The Sneaky Ego

I have an Ego around many things, but not about ‘being spiritual’. When I started teaching yoga in my twenties, I had a huge ego around it. I had found a new identity, one that rebelled against the mainstream and everything a ‘normal, boring’ life entailed.

Then as spirituality and yoga got more popular end more and more people (and their egos) joined, the more I (my ego) developed a distaste for what I saw. A lot of posing and pretending and the notion of love and light made me want to go even more into the dark.

I was in a predicament however, because I have a deeply spiritual orientation and the more I explored and experienced, the less I felt that I needed to speak about it, show it, dress like it and well, indulge my ego around it.

Once people get to know me better, they are often surprised, shocked even, to learn about the many traditions,  ideologies, philosophies I’ve explored and the experiences I’ve had.

Just this Saturday, I was attending an all day Shamanic ritual and it occurred to me, as I start to bring more and more somatic and wholistic techniques and tools to my coaching, I realized that it would be useful to have a little MORE ego in what I do.

Yes, I know, Shocking!

I realized that, for me, having no ego in this space, meant it was hard to really care enough to teach and facilitate any meaningful transformational processes for others.

I realized that not only was it ok, but in fact a bit of ego was needed.

Ego is not a swear word. Ego is not evil. Ego exists and it can be very useful. The only question to ask, so that we keep it in check, is ‘how identified am I with it right now?’ The mastery is knowing when to pick it up, when it put it down.. it’s essentially about being In a good, at best playful, relationship to it.