Living as My Higher Self

Living as Ego is tough. Ego expects me to be successful in corporate America as I was for most of my adult life. Ego wants me to be everything in my bio that I send to groups before I am the featured speaker, but not anything that I fear they will find out about me that could wipe out my "p.r. persona" -- stuff like that I sometimes don't get dressed until noon, and I sometimes eat a pint of ice cream within an hour's time, and I sometimes actually watch daytime TV now that I don't have to go to an office every day (though I haven't sunk to "Maury," "Jerry Springer" or "General Hospital"...so far). Ego cares about what people think of me and will go to great lengths to not let me look bad. Ego keeps telling me how I'm failing, that I'm bad, that things are going downhill, that I've not done my life right and it "shoulds" on me relentlessly. It also has gallows humor and ends up laughing at me and cracks me up. Thank God for comic relief.

I've long wrestled with my ego. My ego wants to prevail over my higher self. My higher self whispers and gently floats in the air. My ego is large and heavy and has more arms and tentacles than an octopus. My ego in the form of my relentless, chattering, whining, battering, screaming, judgemental mind often seems to envelop me and render me unable to move. My ego wants me to think my way into and out of things. My ego barrages me with critical, negative, scary, exhausting thoughts, interspersed with less frequent gifts of gratitude, delight, peace and love. At night I go to sleep with the TV playing softly because my mind starts in on me with all of its wranglings, so the TV helps to lull it into behaving itself so I can sleep. I know I'm not the Lone Ranger because friends -- positive, successful friends -- describe similar scenarios.

Oprah is leading online "classes" discussing Eckhart Tolle's book A New Earth. I didn't watch Monday night's first Web class live and didn't intend to watch it at all. But yesterday I got curious. Tolle also wrote The Power of Now, which is heavy reading but awesome. So I watched it on Oprah.com. (You can also download it and watch it on a video iPod.)

The discussion was inspiring. What I loved most was Tolle's reminder that we are not our thoughts or our minds. We are separate from them. We are miraculous spirits no matter what we think or even do. No matter how far down we sink, that spirit, that goodness is still there and available to us in an instant. My arm immediately stopped thumping on me.

So I ordered the book. I may even watch the first class again, especially since my arm started beating on me again within hours of my good thoughts. Maybe minutes. Retraining our minds is about as easy as running a marathon with a broken ankle.

My higher self really would love to triumph over my ego. Tolle says that it starts with allowing ourselves to bathe in silence. Often. I am allergic to silence. I have the TV or radio on in the background while I work or do chores or read or do nearly anything. But yesterday while driving, I turned the radio off and stayed off my cell phone. Driving was an entirely different experience. I was aware of new details, sensations and sounds and was surrounded by a spirit I was unfamiliar with. My own? I even slept with the TV off last night too. This could be the beginning of a whole new relationship with my higher self.... Oops, my ego heard that and is already mounting an argument. Stay tuned.