Friday, September 10, 2010

The Final Performance


The mind is so ego maniacal. So self-important. So Serious. It grasps. It creates drama. It spins stories. It denies. It defends. We attach meanings and interpretations to everything in context of our ego. An ego created to keep us safe and to defend our fragile insecurities, or to prove our fragile insecurities to be true.

Our egos created from the perceptions of our minds –  underdeveloped young minds –  that are very ripe and vulnerable. Pure unpolluted minds that perceptively pick up on everything in our surroundings, in our culture, from our family, our peers, and our teachers. Then – voila – we have created our self-image, the person we think we are.

But is it really who you are? Our ego was created so long ago from that young impressionable mind and we have automatically believed this is who we are. No questions.

You may think you are meek, boisterous, social, anti-social, untalented, inferior, superior, smart, dumb, able, incapable, etc. Is this really true or just the image you have created for yourself from all the feedback and meanings you placed on experiences at a young age? It’s like choosing a role in a play a long time ago – a child role – yet continuing to play that role your entire life. It doesn't fit anymore...

So many of us need to break out of old ego molds because they are no longer serving us or supporting us. We are living false lives, merely an image of ourselves, or rather an image of someone else.

Often, it is difficult situations that have us questioning who we really are, the lives we are living, the behaviours we are engaging in, and the patterns we keep repeating. For some this may be a serious illness, a great loss, an end to a significant relationship, or even a job loss.

The situations, people and experiences that really shake the ground that we stand on and break the very foundation that has supported us. The situations, people and experiences that strip us of our ego and leave it weak, wounded and broken beyond repair.

They are our wake calls. A message from a deeper part of you. Shhhhh….just listen without imposing your mind on to it and you will hear the message you are meant to receive from that deeper part of yourself, your authentic self, your all-knowing self, your soul.

And the broken ego mind will struggle to hold on, to get back to 'normal', yet this ends up causing us more suffering than if we just let it die ... let it go.

If you can let go of how you think things should be, the need to hold on or fight what is, to find right or wrong, drown in self-pity, deny, run from, blame or whatever else you may do to ‘deal’ with difficult emotions, you will be able to heed the message that these painful and challenging situations bring.

Perhaps it is time to build a new ego structure, a new image of yourself.

As painful as it is to let a part of ourselves die, or as easy as it is to judge these parts we don't like, make your old ego's last performance stellar! Allow it to leave with dignity and love. Give it the gratitude and applause it deserves.

Then choose a new role. One that supports you. One that is more aligned with who you REALLY are.

Your whole idea about yourself is borrowed – borrowed from those who have no idea of who they are themselves. ~Osho

8 comments:

  1. Love that Osho quote.

    Also, you were correctly factoring change in our lives, our personae.

    We can be lots of things, I believe. I can be inhibited, and solitary one hour, and a talkative joking, Mr Answer-Man the next hour.

    Good post, thanks!
    PEACE!

    ReplyDelete
  2. this is absolutely gorgeous...i am in this evolution myself where i'm starting to see myself differently than i ever have before, and actually believe the good people in my life when they tell me what they see in me. it's an amazing sense of transformation. thank you for an incredible post.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Isn't it true that people see in us things we don't and we don't believe them because we don't see ourselves that way. We still have these false ideas about who we are, ones that were created when we were 5 yrs old. And since they are just so ingrained in our psyche, we don't even realize what we are believing about ourselves or notice that we really aren't these things.
    'tis true we learn about ourselves through others.
    Thanks for reading.

    ReplyDelete
  4. WOW this read has shaken my skin, my bones and of course my soul... They say we learn something new every day... well, it's true. Today I've realized something so important for these moment of my life... any moment of my life, which are a lot, when i donot know who I am.
    That Osho is really wise, and so are you my dear friend!

    Thanks a lot for this amazing writing...
    xo

    Dulce

    ReplyDelete
  5. This is exactly what I am going through right now...so amazing. I messaged you today. Hope you are well.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Well I hope you get to get to find you through this...As we all do. Writing is SO GOOD!
    ... Find you, I don't think you were ever lost...

    When I first went to a therapist she asked me 'Why are you here?' I said 'I want to find myself?' She said you are not lost...you are here, perhaps you mean *I need to know who I am, because I've been doing as I was expected to, but failed >*...) ETC

    In other words, SB dear, I feel so very related to this post of yours, as if I had written it myself...For I also was the youngest of four, and whatever I did was not right or not as good as...And I lived half my life behaving like my older sister and YES the firt five years of my life crying, crying, crying...

    I now know my childhood (though I was not raped or anything) was miserable, a constant look at what others did and not knowing what direction to take. But I was lucky, anyway, and I got this far...

    And oh so much I've learnt, for one thing being oneself is hard work, but not impossible; depending on others, bad thing. AND One attracks those who are no good at all for them, but right the opposite, unless you have previously found some kinda balance.

    I stop here.

    Blessings, my dear friend!
    :)
    Dulce

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks Dulce. Not sure why you couldn't comment on the new post, but thanks for posting this. We do seem similar...you being the youngest of four too...interesting!
    Although my posts may sound morose, I am not in a morose state, just digging through the deep feelings and writing what I have found there.

    Come to Canada and we'll go out for drinks!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Oh- I had not seen this invitation...
    tempting it is!
    I hope I will!
    You are welcome to enjoy some warm weather with me too here in the Canaries, say, whenever you cannot stand that coldness any more :)

    Hugs my dear!

    ReplyDelete