How Your Ego Is Secretly Keeping You Stuck
In this solo YouTube lecture, the speaker clarifies that the ego is not an inherently negative entity but the persona or "world self" that filters consciousness into physical experience. The ego is built from conditioning, programming, inherited belief systems, and innate traits, and it serves a self‑preservation function. Because it protects its identity, the ego employs two main defensive mechanisms: an "invisibility cloak" that hides its limiting patterns from conscious awareness, and a "purging" response that erupts with intense emotions when a protective part is threatened. The speaker illustrates these mechanisms with concrete stories about a marketer named Michael, a dater named Greg, a businesswoman named Rachel, and his own experience on YouTube. He explains that change feels impossible because the ego resists the loss of familiar parts, fearing death and loss of safety. To work with the ego, he recommends creating observational space through meditation, daily self‑observation, and journaling, which together allow the ego’s hidden parts to be seen. He then delves into how trauma fragments the psyche, creating protector parts (perfectionism, independence, anger) that mask vulnerable wounds. When a person seeks higher alignment, these protector parts must be weakened and the underlying shadow integrated via shadow‑work practices: asking the part questions, allowing it to feel, and completing its emotional energy cycle. The lecture concludes that the ego can be mastered rather than allowed to master us, leading to a freer expression of the true self and greater alignment with one’s highest potential.
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Today, I'm going to clear up some of the confusion about this little thing, the ego. We all have an ego. We're always going to have an ego. There's nothing you can do that will actually ever fully get rid of your ego. If you're a physical being in a physical planet, you are going to have an ego until your physical experience ends. So why is there so much talk about the pitfalls of the ego in the spiritual space? It's because if you are unaware of the fact that you have an ego, and if your ego is essentially controlling your identity and has you on autopilot, that's where it can start to cause havoc in your life. So today I'm going to be walking you through what the ego actually is, how it was created, and how you can actually start to work with it so you can use it in your favor. Because the ego is just essentially the character you've been playing in this physical reality. And anything that you want to experience in this physical reality, any desire that you want to manifest, you have to resonate with it vibrationally in order for it to begin to materialize into physical reality. That is the law. The biggest component of that vibration that you are emitting energetically is your identity. And so the only thing typically standing between you and your dream life, your most aligned life, your most fulfilled life where you're operating at your fullest potential is you. You are the thing that's really in the way. And so today we are gonna take a closer look at some of the blind spots that you may have about yourself because of your ego. So the ego has a lot of negative connotations. When I say the word ego, when you see it written here, I want you to just tune into what emotions come up for you. What are you feeling about that word? We have been conditioned to believe that ego is a bad thing because there's kind of two meanings for ego. There's ego as in the ego self, and there's ego as in an entitled sense of self, if that makes sense. So it's not a negative thing. That's not the definition that I'm going to be referring to today, where someone is like big-headed. My definition of the ego is Your persona. Okay. If we were to boil it down as simply as possible, the ego is the persona that you are playing in this physical game, in this material world. It's your persona, it's your personality, it's your identity. It is kind of the character that you're playing in this game. It's an amalgamation of all the traits and things that make you, you. Sometimes I call the ego the world self. So a huge component of the ego self is everything that you have been conditioned with since you came into this physical body and opened your eyes and started to be programmed by external reality. So that's a large component of what the ego is made up of. It is your conditioning. It is your programming. It is your environment. It is your, The belief systems that you've inherited from your family, from your lineage, all of that, that actually makes up a large part of your ego self. But it is also more than that. There's also some traits that you have that are kind of intrinsic to you that you brought with you into this lifetime. So let's say unique talents that you have, unique interests that you have, unique characteristics that are just at the core of who you are, and you know you didn't get them from anywhere else. Those are also part of the ego self, this persona, this character that you're playing. And those, your higher self actually chose those. You inherited those from your higher self as part of this experience that you're having in this physical world. So when people want to get rid of the ego, they don't realize that they're actually signing up to get rid of probably a lot of things that they actually love about themselves and things they're supposed to experience about the self they are living within in this physical experience. And