Ego: Bad or Misunderstood?

As I am considering writing a book on fear and after my latest Blog which tried to define Fear – I feel the need to clarify fear and its relationship to Ego especially since many ‘spiritual’ teachers out there believe we need to get rid of our Ego because it is what holds us back from Becoming Enlightened. I work with a different opinion – at least under our current evolution – we are NOT in a place where we can just get rid of our Ego. We have a lot of growing up to do and we have too much fear as a society that our Ego is the only way for most of us to Grow at all.

So let’s approach this from a logical perspective. As a whole we are still living in a third dimensional world which breaks down through a process we call ‘entropy’ and becomes less … orderly. And what causes the break down in this three dimensional world? Fear. Fear is the opposite of Love and it is Love and its related kindness, compassion, acceptance that builds our world. And in this world that we live in we each have an Ego – an Ego that mostly runs our lives. Our Ego also is what pushes us to Grow Up because it is our Ego that is triggered when we focus on ‘us’ instead of ‘we’ or ‘you’. And when we sense ‘fear’ in our lives we focus on ourselves – and if we forget Love – we then experience pain and suffering. So in the midst of this pain there is a positive side effect related to the Ego and the value of having the Ego in place: If we didn’t experience the pain and suffering that our Ego alerts us to we might never have the desire to grow towards love.

In this world where people are so focused on themselves – triggered by the fear of maybe not having enough – there is pain and suffering and people try to take what they can because there may be less to take in the future. So our world is the way it is because we have egomaniacs that run our governments, our financial institutions, our churches, our school systems, and our media (among others). Egomaniacs know how fear works and build that fear in others so the egomaniacs can gain from that fear. Our world revolves around greedy, controlling, power hungry people who manipulate our lives consciously and unconsciously. Our lives are manipulated by people who bring us ‘fear’. What an interesting world!”

It is through our emotions that we can understand our fears. How our Ego interprets our fears are through our different experiences – which determine how we will respond to each of these experiences. Our Ego determines our feelings and the emotional response we have to each experience. Our Egos allow us to ‘feel’ anger, sadness and all the negative emotions and allows us to BE more conscious of the negative emotions that define our fears. Example is: we would never even know a fear of abandonment if we couldn’t feel the anger or betrayal that abandonment often triggers. Our Ego allows us to feel these triggers and therefore is an excellent tool to identify our fears. What we do with this is what helps us Grow.

The only way we can even begin to understand – and Evolve – our Ego is to accept what our Ego does and why it does it.

Our Ego also tries to help us by narrowing all of our experiences into just a few boxes. Our ‘abandonment’ box holds every experience from the first time we felt abandoned to anything that triggers feelings of abandonment, betrayal or even anger – so that we don’t have to have many different boxes. However, that also limits our range of happiness because we can go off the rails due to someone triggering abandonment even when all they did was hang up on us or not text us their plans. Since it is in the same box often our perceptions of what we felt happened is not what actually happened but rather how we anticipated it would happen.

I wrote a couple of thoughts in my last blog about ‘fear’ that I believe is related to the role of our Ego:

1. That Ego believes it is helping us with our fears through emotions that trigger reactions to distract us from the pain our fears create. This is part of what I was contemplating because we often don’t recognize our own fears. And the pain/suffering that our fears create within us we often distract ourselves with an addiction so that we don’t feel this overwhelming pain every time we are triggered. However, we can recognize it and we can either choose to respond consciously by identifying the cause and growing from it or allow the addiction that distracts us of the emotion the fear produces and zone out.
2. Our Ego is often protecting us. Often trying to understand the protection mechanisms of our Ego is a puzzle that will assist us to Evolve. To do that we need to recognize the addictions we use as distractions; the emotions hiding our core fear and recognize the behaviors we use as distractions to keep from feeling uncomfortable.

