May 2010 Newsletter
This month we explore how we recognize positive and negative ego. The negative ego needs confirmation outside of ourselves. It’s like giving doggies little treats when they do tricks or they behave as we want them to. The negative ego needs a treat to feel better; it needs reinforcement from others, from outside ourselves.
In our daily lives, we have been living for a long time with the negative ego, because we have needed confirmation for everything we do.
A client of mine has been battling with this concept for awhile. After a simple walk on the beach, she felt heart pain, and because of that heart pain, she felt doubt—doubts about her life, her health, her relationships. She realized the doubt is what creates drama in her personal and work life. The next morning, she was honest with her partner about all those doubts and fears. I asked her, how did her partner react? Her partner reacted in a very simple way. He said he experienced similar things at times, and it’s not a big deal. Everything is fine. In the past, normally her partner would have reacted differently, comforting or pampering her in some way. So then I asked her, how did this different response make her feel? Did her ego get the attention that she was used to getting? And her answer was no; it was different than what she was used to.
I told her to stand up and go in front of the mirror and look at herself, and to tell me what she sees. The first words that came out of her mouth were, I’m cute, and she giggled. And then I asked her to blame herself for how she had been feeling about her doubts. And she said, I don’t want to blame myself. The reason she did not want to blame herself in that moment is that she had an instant awareness of how self destructive blaming herself for her doubting had been in her life. The more she blames herself, the less she is able to see herself.
And that’s what the negative ego does. The negative ego never allows us to see the true beauty of ourselves. We only see the doubt and fear.
In the above exercise, the recognition of both positive and negative ego came into her awareness.
I sent her back to the mirror and asked her to look at herself again and to tell me what she sees. She answered that she was cute and beautiful and sexy, was getting better with age, and that she loved what she saw. And that is exactly what the positive ego is about—it’s unconditional love.
The positive and healthy ego comes from unconditional love first for ourselves and then for others. We need to love ourselves and accept ourselves and have awareness of all aspects of ourselves. Positive ego does not hide any aspect of ourselves because we are able to see the truth. We can ask questions in front of the mirror, and the real truth will always show up.
To see an example of the mirror exercise, see the 2004 film, “What the Bleep Do We Know!?” It will be good for everyone to practice the mirror exercise.
Always, Zeffi
P.S. To read about the planet Mars, see the article Mysterious Spheres for April 2010 - Mighty Mars. Also, we are continuing our meditations every Friday from 6-8 pm Sedona, Arizona time through The Temple of the Living Goddess. To learn more about the temple and how you can participate, join The Temple of the Living Goddess group on Facebook. You can join this group under Zeffi Kefala.