I'm going to give you a really simple analogy so you can really start to get this. So if the ego self is the character that you're playing in this physical game, then you, your true self, is the player of the character. Okay? You're not just the character in the video game. You're the one playing the character. You are the consciousness that's being filtered in through the ego to have this physical experience. That is what this game is that we're playing. And if you were to try to get rid of the ego, which is the lens through which you're having this physical experience, that's like trying to play a video game without choosing a character. Trying to play a video game just as the player and not selecting a character. It's not possible. I really liked the way Teal Swan defined this. I heard her say this in an interview recently. The ego is like a stained glass window through which consciousness is emanating. So it's like, The light of consciousness is pouring in through this window. And then the reflection that you're seeing out the other end of the window is the experience of reality that you're having. You can't get rid of the stained glass window and keep the experience. You need one to have the other. And keeping in mind, you guys, your souls, your higher selves chose to come here and have this experience. So ego in and of itself is not bad. Say it with me. Ego is not bad. It's not negative. However, it can control you when you are unaware of its existence or unaware of how it operates in your perception and in your life. So people start to struggle with the ego self when they decide that they want their lives to change. That's when the struggle begins because whatever level you're playing at in this game, whatever experience you're having in physical reality, in your relationships, in your finances, in your career, in everything, in just your overall happiness and your state, that's a byproduct of the energy that you're embodied in and the identity that you are embodied in. And so that identity is ruled and governed by your ego. And at the moment that you say, I wanna change something in physical reality and I wanna go to, let's say, from level 1 to level 2, you can't get into level 2 of the video game until you uplevel your character, i.e., you are going to have to sacrifice the old self or part of you parts of the old self and bring in new aspects that energetically resonate with the next level. And then you will gain access to that experience in physical reality, but not a moment before, because you have to embody the energy first. And so this is where people run into trouble. They want to get to the next level. They realize they're going to have to make some changes, and then they find it extremely difficult to change. How difficult is it to change? It's so difficult for people to change. And the reason for that is in a large part because of the ego. Why? Because the ego's primary interest is self-preservation. Now, this is not in a malicious way. This is not in a, like, it's an entity and it's feeding off your energy, that kind of way. It is kind of an entity, but it's more in a sense that you've been living in this character for probably a long time. And so even if it's not what you prefer, there's a sense of comfortability. There's a sense of safety. Safety and security and familiarity within that character. And letting go of any components of this character, because the ego character is made up of many different parts, letting go of any parts of that character represents the unknown, represents danger, and represents basically death and threat, right? And so your ego or parts of your ego are going to resist that process. Like their life depends on it because it does. Okay? Because if you keep changing, these parts of you are going to cease to exist. And that is dangerous, right? Death equals danger. We must survive. So we must continue to get this, like the observer, the player to play with us at this level and interact with us so we can continue to survive. That is essentially the energy of the ego. That is why it can be so difficult to change, especially if you've been operating within an ego identity. For a really long time. And so there's two primary ways. There's more than two, but we're going to go through two primary ways that the ego stops you from changing and being able to change. And if you found it difficult to change, this is going to help you. I am sure of it. The first way that the ego guarantees its survival is it has an invisibility cloak. Okay? Like Harry Potter. And it is most powerful against the person who has the ego, right? So this is why I'm gonna give you a really tangible example of this. Other people might be able to see something about a person, but that person can't see it in themselves. The reason for that is when you're very close to something, so when you are enmeshed in an identity, when it's just who you are and your identity, your frequency, your character traits are all on autopilot, you're so close to that that you can't possibly see it, right? It's like when you have your sunglasses on your head and you've lost your sunglasses and you can't find them, you can't see them, but another person can just go, your sunglasses are on your head. That's kind of how this operates. So the ego self, it feels like it's you, the true you, until you start waking up and doing this work and realizing you are actually more than the ego self. Then you think this is kind of just who you are, and therefore you find it really hard to perceive that these traits actually exist 'cause