And the only way we can even begin to understand – and Evolve – our Ego is to accept what our Ego does and why it does it. Our Ego needs to justify itself. Our Ego is part of our consciousness in this third dimension. We associate it with our mind that expresses what we want. It often tells us what we want by our desires to have something (or show us what we don’t want) – whether it is something necessary or because someone else has it – it is often trying to manipulate situations to help us or show us when we aren’t happy by what will make us happy. It isn’t rational; it isn’t even conscious most of the time – but helping us unconsciously make choices from those boxes it has arranged to assist us to not feel uncomfortable. These are the boxes that distract ourselves from our fears. Our Ego is the voice that shouts when we have a perceived infraction to our ‘self-worth’; when we feel the need to justify an action we took; or when we want to judge others by making ourselves better than another. Our Ego is based on third dimensional reality, however, it can help us Grow Up as long as we understand its intricacies. Our Ego may even be instrumental in assisting us to evolve past the third dimension as long as we get rid our fears – the fourth dimension is awakening from material to Universal Understanding of Higher Wisdom & Knowledge (as long as our Ego could adapt to its Higher functioning) and the fifth dimension is Opening our Hearts to Unity Consciousness (where our Ego would naturally defer to our Higher Consciousness – but remains as a guide for our emotional state by reminding us if we slipped back to the 3^rd dimension as our fears can’t be in alignment with the 5^thdimension).

With maybe a bit of a better understanding of what our Ego does – can you answer whether our Ego is bad or just misunderstood? I honestly believe that our Ego can help us as long as we are conscious of the games it plays and if we are willing to appreciate its abilities. I also believe 100% that our Ego can Evolve its Consciousness as we Evolve towards Love. We need our Ego to help us while we are in a very physical reality, helping to push us forward. However, we also need to be responsible for the actions of our Ego and take responsibility for our choices. As long as we are in a physical dimension we probably have our Egos intact so let’s find a way to use them for our own Evolution towards a more Kind, Compassionate and Loving World! Let’s do it together!

This entry was posted in Blog and tagged 3rd-4th-& 5th dimensions, Conscious Evolution, ego, Ego: Bad or Misunderstood, fear, fear vs love, Laurie Huston, News for the Heart. Bookmark the permalink.

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Motivation

This has been an interesting month – many people are finding 2019 challenging so far. I have been excited and looking forward to spring and as I write this today we are just entering spring equinox. When considering the Canadian seasons winter, although often beautiful, is just too dark and cold most of the time. Once we reach equinox and have almost equal light to darkness (we get a few minutes more light at that time of the year) it is very welcomed – especially if it is sunny. What does any of this have to do with motivation? Well, we become motivated by many different things – for some of us it is shaking off the cold, short days of winter with the higher temperatures and enjoying the sunshine to motivate us to do spring cleaning – and of course stepping outside for more activities and focusing on a healthier lifestyle.

Yet often our motivation is through our fears. We often want a healthier lifestyle because we have had a health scare and we consider what we don’t want … like disease, excess weight, aging symptoms or aches and pains. Unfortunately this fear-based motivation isn’t a motivation that will sustain us through our desired outcome. Fear doesn’t motivate us enough to change; partially because we are always focused on what we don’t want. Whenever we are trying to change something within ourselves we continue to see, feel, hear, taste and smell the problem. For example: when we are experiencing pain we become focused on the pain and it is almost impossible to feel anything other than the physical pain we are hoping to alleviate.

Unfortunately fear-based motivation isn’t a motivation that will sustain us through our desired outcome.

Also, our negative ego is often engaged when we are motivated through our fears. Our ego uses old patterns from our childhood such as the need to justify we are ‘right’, the need to think that we need to manipulate to get what we want, and the need to fix the things we identify as ‘problems’. Once our ego is engaged – and it is virtually impossible to make a desired change without our ego – we sabotage our efforts to change. We begin by ‘doing’ something that will often bring us full circle back to maintaining the problem because our motivation is from our fears.

However how many people consider what our motivation is for change? As a society we are prone to measure our self-worth by ridiculous standards. Once we identify something as a problem – it is almost impossible to not be focused on it as a problem.

Our need to make changes is a worthy goal as we desire to Grow Up. But the problem lies in our intention and motivation. Our Intention and Motivation often are a result of our fears – it shows through the choices we make or whether we are judging or comparing ourselves and our self-worth through others. We identify a problem and we automatically consider what we can ‘do’ differently. This is our ego at its best.

