65: How (and WHY) To Let Ego, Go

Hello, friends, and welcome to Grief Guts and Green Smoothies. I am your host, Melissa Dugalecki, and I am so excited to be here with you all to chat about ways in which we can all get through different adversities, challenges, and loss and how getting outside of our comfort zone and maybe having a green smoothie or two can help us do so. We will cover different topics, ranging from interviews to recipes, to sharing my own stories of my grief journey and the loss of my daughter, Layden. And I'm honored to be able to share her light in hopes of helping you spread yours. Now, let's dive in. Here's the deal. We all have an ego and we all try and hide from it, or we don't like to talk about it or like to think only people who are quote, unquote, egotistical have an ego. But the reality is we all have an ego. And what I want to talk to you about is calling out that truth and teaching you how I and how you can quiet down that ego voice to grow so exponentially. And so what we're going to do is start by quieting down that ego voice. Now, that's getting defensive and saying, I don't have an ego, right? And just say, like, all right, we got an ego. We're just going to kind of put it to the side. We're going to open our minds and we're going to learn and we're going to grow and it's going to be awesome. So let's get to it. Those of you who don't know my background, I was always in the helping industry. I wanted to help others. I worked in group homes. I worked in day programs. I left my 9 to 5 cubicle job to go do real, quote, unquote, helpful work and work in the school system. I spent a decade in school systems. I was teaching, I was coaching. I was an administrator. All I wanted to do was help. And being in this helping industry, I realized and learned a whole lot about ego. I thought that it would mean I had ego if I stayed in that cubicle and pursued a job that was, you know, going after making money or traveling or freedom. And that the actual act of disarming my ego was going and serving and making other people feel good and helping. But here's the truth, guys, that was actually feeding my ego just as much, if not more, because I needed to be needed. I needed to be the hero, right? I wanted to save everybody. Now, this doesn't mean if you're helping or you're serving that it's ego driven? Not at all, right? I help and I serve way more massively now, but it's because I've taken my ego out of it. I help and I serve and I put things out there. Not hopeful that everyone provides accolades or likes me or thanks me. I do it because I feel good about it. I believe in it, and I believe it's my purpose, right? It's what. How I feel aligned. And so it's not necessarily what we do, it's why we do it. And isn't that true for everything we talk about it here so often? It's not what we do, it's why we do it. And even going back to my episode a couple of weeks ago, my podcast episode on entitlement, I had to put that ego voice down, right? Because part of me was nervous to put it out there, like, oh, people aren't going to like this. I might get some, you know, hate mail or some online troll, even some message or something. And I had to think, like, you know what? Like if they do, you're sparking something in them that maybe at some point will lead to their growth, right? Typically, if they're in a place that reactionary, they're not quite ready to grow, but maybe it will lead them there. And so can you put your. Your need not have that, your need to be comfortable. Can you put that down? Right? You put that down and just do what feels right to serve. And so that's what I did, right? Wasn't the easiest message, but it was so important, right? That message around entitlement now, now we're going right into ego. But it is a good segue because they are all connected, right? That idea of not wanting to discomfort people, you know, many ways ego can manifest itself not only in, you know, someone who needs to always be the best or have the best or overspend, right? Ego can play into your financial health. Are you buying things to fuel your ego? You need to have a certain label, you need to have a certain look. Now, of course, we're all deserving and worthy of nice things. Sure. Not the what, it's the why are you getting that so that someone else sees that you have it? Are you getting it because you really want it for you? You value the quality, the alignment with what you need. It's within, you know, your values. And so the ego can impact us so many ways. It can stop us from growing in relationships because we don't want to say we're wrong. We don't want to let anyone else have A sense of control or on the flip side, we're people pleasers, right? And we underestimate that people pleasing is actually ego driven. We need other people to be pleased with us for us to feel good. Same thing with perfectionism. Sometimes perfectionism will say, oh I'm so hard on myself. It's this quest, almost this poor me, why am I so hard on myself? Well that's actually the ego, right? The ego has created your truth that you need to be perfect and you are allowing the ego to be in the driver's seat there. So you got to put that ego way in the backseat or better off like just kick them out of your car because it's your car and it's your life, you know. So often we see this around honesty. The ego I believe stops people from being honest way more then mean spiritedness stops people from being honest. I actually believe the majority of lies are not about being mean spirited or deceitful or getting thrills out of the lie. I believe the majority of lies are out of ego. Well, what will someone else think? Or I'm not going to say this because then they'll be upset with me and I can't handle them being upset with me. Have you been there? I have. So hopefully that just provided and offered the space for you to think about the different ways ego might be manifesting. And the thing is ego is really good at wearing masks and disguises and it's tricky and it's smart and you don't even know it's there half the time. So I am empowering you wise soul, to allow your soul, your