they're just on autopilot. And one of the most difficult parts of awakening and of changing and shifting in the way that you are is when you're kind of stuck in patterns in your life and you start to realize that you are actually the problem and it's something that you are unconscious of that's causing all the patterns in your life. This is something that I see happen with everyone. It's still happening with me. There's still shit that I'm unaware of that I'm still becoming aware of constantly, all the time. And every time I do, it's like a slap in the face, like, wow, how could I not see that? I couldn't see it because it was too close to me to see, and I didn't have enough awareness to view it objectively yet. Okay, so I'm gonna walk you through some tangible examples so you can start to get your head around this. So let's take the example of a guy, we'll call him Michael. Michael's running his own business. He has a marketing agency. He's been running it for 2 years. And Michael thinks he should be 1,000 times more successful than he is. He feels like he's entitled, he's due, due some success, and he feels like he's doing all the right things, and he's just getting frustrated and annoyed and starting to think that competition is the problem, other people are the problem, and he's essentially focusing on all the wrong things because actually what's happening is, and it's very obvious to an outsider, Michael is not focusing on organic marketing enough. So he doesn't have a strong enough brand to properly grow and scale his business because he's still focusing on the lower-level tasks within the business. This is obvious to another person, but it's not obvious to Michael because Michael has a part of him, a part of his identity, a part of his ego that is extremely scared to be seen. He still has a part of him that's quite shy and introverted and does not resonate or align with showing up online. Okay? And so the ego is very clever. It will protect itself by not allowing Michael to see this part and instead keeping him focused on, okay, you just need to deliver better quality service. Maybe you just need to send out some more emails. And you'll keep focusing on all these other things except the main thing that will probably actually grow the business 1,000 times faster. He can't see that because there's a part of his ego that's in the way, and that ego part won't let him see it. That's an example of the invisibility cloak of the ego. Let's take another example of a guy. Let's call him Greg. Sorry if you're Greg and you're watching this, I'm not saying this is you. But let's say Greg is constantly getting into dating cycles where he'll be so madly in love for the first few months, then the feeling fades and he loses interest. And Greg genuinely, here's the thing, Greg genuinely honestly thinks that there are no good women out there and that all of these women that he's dating are just not the one. There's something wrong with all of them. But in actuality, what's going on is there's a part of Greg that deeply fears intimacy and long-term commitment. So he's addicted to novelty because he, there's a part of him that avoids emotional depth because maybe they don't want to get hurt. Okay, and so the ego will keep up this story with him that it's the women and it's the options available and all these other things, because it doesn't want him to see that it could be something internal, because then he might try to get rid of it. Here's a harsh one. This is one that I had to face a long time ago. Let's say a woman called Rachel, she believes she's really tried everything. So let's say she's got a business and she says, I've tried everything. I've done all the courses. I've done all the marketing strategies. I've done all the content. I've done it all, I've tried everything, nothing works for me. She genuinely believes this, but actually deep down there is a part of her ego that wants to avoid taking responsibility because she doesn't trust herself. And so the ego is gonna keep up this narrative of I've tried everything and nothing really works for me anyway, because it's easier and it's not as painful in the short term to say that versus I'm actually avoiding taking responsibility because I start things and I don't finish them and I haven't actually tried anything. 'Cause if I had tried everything, something would've worked by now. So that is how the invisibility cloak of the ego works. It comes up with all types of really valid-seeming and believable explanations that the person fully believes, but it's stopping them from seeing an uncomfortable truth about themselves, a truth about their character, and a part of their character that is so integral to them that they're just not ready to see it yet, or they don't have the space to see it yet. It's always a slap in the face, but like in the the best way possible. Why? Because as soon as you notice, hey, I'm avoiding emotional depth, hey, I'm avoiding responsibility, hey, there's a part of me that fears being seen online, as soon as you figure out what the actual root cause of this pattern is in your life, then you have the power to actually change it. Until then, you are powerless to change this pattern because you're not getting to the thing that is actually causing it. So when I started on YouTube, this is my most tangible personal example of this, When I started on YouTube, I started on YouTube for a mixed bag of reasons. One of the large reasons was my intuition was just screaming at me to do it. So I did it. But there was another subconscious reason that I was