So where do we start? What is our intention to change? What will motivate us to sustain change? Is it to Grow towards Love or fall prey to trying to evade those things that are impressed on us such as our fears or the negative things that we are willing to believe.

When we consider changing ourselves is it because there is shame, guilt, humiliation, and anger – or it is because we “blame” ourself or someone else? Are we thinking ourselves not good enough to live up to someone else’s standards or the ridiculous social standards that are really a way to control and conform us to their way – whoever ‘they’ are?

Or do we just not ‘do’ anything because it suggests that we are focused on the problem? Of course not! However, we have to look at the differences between ‘doing’ which comes from our head/ego and ‘Being’ which comes from who we are, our hearts and from how we are responding based on our feelings. This means that if we can find a way to BE happy, kind, loving, compassionate or peaceful while ‘doing’ what is required to change then we are coming from a state of BEing that comes from who we are. If we are ‘doing’ because we need to change and we are doing this because of our fears – like blame, shame, guilt, anger, humiliation or manipulation – then we won’t likely be able to sustain any of the changes we desire because we will be more focused on the negative aspects and this is hardly motivating. It may seem like semantics or too subtle to make a difference – but when it comes to motivation this is the difference between success and failure.

If we can find a way to BE happy, kind, loving, compassionate or peaceful while ‘doing’ what is required to change then we are coming from a state of BEing that comes from who we are.

Although a true spiritual teacher may say there is no such thing as success and failure as everything happens for a reason and everything is an opportunity to grow – I recognize that there is necessity in our lives for success. We want to live a long, healthy, happy and pain-free life.

We want to BE the best we can be while living. And change is usually necessary for us to experience this ‘best’. Change is part of Growing Up. And it is so difficult to grow up if we are desperately holding onto – as in ‘addicted’ – to anything that prohibits us from living our Best Life Possible. And that which prohibits us from living such lives could be anything that we feel we must hold onto firmly: sugar, drugs, sex, TV, manipulating others to getting what we want and more. (This would be too long a list to bring them all in so for further reading about addictions search for:

“Addictions to Wholeness” or one of my interviews with Tom Campbell.)

So, what are you inspired to change with the turning of the seasons? More importantly: what is your motivation for changing? And since we are often guided by fear first – can you discover a way to be motivated through Love while acknowledging your fears as well? Can you shift what you want to change so that you can be motivated by BEing Loving, Compassionate and Kind to yourself? Can you focus on how you want to Feel instead of why you want to change – as focussing on why you want to change may bring up all your fears.

Let go of the fears that sabotage and Create a way to Live Your Greatest Life through how you want to BE! BE that! BE Love! Choose Love. Always! 

This entry was posted in Blog and tagged Fear and Ego, fear vs love, Laurie Huston, motivation, News for the Heart, News for the Heart Radio, Tom Campbell. Bookmark the permalink.

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Feelings vs Emotions

This month my inspiration came from Emmanuel Dagher’s Club Miracles healing call – where he discussed the difference between Emotions and Feelings. I found it fascinating: he sees our emotions as something we have judged as either good or bad – where our feelings are from a state of BEing and are not identified or judged as either good or bad, they just are. Emmanuel’s definition goes against the traditional definitions of emotions and feelings. Which made me wonder about whether we tend to judge most of our emotions through our past experiences and if there is a way to come from a place of BEing when it comes to our feelings?  

When thinking about our feelings and whether we are in a state of BEing instead of unconsciously judging ourselves – it is easy to see how emotions can cloud our judgment. I believe our experiences have been interpreted through our lenses of our beliefs and we create judgments around these experiences and labels that have told us whether something is good or bad. We often unconsciously experience through our emotions and we have decided whether it is a good or bad experience based on the emotion we believed we received from the event. However, this is where we can learn a lot about ourselves. If something gives us Joy does it actually come from a judgment? We may experience Joy – or our interpretation of Joy – when we believe we are superior to someone or something else – but could that be True Joy? Or can we in be in charge and responsible for how we respond in each moment – can we choose to BE happy, or how we want to respond, even if something is appearing to be happening around us like every piece of equipment breaking down – and just BE?  