higher self, to call out your ego. And when we call it out, we don't shame it. We don't want to get into a pissing match with our own ego. We just recognize it and we tell it that it's not in the driver's seat and we choose differently. This plays into that four step method that I coach in my one on one clients and I coach and move. It is so powerful. If you are curious about the four steps, shoot me a message. I would love to, to share them with you. And I just want to share a story around a progression of my own detachment from ego. Because if you're here now like okay, yes Melissa, I understand that has been the ego, right. I am struggling in my relationships, I'm struggling in my finances, I'm, I'm struggling and going to my goals, I'm struggling my own happiness with myself from ego. And you identify that and then now you just want it Fixed. Well, I'm here to tell you it's a progression. And so organically, so authentically. I taught this to somebody, a one on one client last week who was asking me about posting on social media. And I thought, oh, this is an amazing story about ego. Because when I first began posting, right, there are times where I would delete it, I would take it down, what might somebody think? Or I would envision that one hater out there, right? That one person who I knew was gonna have something negative to say and I couldn't handle it because my ego was so fragile. That person said something, I would be crushed. Now it's a progression of there's a time when, you know, then I would post it and I would over analyze it and go and look and see what replies and responses were. And there was a time where I thought like this pressure of like, oh my goodness, do I need more followers? Or oh my gosh, I don't have as many likes, right? Comparison. That's the way that ego kicks in, right? I would pour my heart into a post and then I would see, I don't know, somebody with a great following post a caption like, stop it. Or look at this, I don't know, just something simple. And it would get way more engagement. And I thought, ha, First I thought it was a comparison, like, well, why is it? And I realized it's not a comparison. That person's niche, that person's vibe, like, that's them and this is mine. And when I began to attach to my own clarity, my own sense of self. Now again, that sense of self impacts our ego. When we have a strong sense of self and who we are, that ego voice gets so quiet. We don't need to have that certain label to feel worthy. We don't need a certain amount of likes to feel validated. We don't need everyone to like us in order to like ourselves. So as we lessen that ego voice, we do so by growing that self worthiness voice of self knowingness, of awareness of who we are and what we believe in. Now I don't even notice my posts, right? Something doesn't do well and laugh about it. I felt good about that message. Apparently no one else did. All right, we move on, we move forward, right? There's no ego. And this is how so many people ask me, how do you detach from outcome? You detach from outcome by being so clear that the process aligns with who you are, what your goals are, what you're seeking, what you're striving for that the outcome is irrelevant, that if you get the outcome you're envisioning, it's amazing. And if not, it wasn't meant for you. Perhaps you're meant for something bigger and really quieting the ego voice is what allowed me to start writing, not just on social media, but to be writing for my book, right? To be putting things out there, to know that I could do all of this and my book might have two owners like Mooch and my mom. I don't know. It's so possible. But it's not going to stop me because it's not about my ego. It's not about fueling it. It's about doing what I feel like is service. And so I hope holding space for this reflection, we can go a lot further into here. I'd love to get your feedback and know what your thoughts are and how to handle your own ego and how to handle the egos of others. Right? When you realize it's other people's egos talking, you can lead with compassion for them. Like, wow, that must be exhausting to have their ego in that much control of their life, right? But how do we, one, identify that that's the ego voice. Two, let the ego voice go. Three, replace it with this knowingness of who we are, of what we want, of what matters to us, and then building on that and repeating so we eventually transition from so afraid to post on social to this place of comparison, even when you post, to this place of complete freedom, lightness and clarity in your own voice, your own purpose, your own mission, and of choosing an alignment detached from the outcome or opinions of others. Because that sense of self and worthiness and validation lies within. And that's what matters. And that's the freedom. That's the true freedom I believe we are all seeking. I work with hundreds and hundreds of people who have set goals, essentially seeking a sense of freedom, whether it's financial or food or fitness or relationship. I believe down in my heart that we are all just seeking the freedom of giving ourselves permission to be our authentic selves. And I'm here to tell you, if that is you, the only thing that stops us from living our authentic truths is our ego. I believe you can disarm it. I believe you are meant to, you are worthy of it. No one else can do it but you. But it's so possible. And if I can support you in doing so at all, please let me know. I love doing this, just jamming and chatting with you guys over social media. Shoot me your thoughts if you want to go deeper, I am opening up a one on one spot in mid May or early June. That work is really limited, so I do want to let you know I do have one opening, but if you just want to talk about it in jam about it for you on your own, let's do it. These are the conversations I want to have, I want to foster, I want to facilitate, because I believe they're going to help me grow and help you grow. And what better way to spend our lives here on Earth than grow. Thank you so much for being here with me, friends. I appreciate you all so very much.