not aware of when I started. And it was that an ego part of me was hoping for a lot of validation through YouTube content, through growing on YouTube, through blowing up, through getting subscribers, yada, yada, yada. I wanted to feel seen, heard, understood, special, validated. I didn't know that at the time. I just knew I wanted to make videos, okay? And when I first started making YouTube content, I would overthink every single video, and I actually started really self-sabotaging about 3 months— I only made like 3 videos— about 3 months into making content, to the point that I couldn't create at all. It took me a long time to reflect on it and to get the answer, 'cause this was the most, one of the most humbling moments of my life. But what I found out was I was sabotaging, I was blocked from creating because my first few YouTube videos didn't go viral. And that upset a part of me. Do you know how hard that was for me to admit? It was so hard, but I couldn't move, I couldn't get clarity until I really honestly faced what it was that I was feeling, what it was that was triggered, and what it was that was blocking me from moving, forward. So in order for me to move forward and continue to be able to create on YouTube, I had to face this part of me that was doing it to feel special and validated and all of this other stuff. But the moment that I actually faced that part of me and started working with that part of me— it was an ongoing process to work with it— that was the moment that my content actually got good, right? I had to accept, like, okay, I had to accept my content wasn't that good. I honestly there was a part of me that was like, this is amazing, this deserves a million views. My content didn't deserve a million views when I first started, okay? But that part of me that wanted to feel special was like spewing this narrative at me about this. So I had to admit that it wasn't that good, and then I had to make it about the videos, the audience, and the craft, and not about me and what I wanted to get from it. And the moment that I was able to realize that and detach from the views and shift my focus was the moment I actually started making decent videos. And again, while I was in that state, I was blaming the algorithm, I was blaming people, I was blaming all these other things except for the fact that maybe my energy wasn't in the right place to actually create actual good valuable content. I know, shocking. So that's the first way, it's invisible to you. And the way that you're gonna start to kind of like override this invisibility cloak so you can start to become aware of any ego aspects that might be limiting you or that don't resonate with the version of you that you need to become is you need to create space. You need space to see something, okay? Like the glasses on top of your head, you're gonna have to step away, take them off, then you can see them, right? It's the same with your ego. You need to be able to observe yourself objectively. That's not that easy to do. And this is why we do things like Meditation. Okay, so sitting in stillness, pulling our awareness back from our habitual thought patterns, becoming still, becoming present, watching, observing our mental patterns, our thoughts, observing our reactions then throughout the day, right? So when you come out of meditation, so the first one is meditation. Second one is observing yourself in your day. So you don't just do the meditation and then go out into your day and be reactive and totally unaware of your behavior or how you're showing up or your character. No. You take what you learned in meditation, the art of observing yourself and witnessing yourself and being present. And you practice that in your day-to-day life. You notice, hey, I got really angry in this situation. I wonder why, what was it within me? Hey, I felt really uncomfortable in this situation. I felt like I limited myself in this situation. I went really quiet in this situation. I felt like I put a limit on myself in this situation. Why? Why? And then you'll get a comfortable story from your ego. You smack that out of the way and you look at what could be deeper than that. What is something that you could be carrying and holding that's uncomfortable that you don't want to face that could be contributing to this pattern in your reality? That's how you start to become extremely aware. That's how you start to get a lot of space. A really good tool for that is journaling, right? So as you're going throughout your day or at the end of the day, you journal and you reflect on the patterns that came up, the emotions that came up, and you observe. So a lot of people are confused about how to journal. The only way I ever recommend to journal is to just start speaking to yourself and just noticing, right? Today this happened and I felt like this, and this was my reaction. And then this happened and then I responded like this. That is how you start to gain space. Just like that. It's that simple. So when you meditate, when you observe yourself, when you journal and reflect on things, you essentially start to separate from the ego self. And from there, you can actually start to identify it. And then you can start to work with releasing any parts of it that are blocking you. The second way that the ego survives and fights for its life and manages to stay alive is by purging when it's threatened. Okay? This is like the juiciest point of this whole video. So if you're here for this amount of time, I'm glad you're still here. You're supposed to learn this today. When you're on the cusp