Category: ego

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ego Trust God

Prayers or Wishes?

A selection of pictures related me driving – perfect parallel park, Luton van, a couple of walks early in the morning just me and my dog, and then my writing retreat week

I went to a local opticians this past week and she did very through tests on my eyes and found that I might not have great peripheral vision. It is not confirmed as yet. I need some more tests. But for now I cannot drive which has come hard because I so love driving. But in the grand scheme of things it isn’t the end of the world.

What has amazed me is some people’s reactions. Most have been really kind and supportive but from one person I got that I needed to be positive and keep saying that there is nothing wrong with my eyes and get rid of all negative believes that my eyesight is bad. This is hard one because I have always been really shortsighted until 13 years ago when I had lens replacements and went from a minus 21 to minus 0.5 which was totally amazing. But my cornea are stretched and are the cornea of an almost blind person!

I sort of know that if I tell this that my eyes are still bad she will tell me that I didn’t do my statements correctly or didn’t believe enough. That somewhere along the way it will be my fault.

I remember my father-in-law saying that, after his major traffic accident where he suffered brain injuries, people would pray for him and, because he didn’t get better, they would say it was his fault for not believing, or that there was sin in his life. Not helpful at all.

Even though the person who told me to believe in the healing isn’t talking about prayer to me it feels like a similar idea, that there is that potential that if we wish it/believe it hard enough then it will all sort out. And then if it doesn’t sort out then it is our fault. It is all very ego-centric

I was very pleased to come across this phrase this morning in Richard Rohr’s daily meditations which seems very apt

….that the greatest enemy of ordinary daily goodness and joy is not imperfection, but the demand for some supposed perfection or order. 

https://cac.org/daily-meditations/the-mystery-of-the-cross/

Ok there is more going in the meditation but this stood out to me. When one does some of these positive statements or healing prayers or whatever one can get into the trap of calling down what we see as perfection. Note the “we see as perfection.” For me personally, to have perfect peace with whatever the outcome of these eye tests in a fortnight are is the greatest thing I could get. Yes of course I would love to be driving again, would love that freedom of just taking off and being on a beach to watch the sun come up, to pop to the Farmer’s market without having to get a lift, etc, etc. But if that doesn’t happen I want to be able to be so at peace I can feel it in my bones.

So I will ask God for my eyesight to be ok and to be able to drive again because that would be silly not to check in with the Great Creator of the Universe and not ask. And if I wasn’t a Christian I would probably do those positive statements and hope for the best.

But what I want deep down is for this daily goodness, this joy, this peace that passes all understanding, to be settled in my heart no matter what happens.

I’ll post an update in after 28th August to let you know how I get on.

Categories
Believe ego

Ego in the way

Rhos-on-sea beach gathering lugworms photographed by myself Sept 2024

How often were you told as a child not to get “too big for your boots”? And you knew what that meant. It meant you were being proud, boastful, stepping up a gear, and that was not approved of by the adult who was telling you to be “more humble”, when actually here humble meant to not say you were good at anything.

Someone I know is doing a very brave and loving thing [long story so won’t give details but just know she is being so amazing, so trusting in God and so humble] for her son. I was praying and saw her as this amazing Warrior Woman and told her so. Her response was that she needed to get her ego out of the way so she could believe that.

That got me thinking of how often we see ego as being “egoist” or too big for our boots, boastful, prideful, etc whereas I heard from her that her ego was herself thinking she wasn’t up to the job, that she wasn’t a warrior woman, even though The God who Created the Whole Universe had just told her so.

Too many of us have had too many times when we’ve been put down rather than lifted up and have passed that onwards to our children and others we know too.

I loved working with Americans when I was in YWAM because they were not afraid to say what they were good at or had done well at and would tell others when they thought they had done well. Very unlike us Brits can be. Brits can be very quick to put down ourselves and others, to root for the underdog unless they start to win.

So I say … let us kick into touch those sayings of not getting too big for our boots. As my friend says “get our egos out the way”. And pull on those great big kick-arse boots that are waiting for us to go out and change the world with.

And changing the world might not be solving world peace or climate change but it might just be a kind, encouraging word, or as my friend is doing just supporting her son in a big things, or as another friend did and just obeyed what she felt she’d heard in prayer, or any of those many things that come naturally to us.

Categories
ego heart

Heart Versus Ego

Every move he makes is totally heart led. Photographed by me last week

I ended the last post with “Are we willing though to listen to our hearts and not our egos?” and feel I should unpack it a bit.

Logic isn’t bad. In fact going back to a previous post I think life would be easier if we didn’t put things into “good box/bad box” but the Eden myth lets us know humankind chose knowledge of good and evil over life, chose wanting to put things into logical boxes over wanting to trust in God/The Universe itself.

“Humans are primarily primed to be emotionally relationally led survival based beings. Egos don’t want to accept this which is where it all goes wrong. Sadly our world is obsessed with logic. The more they rely on logic the harder it is” Quotes from a conversation from the other day. Note it isn’t logic that is bad but the obsession with, the relying totally on logic that is the problem.

What is Ego though?

Ego is your idea or opinion of yourself, especially your feeling of your own importance and ability:

in psychoanalysis, the part of a person’s mind that tries to match the hidden desires (= wishes) of the id (= part of the unconscious mind) with the demands of the real world


Meaning of ego in English https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/ego

But this gets skewed when we have allowed ourselves to be shaped by outside influences – what are parents/friends/teachers/colleagues said about us, what we read on the internet/in newspapers/magazines/books of how we “should be”, when we listen to adverts of what we “need” to be happy. Then we slide logic into the mix and we get confused. We are listening to all those outside influences and not listening to our hearts, not hearing who are true, genuine self is . [see the picture]

NOTE – we are not to be our “best self” but our most genuine self. Best goes back to the good box/bad box, right/wrong mentality. My genuine self is true to me and through that of course I will be giving off a calm energy which will help those around me to be their most genuine selves.

So if our world is obsessed with logic how to we “fix the broken systems”? How do we get to that place of “spiritual and cultural transformation”?

I don’t think we can think this through, that we can logically find an answer. I think it is time to move to a different place, to a place of mystery, of deep spirituality, of not needing to understand but trusting that there is a better way, but something greater than us can bring us to this point. I think we need to stop putting our trust in what we can do and start resting in God/The Universe/Whatever higher power you wish to call it.

How do we do that you may be asking? Because ask you will because that is logical. I’m not sure that many religious organisations can help because there is too much emphasis based on “having the answers” to give to the world, rather than living out the answer, rather than loving people unconditionally – that isn’t logical.

Let us step into the mystery of God, of the Son of God walking the earth, even the death and resurrection of Jesus to be a mystery not to be something that we can say “he died because of this”. Though I do think it is alright to say “One of the many reasons Jesus died is to reconcile us to God but there are many other things that I don’t understand and don’t get and that’s ok”.

Let’s start saying “I don’t know and that’s ok” more and more. Let’s start working on getting rid of the rubbish that stops us from being our genuine selves, that makes us afraid to trust our hearts. Let’s be bold and know there is more than we know but we want to connect with that more than.

I wonder what would happen if we all did that?