To me these are fascinating questions, maybe not so much for the expression of Joy, as this has been judged as a ‘good’ thing;  but what about the more negative emotions? What about when we seem to automatically get road rage or when something that we have judged as going wrong leaves us feeling frustrated, angry, confused or rather –  a state of fear? It would appear that we are not in charge of how we respond. We seem to automatically judge situations and then our judgments condition us to experience the situations as we have previously judged them. Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could just BE in the moment and not emotionally react to the situations around us – such as when something isn’t working or we aren’t receiving the service we expect? Or are these just my unconscious reactions? If we could let go of all the fears associated with our beliefs – all the negative emotions that we have judged as bad or wrong – wouldn’t that open us up to having new experiences in the Now Moment where we can just feel out what is happening without the judgment?   

Judgment is the one thing that can limit our experiences. Not only do we judge our experience through our emotion – such as ‘frustration’ – but then we also will judge the frustration based on other times we have experienced it. This doesn’t allow us to fully BE in the moment and also continues our BEing unconscious as our judgment tells us how it compares to other similar experiences. So, when we have someone on the phone who isn’t listening to us – we may overreact and not only ruin their day but also our own – when our judgment was all based on a misunderstanding because we fell into a judgment  pattern. Depending on how deep the emotion is – our judgment of the emotion may unconsciously create more angst or charge than the situation called for. It is only when we are BEing in the Now Moment that we can give someone the space to communicate and express who they are without our pre-judging them and just allowing it to be a New Experience where we are allowed to Grow and Evolve.   

If we are open to Feeling and committed to BEing in the Now Moment – then we have an opportunity to allow the moment to unfold – instead of finding just another way to allow it to not fully be experienced and also judged. If it can unfold naturally – without the judgment – we could ‘let go’ of many of the beliefs that we hold onto. We can’t ‘grow-up’ if we are still unconscious and it is hard to enJOY life when we respond unconsciously to people and situations around us.  

Judgments are what create so many problems within our world. Not only because judgment limits our experiences but also because it creates an ‘ego’ altercation that makes us feel we can judge and also make ourself ‘better’ then someone else when we believe we are seeing the situation as black and white or good and bad. Whenever our ego takes over – through judging a situation – we step into linear time of past and future. We unconsciously see the world through our experiences and emotions. We may feel proud, angry or any other emotion but we won’t be able to shift it or be in charge of how we respond and react. We will be caught up in some situation that has been pre-judged and therefore unable to allow new experiences to be created.  

So, I invite you to BEcome aware of the emotions that you are expressing. Find a way to Feel those emotions, it’s okay to do that, but without falling into the judgments we have identified – or not yet identified – as patterns within our experiences. BE Open to how you are actually feeling in any given moment and BE authentic and express it – but without judgment. You choose how you want to actually BE in each moment. When you are present – you can make a decision on whether you want to continue expressing unconsciously or whether you want to create new experiences based on your intentions to BE and Feel each moment as it is.  

And as we intend each moment to be perfect for us – let’s Honor each moment and allow each of our moments to BE chosen by us in the way we want to respond to Life. Then the Magic will unfold and we will begin to choose Love and other positive emotions over fear and other negative emotions. We will BE present with our Feelings – the ones we have chosen.  

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This entry was posted in Blog and tagged BEing in Charge of Emotions, Being vs Doing, Emmanuel Dagher, fear vs love, Feelings vs Emotions, Intuitive Counseling, intuitive counselor, Judgments, Laurie Huston.

Resolutions and Sabotage

I have to say the last month of this year made up for the challenges throughout 2016. Receiving my sweet little kitten, Angel, on Dec 7^th was definitely part of the Christmas Magic I so often talk about! However I’m amazed that the year is ending and a New Year, a new 9 year cycle is beginning. On Jan 1^st 2017 (1-1-1) we begin a whole new cycle and I invite you to contemplate what the next 9 years hold for you, not just 2017. I, for one, can say that over these past 9 years I have grown more towards love than ever before. That certainly doesn’t mean it has been easy, no, not by any stretch of the imagination. This past 9 year cycle has seen change, death and transformation. In fact, I have been able to completely anchor my business and my services with a whole new energy – even when the price seemed quite high at the time.