of real change. Like when you are truly about to let go of some aspects of the old self and you're about to step into a new self, that is where it typically can get darkest before the dawn. And the reason for that is I've seen this happen time and time again. It's almost like you've started pulling a weed out of the ground. So you started pulling this aspect of you out of you, right? So you're the creative consciousness and you have this ego identity you've been playing and you're pulling a component of that identity out of your consciousness and you're separating from it. So you're removing the sustenance of your life force from this thing. And so it's like, you're pulling it out, you're pulling it out, you're pulling it out. And right when it's about to get ripped out of your consciousness and removed from your experience forever and wither away and die, it essentially, you get into like the mucky, yucky, really like difficult roots of this part, whatever part that you're releasing. And typically this is the stuff that's buried deep down in your unconscious, and it's the ugliest, the most insecure, the most fearful, the most shameful, the most guilty components of that part of you. So as that part is releasing, all of those emotions are going to come up as part of that release. And this is why when you are right about to fully release something, it can often feel like it's the most difficult time. It can feel like you're getting tested. It can feel like that part is like fighting to stay alive. It's because the darkest, most difficult, challenging components of that part are still there. They need to come up to the surface to be felt and released. And then you can ascend to whatever other next state of consciousness you want to arrive at without the frequency of this thing in your being. And I think we're going to have to go a little bit deeper on that because I feel like that needs more of an explanation. So here's some background information so you can understand what's happening. If this is something you're finding is happening to you on your transformation journey, if it hasn't happened yet, it probably will. So we need to look at how the ego is formed because then it's going to make sense why the unwinding of parts of the ego happens the way that it does and this purging happens. So who you are, the personality that you have, the traits that you are embodying that you call your identity, that you just call you, they're not random. They're not random. Some of them are, some of them are innate, like I said, and you just came in here with these characteristics that are just you and you don't know where you got them. But for a lot of us in this physical world, this is the physical world of trauma and a lot of things going on, distressful things, a lot of different frequencies and things happening. And so most of us, our identities, unless we've done a lot of inner work already, our identities are in large part created by, like I said, our programming, but also by our trauma. I don't know if I mentioned that at the start, but it's also created by our trauma. And the way that that works is like so. So let's just say you're like this orb of energy. You are pure creative consciousness. And you're going throughout your experience in reality, you're frolicking around, let's say you're like 3 or 4 or 5, and you're having all these experiences and everything's great. And the next thing you know, you perceive something in your senses that your brain interprets as distressing and traumatic. So a trauma is essentially a stressful or distressing event, and that distress was not resolved in the moment. Okay? And so in order to cope with this trauma, what happens is your consciousness splits and fragments. Carl Jung says your psyche splits and fragments. Carl Jung was one of the first with Freud to speak about the shadow self. But essentially this is how we cope with trauma and with distressing events as we go throughout this experience in reality. So a lot of us are actually operating within a very fragmented, like we have many, many, many, many, many, like hundreds of parts of ourselves and it's all fragmented parts of consciousness. Consciousness that we're operating within. And if we look at like the enlightened masters, they mostly have come into wholeness by healing all of that stuff and coming out of fragmentation. So that when there's no fragmentation, the life force isn't suppressed and you're able to raise up in your level of consciousness. And then you become an enlightened master and you can walk on water and perform miracles. But we're not trying to do that today. We're just trying to empower ourselves to get outside of an ego that is limiting us from living our true potential. Okay? And so a big component of this is these fragments that happen all throughout life. Wasn't your fault they happened. It's natural. It is your consciousness. It's your psyche trying to protect you and trying to do what it thinks best to deal with the situation. So in that moment, we have the part that was hurt, typically the vulnerable part, the hurt part, the ashamed part, the part that's feeling the really bad emotion in the moment. That gets pushed into the shadow or the unconscious. The shadow self, the unconscious, essentially we say shadow because it is removed from the light of consciousness. You're no longer conscious aware of it. It's too painful according to your psyche. And so to deal with that, it's pushed deep, deep down into the back room where you're not aware of it. You're unconscious of it. So you don't have to