – if you are the type of person who always says yes in a relationship no matter what it is, even if you are putting yourself on the back burner, then your job is to practice saying no when someone asks you to do something you really don’t want to do. NO REALLY – you have to learn how to create and maintain healthy boundaries and actually say NO. Take the next step and say NO to someone who asks you to do something you don’t want to do.
Step 3.
Don’t settle. You know what your heart sorely desires so why are you going after that chicken pot pie when you really want the lobster and shrimp? Your ego will trust you and your soul when it knows you can be trusted. That means that you will not settle for anything less than what you really want. Why? Because that’s what you deserve and even your ego knows that deep down inside. Your soul has known this all along. So be in relationships with people who honor you and your ego will follow your soul’s lead. YES REALLY – you have to learn to say YES to what you deserve and go for it. And if you are in a relationship that you really don’t want to let go of even though they are not honoring you… that’s your choice. Then continue to practice Step 2. Eventually, the person you are with will get really tired of you stepping up for yourself and either change or leave. If this doesn’t resonate for you then ignore my steps and come back when you are ready.
You don’t have to make your ego your enemy. You just have to teach it to trust you and your soul, and learn a different way of being even though it may feel scary at first. Once you move through it though, you will feel like a million bucks. Your soul is stronger than you can ever imagine. It will lead you down many amazing paths of discovering your limitless potential. It will guide you to creating your heart’s dreams and living your heart’s truth. Isn’t that worth the risk of doing something new or doing something you have done before but in a whole NEW way? You betcha!