I invite you to consider what you have learned over the past year and the last 9 year cycle. As you contemplate your New Year’s Resolutions for 2017 – and the next 9 years – I encourage you to ponder not what you want outside of you but rather how you would like to BE inside! It is my belief that it is the outside desires that are often sabotaged; like losing weight, stopping smoking, getting fit, and getting organized. These are all things that we “do” and when we check out the stats, apparently only 8% of our ‘doings’ are actually successful! Why? Because we sabotage ourselves and aren’t coming from an authentic place of “BEing”.

‘Doing’ results in falling back onto old patterns – especially if we haven’t changed any of our beliefs, fears or expectations – because we are trying to control, manipulate, change or fix ourselves from this ‘doing’ state. Emmanuel Dagher offered this beautiful meditation from his free gifts of the Holidays on ‘Sabotaging’. He, as always, brought up some profound thoughts and healings on why we sabotage ourselves and he helped us to want to BE seen, heard, and recognized by the Universe as Honoring the Universe within us. We are so afraid of BEing seen, heard, and recognized that this leads us to needing outside approval. And ultimately we also have trouble receiving all that the Universe offers us. So no wonder we have such low success rates in trying to ‘do’ things related to our past patterns.

When we come from a place of Being we are first connecting with the Infinite and Authentic Self within us. We are acknowledging our True Self. However, Tom Campbell also suggests that when we come from a place of BEing we are authentically revealing the fears that we often keep hidden. This would be where our little self lives and it is just as important to accept who we are from this “little” place. It is in this state of “littleness”, caused by the fears previously hidden, that we have the capacity to make changes to our Inner Being by BEing present and conscious of all the fears that keep our patterns and stories intact. In fact, I would suggest that this is how we sabotage ourselves the most.

Each of these ‘fear’ elements of our existence offer opportunities to shift into authenticity and levels of BEing. We each come from a place of expansion and a profound connection to our Infinite Self. This connection allows us to come from a feeling place of Love and of the Remembrance that we are already ‘Whole’. Such a connection opens us to the absolute and everlasting essence of who we are: the expansive and immeasurable Universe/Spirit/Soul within us. And it creates a feeling of oneness and unconditional Love that allow us to create Magic from this place of NOW. We can see, hear, and acknowledge our Self from a place of Wholeness and Beauty. In this state everything is Perfection. And our True Self aligns with Source.

The authentic circumstances that come from the smaller self are also just as important. These circumstances allow us see how we feel separate from Source and our Inner Self. This seeing and feeling is part of the way in which we can truly uncover our deepest fears; fears that dictate how we react automatically to our circumstances – circumstances in which we can see and understand that we don’t feel ‘Whole’ – and in such circumstances we create addictions to distract us from feeling and these distractions lead us to searching outside ourselves for things to “DO” to change, fix or heal ourselves. In other words, we feel broken or ‘not enough as we are’. And it is here that we sabotage ourselves.

When we can authentically acknowledge these deeper fears then we can come into a place of acceptance rather than create ways to change, fix or heal from a place outside ourselves. Once we can actually accept that these are the fears we carry with us, consciously or unconsciously, then we can credibly dive in and see these fears and how they are just part of a story we hold within us; a story we have made up instead of truth. We can move into a place of ‘now’ and detach from the inaccuracies we hold onto as truths.

I welcome you to come up with whichever authentic place that will create the most positive change for you. I see benefits from both the little place of limiting fear or the more expansive place of Wholeness but when I imagine 2017 – and the next 9 year cycle – I prefer to come from a place of infinite possibilities. I wish to feel my Wholeness and Inner Self that is expansive and Magical. My resolutions will include letting go of certain fears that I am ready to let go of but ultimately my intentions will be focused on how I want to ‘feel’ this next year: a space of unconditional Love and Acceptance; one that exudes Peace and JOY! What will you set your New Year’s intentions as?