deal with it. And in order to deal with it, what actually happens is when this part gets, when the hurt part gets repressed and the unconscious part is created, a protector part is created. And this part is there to make sure that this part is never hurt in the same way again. So it's there to essentially protect, clue is in the name, this specific part of you, and to make sure you never get in a situation that's going to trigger that part or going to have you feeling an emotion like that again. And the protector aspects of your personality are usually the expressed aspects of your personality, meaning they're typically, not all of them, but typically they're part of your identity. So sometimes we're rolling around saying, that's just who I am. I'm just a perfectionist. You're not really. The perfectionist part of you was born to protect the part of you that deeply fears criticism because you were criticized too harshly as a child. You're rolling around saying, I'm an independent woman, this is just who I am, I don't need help from anybody, I don't take handouts from anybody, when deep down you know you're really actually very lonely. But this protector part of you needs to keep you independent, operating as this strong woman who doesn't take help from anyone no matter what, because a part of you once relied on someone and they let you down so deeply that you can never trust anyone again. Okay, these are kind of deep examples, but this is how it goes. Or anger. Anger is a really common protector. Okay? I see a lot of people with anger and frustration. I had a call to my community last week, and one of the most dominant emotions that we feel in that space and worldwide is frustration. Frustration is a trickle-down from anger, and anger is a protector to a deeper, more painful emotion like hurt or betrayal. And so you might think you're a perfectionist. You might think you're just independent. You might think you're just fiery in nature, But actually, that could be a protective identity that you have formed over the years. And that's all well and good. We don't need to go poking a bear unless the bear is coming towards us. That's all well and good. You can leave that as is. The only time that this becomes a problem, that you have all of these protector identity traits, that are formed as a protective mechanism because of the things that you've been through, the only time that becomes an issue is if you've decided that you want to come into alignment with your highest potential, okay? The highest potential that you are destined to live in this lifetime, and everybody has a highest potential they are destined to live in this lifetime. And these identity traits that you think are who you are are forming a certain mold of you that has a particular frequency that does not resonate with you reaching your highest potential. Potential. That is when this becomes a problem. That is when this becomes something that you have to look at and you have to face, address, and release. You guys, I used to be quiet. I used to be introverted. My biggest fear used to be public speaking. That was my identity. I used to think, God, I'll never do anything like public speaking, or yeah, that's just not for me. I'm more of like an introvert. I'm more like just, I like writing stuff and I like to just be working on my own thing. And I genuinely thought that's who I was. Because it was protective, because I had moments where I spoke up and I felt really embarrassed. And so the embarrassed part of me had this protector who said, you're quiet, you're just quiet, 'cause we don't wanna feel embarrassed again, right? And so if I had never addressed that maybe this part of my identity is not really me, and if I had never addressed the underlying embarrassment of those moments of trauma where I felt really embarrassed for using my voice, I never would've been able to shift that part, release it, realize it wasn't me, and step into my lane in life. Never would've been able to do it. So your ego is not the enemy. The only problem is when your ego is trapping you in a state of consciousness that is not resonant with your fullest potential. Then it's something that you've gotta look at. And even if we think of this practically, okay, let's say you have a perfectionist part, and that perfectionist part of you, you feel like, okay, I have a very keen attention to detail. This used to be me as well. I used to have a really strong perfectionist. She's still there sometimes. I actually have to speak to her today, She doesn't have a hold on me anymore. So let's say you have a super strong perfectionist and you just think, wow, I just have a really keen eye for detail and I'm just, yeah, I just like everything to be just so and I've got high standards. And you're like, that's who I am, that's fine. But you are actually most aligned doing creative work, let's say, okay? So let's say you're supposed to write fantasy fiction. I'm using an example that I like because I like fantasy fiction, okay? If you don't like it, you maybe think of some other genre. So let's say your actual purpose in life is to be a fantasy author. You're supposed to write these books about magical whimsical fairy realms, and you have this perfectionist part of you, and you start writing, and you're like, okay, my attention to detail, this is going to be sick because it's going to be the best book ever, and it's going to be the most well-written book that anyone's ever seen. And you begin to realize that that voice in your head that's making sure that everything is perfect is actually sabotaging you from being able to type, create, and flow because you're too in your head and you're not enough in your body and your creative energy. So a part of you that was born to soothe another part of you that really fears criticism is now limiting you and stopping you from coming into your ultimate alignment and your true power. And it's to the point that it like, it constricts your life force, it constricts your awareness, and it stops you. You're so focused on being perfect and self-soothing the part of you that's, that, that, that fears criticism, which these ego parts, a lot of them typically are self-soothing if they're coming from trauma. Like everything you do is self-soothing rather than self-empowering, rather than transcending the self, which a lot of us want to do. And so you're trying to transcend the self by making this book that's going to impact millions of people and millions of people are going to enjoy it, but you can't do it because you're still self-soothing because you're still operating from a protective aspect of your personality. Rather than a truly aligned aspect of your personality. And when you're in that state, it constricts your awareness. You can't even perceive the actions you're supposed to take, the words you're meant to type, the plot, the way that you're meant to write, maybe the environment you're meant to write in. You can't even perceive it because your consciousness is getting constricted into this funnel of perfectionism because that's an ego trait that you have. That's not really you, it was born from trauma. So this is how many parts of the self are formed. And I want you to visualize for one moment that I would draw it here, but it will take me all day, that you've got all, just imagine I've got like 90 stick figures here, more, and they're all different. They're all having different emotions. That's you, that's what you are made up of. There are so many parts of you. And coming into alignment with your true self is letting go consistently of any parts that don't feel like your true self, that feel like they're constricting you. So you are going to keep aspects of the ego, even when you are in your, in your highest self in this physical lifetime, because that still is an ego, but it's going to be free from parts of the ego that are based on conditioning and programming and trauma. To a large degree. To a large degree. There's always going to be little bits of conditioning. I don't even think we can outrun that. But as long as you're aware, that's the main thing. So you can see why when you're, let's say you have this perfectionist part, right? When you're pulling out, that looks like a fire. Let's just roll with the fact that it looks like a fire. Let's say you realize, okay, this perfectionist part of me is slowing me down. She's killing my groove. I need to get in the flow and I can't do that if I'm thinking so much and being so harsh on myself. So you realize, right, I need to let go of my inner perfectionist. Well, let me tell you something. You can't let go typically of the protector aspect until you release what the protector aspect is protecting. This is shadow work, guys. This is shadow work if you're not familiar with this shadow work. And so you will start by working on your perfectionism and by saying things to yourself like, I'm allowed to make mistakes, I'm allowed to mess up, and by extending expanding your capacity to make mistakes, like tangibly, physically in the things that you're doing. You let yourself mess up more. You're really working on opening up, et cetera, et cetera. And maybe you're doing some journaling, you're becoming aware, and it is working. You are getting better, but it's still there. And the energy is shifting. It's starting to move. You're starting to feel different. And then all of a sudden, somebody says something to you and it is like the worst criticism you've ever heard in your life. It wasn't even that bad actually, but you interpreted it as you are the most incompetent, inadequate, blah, blah, blah. And you are very triggered. And what's gotten triggered is the shadow, the unconscious. This protector was protecting because keep in mind, you've been weakening the protector with the work that you're doing, right? You're trying to stop being a perfectionist. But this part of you that it was protecting, the part that is fearful of criticism and was hurt by criticism is still there. So this is why, as you're transcending, right? As you're evolving and you're kind of moving along on this journey, your awareness is shifting and expanding right before you let go of a part of you entirely. And your frequency shifts so that you're able to actually operate within a new reality and a new frequency. Right before, that's why the shadow will come up. You've weakened the protector, you've weakened the protector, you've been doing this work, and then boom, this part of you is easily triggered. It comes out, it's triggered, and this is an opportunity for you to actually release this part. So then you will be free from the protector perfectionist. Maybe not forever, but in large part, it'll stop ruling you. You might have remnants of it because maybe it came up in other ways in your life, but it won't be controlling you anymore, right? So that's where you'll be going along, and then the roots of the weed, right when you're about to pull the whole thing out, the roots of the weed are exposed, and you see, okay, there's a part of you that is feeling really ashamed, really rejected, really misunderstood over a situation that happened in your