Happy New Year 2017!
With Love and an Open Heart, Laurie & Angel
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This entry was posted in Blog and tagged 1 year New Beginnings, Angel, authentic self, doing vs BEing, Emmanuel Dagher, fear vs love, Happy New Year 2017, Infinite Self, inner Self, Intuitive Counseling, intuitive counselor, Laurie Huston, new years resolutions, Setting Intentions for New Years, Tom Campbell. 

What’s Your Motivation?

This past month I did a great interview with Eric Altman on motivation (http://www.intuitivesoul.com/news-for-the-heart-talks-with-eric-altman-on-motivation). To me this is an important piece to look at if we want to understand why we sabotage our own happiness. As you know, my personal journey has been focused on my health for the past couple of years, with the oncoming of Frozen Shoulders, heavy metal poisoning, and the realization that my body became pretty toxic as a result. In some ways it’s been a cosmetic reason, to lose weight but it has also been about having my shoulders functioning again. For too long now I have sabotaged my journey towards health by not doing what I know I need, and this process has dragged on, and in many ways has exasperated my pain.

While Eric and I were discussing what blocks us from attaining our goals, we touched upon an issue that many people have (Eric quoted that it could be as high as 95%). Many of us have an unconscious belief that we don’t want to be here. If it is such a high percentage, no wonder we sabotage out deepest desires! This is especially true when our desire is to be healthy. Up until 3 years ago, I didn’t have any physical distress. However, the chronic pain from both Frozen Shoulders and heavy metal poisoning brought about many changes. And many realizations about choices I’ve made and beliefs I’ve held, including that I didn’t want to be here. As well as decisions that if I were handicapped (chronic pain) I wouldn’t have to support myself. I didn’t have to take my chronic pain to this level or exasperate my condition further, because I realized the choices I was making and began the journey of healing.

Even though my shoulders are almost completely healed, I still continue to sabotage my health, even while I have consciously been focused on my health. And this is why I have continued to discuss it. This is the reason I want to discuss this with you. When you want something and you continue to sabotage your efforts, the place you need to look is your motivation. Conscious or unconscious, there is still a reason that you need to investigate, and discover why you continue to sabotage. Somewhere there is a conflicting motivation or belief that you need to uncover. Are you coming from a place from fear or love? This is critical when exploring your motivation.

Ask yourself if you are truly living? Where are you sabotaging your life? When you think about this life, do you often say you aren’t from here? Or are you looking forward to leaving, believing that the afterlife or your next life will be better? That this life you are being karmically punished?

When it comes to unconscious motivators we must remember that our “choices” come from the present! If we aren’t in the present, then we are reliving our past programming, our fears and our unconscious beliefs. When we are present and grounded, we can make better choices and observe and be more aware of our motivation. Both Eric and I have discussed how to become more grounded and that will allow for better choices (in our show http://www.intuitivesoul.com/news-for-the-heart-laurie-huston-talks-with-eric-altman). The trouble is that if on some unconscious level we do not want to be here suffering or for whatever reason, our motivation will be to sabotage the efforts of our conscious self who is doing our very best to live a meaningful and fulfilling life.

Beginning this Support Group with Eric Altman has definitely provided a new network of people to share and dream with. One of the most wonderful parts of being in a support group is that as you receive help and make progress on your journey, you are supporting others in the group on their journey. Likewise, as the other members of the group move forward on the issues they are working on, it helps you heal too! I invite you to share and explore your dreams and what is motivating them with us. If you find that there are certain things that you keep sabotaging, explore why. Discuss and share with a group of like-minded (or like-hearted) people. Find a way to be in charge of your choices and make sure all the parts of you are on board with moving in the same direction. Practice being Present and Grounded. This will assist you to be more aware. However, the most important thing to realize is that you are PERFECT just the way you are! Be Gentle to yourself and accept yourself! This will go a long way to Self-Love and Self-Care, the focus of 2015! And join our Support Group (http://www.intuitivesoul.com/services/eric-altmans-support-group) to support your Journey forward!

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