life, or it's just coming up in general. These emotions are just coming up in general, and you don't know where. Is because this part of you is coming up to be cleared out. Because if you think about this logically, if you're trying to get to another level and there is a big part of you that doesn't energetically resonate with the frequency of the version of you who can operate in that level, then that part needs to be removed. It needs to be integrated more specifically. I ain't never seen a weed like that. What is that? And when you've unwound this part of your ego so much and you get to the point that the uglies are coming up, the ugly parts, you are like one step away from freedom. It is not the time to turn back. It is not the time to submit and admit defeat. It is the time to lean into the emotions, lean into that part of you. And a very simple way you could work with that part of you is through shadow work, which I speak about all the time. But you want to accept that you feel this way. You want to just observe and notice the feelings, the emotions, that part of you. Notice when it was born, ask it questions. Say, where did you come 'When did you feel like this before? What's wrong? Why are you so upset? Why do you feel so bad?' And then you want to let that part of you vent. It needs to say everything it never got to say before. And you just witness it. You love it. You sit with it. You don't judge it. You allow it to be exactly as it is. And you see it fully. That usually starts to finish the incomplete energy cycle that is this part of you. Because when this event happened that caused the this part to be created, essentially the emotion came into your body and it needed to complete an energetic cycle in your body. But because you repressed and resisted it, it didn't get to finish the cycle. So when you're doing shadow work, by letting this part of you feel, speak, shout, scream, purge, you might cry, you might do all of these things. You're allowing the energy cycle of that emotion that you repressed to complete so that it can actually dissipate from your consciousness. And once that is released, once the release phase is done, then you can reassure that part of you, tell them everything they need to hear to start healing from this and moving on from this. And then you can let that part of you be as they actually want to be. Okay? So let's say this part specifically, the part that was criticized, that part right before the criticism happened, it really just wanted to express freely and play. So in this situation, if you're doing shadow work with that part of you, you say to that part of you, I want you to be exactly as you are. You are free to be exactly as you are. You're perfect as you are. And you might see that part of you frolicking and playing and painting and creating. And that is the energy that that part of you is actually supposed to be within you in its natural form, in its natural state. I have videos on shadow work, you guys. I'll leave them down below. But that's just a quick recap of the process, mainly to let you know how simple it is and how doable it is, and that it's very much possible to work through these moments when it feels like your ego is biting back at your transformation. It's not, you're just getting to the roots of it. You're just getting to like the origin point of this part of you. And that is a sign that you are right at the end of releasing it. So I hope this has given you some perspective and maybe some things to reflect on about yourself. And if you have no idea like where you could be unconsciously blocking yourself and your ego, then you need to start by stepping out of the ego. So you need to kind of start mastering the ego rather than the ego mastering you. And you do that by meditating, by shutting down the reactivity of the ego and observing it instead, and by journaling and gaining space from it. Okay? From there, it becomes a lot easier. Still not easy though. Sometimes it's still really difficult to identify where maybe you have been the problem, because anything you're experiencing in your reality is a mirror image, essentially, to your energy and to your frequency. And if you're experiencing specifically a pattern in your reality, then it might be time to look within and look at what could be unconsciously creating this circumstance for you. And I just want to remind you that you are so much more than the character you've been playing. Yes, it's a very important part of this experience that you're having in this physical reality, But you are extremely powerful and you have the power to shift any trait that is not really you, that doesn't serve you. And the more you do it, the more you get into the swing of it, the easier it becomes, because really the self that you're supposed to be, the self that feels true to you and the path that is aligned for you, the closer you get to it, the more it's just going to pull you in like a magnet. And the easier and easier it's going to be for any illusions to fall away, including illusions as to who you are. The closer you get to truth, the easier it is to see illusions for what they are, including illusions of the self. And I just want to remind you, you are not what happened to you. You are not the belief systems that you have inherited. You do not have to carry that as your story and as your identity if it is not serving you. You have no idea how powerful you can be when you start letting this stuff go. That's all for this video, guys. I hope it helped. I love you all so much, and I will see you in the next one.
