Soulfully Being: Spirit vs. Ego
by Jeanna Gabellini

Have you ever felt as though there were two opposing forces inside of you, each pulling in opposite directions? Below are Seven Keys to cultivating a stronger relationship to Spirit that leads to full self-expression, freedom, joy, peace, and fulfillment.

Spirit vs. Ego
Spirit simply loves life and people and is endlessly curious about exploring and experiencing the world. This energy force is alive and free, creative, expressive, abundant, and playful. This part of ourselves guides us calmly and adeptly through new and challenging experiences. Its guidance doesn't come from the “head's thinking”, IT is much more powerful, wise, clear, and knowing than the mind. Intuition, heart, inspiration, love, joy, and peace are associated with this energy. When we access IT, we feel warmth, serenity, centered, and connected to the world. Life flows. We're fulfilled, fully self-expressed, and every moment is a magic moment. When we live from Spirit we know all is well and life is a joy.

Ego is more practical, cautious, judgmental, and protective. It wants to look good to others or, at least, avoid looking bad. Ego likes to control, although pretends that it doesn't. It views the world as a potentially harmful place, fears being hurt and exposed, and thus remains separate, isolated, and closed from others. It blames, criticizes, compares, and makes excuses. “Should“ is one of its favorite words. Ego energy looks for answers from its mind -- although it often confuses reality with something made-up. It is self-righteousness and holds a “better than attitude,” protecting the insecurity that lies just beneath the surface. Living isolated within the confines of the body, ego mostly just wants safety and independence.

Spirit is the life force energy about experiencing, creating, expressing, and connecting in this world; Ego is a bodyguard or tour guide. Its job is to keep the physical body safe and guide spirit through the journey of life. However, it often oversteps its duties and responsibilities.

Most people don't realize the nature of these two individual forces and continue to struggle between the two energies. Sometimes it feels like we have split personalities but rest assured, this is part of the human design. The Ego is much more forceful when it comes to being in control and thus plays a more dominant role in our lives -- often suppressing our true self. For many people, Spirit shows up sporadically when we let go of our thinking minds, spend time in nature, engage in something creative, meditate, or seek assistance. Have you noticed as soon as you surrender solutions appeared? When you become more conscious about the nature of these forces, you can learn to access this all-knowing, wise, and powerful force more consistently. The result is a life with more peace, joy, love, abundance, and creative flow, and less stress, scarcity, and fear.

Both Spirit and Ego are always there to access. And as human beings, we need both to exist.

Distinguishing Ego from Spirit
Since the Ego can be sneaky in its expression, it's important to recognize its nature. I've included a list below of Ego characteristics and its Spirit counterpart.  Separation is the common theme to each word set below. The Ego strives to keep you separate from the world, separate in relationships, and separate from your Spirit and its full self-expression, joy, and inner peace. It does this through resistance, restriction, blame, self-righteousness, and fear. The Ego also expresses itself as neediness, which is a form of separating from self (from your power) -- believing that to be complete you need something “over there.”

• Separation vs. Connection                
• Mind vs. Heart
• Victim vs. Taking Responsibility
• Excuses vs. Results
• Shoulds vs. Inspiration
• Resistance vs. Acceptance
• Restricted vs. Freedom
• Confusion vs. Clarity
• Suppressed vs. Fully Self-Expressed
• Worry vs. Anticipation
• Stuck vs. Creativity
• Stressed vs. Peace
• Frustrated vs. Resourceful
• Protection vs. Vulnerable
• Fear vs. Love
• Laziness vs. Nurturing
• Doubt vs. Trust
• Scarcity vs. Abundance
• Shut-down vs. Open
• Shame vs. Acceptance
• Apprehension vs. Courageous
• Struggle vs. Flow

Take the first word in each pair. Perhaps you already recognize how familiar they are to you -- as it is for most human beings. Imagine living your life predominantly from separation, shoulds, confusion, restriction, resistance. How would that feel? According to David Hawkins, the author of Power vs. Force, it is how 83% of the population lives.
Take the second word in each pair. Imagine living a life predominantly from joy, peace, love, creativity, freedom, and full self-expression. Hawkins states that only 17% of the population access this way of being, so, while it may not be the norm, it is possible.

Seven Keys to Cultivating Connection with Spirit
How can we access Spirit so that it naturally becomes the dominant energy force in our lives? How can we maximize the peace, joy, and flow in our lives?

Get Present
When we're truly in the present moment, we have great access to Spirit. When we're focused on the past, feelings of regret, pain, and turmoil can overtake us, cutting us off from Spirit. When we're focused on the future, we often get distracted in feelings of worry, hope, and fear. Starving our energies from creating now. It is in the present moment where we find peace, joy, and connection to Spirit.

Choose High Vibrations
Consciously choosing peace, joy, love, appreciation, and generosity strengthens connection to Spirit and deflates the Ego. Anyone who teaches about manifesting abundance always emphasizes the focus on higher vibration feeling states. Like attracts like. Power vs. Force quantifies energetic qualities on a scale of 1 to 1000 and outlines ways to raise your energetic vibration through movement and exercise, drinking water, practicing random acts of kindness, meditation, laughing, and contributing to others.

Take Responsibility through Conscious Choices
Your Ego likes to play victim and lead you to believe that you're not powerful or have a choice. No matter what the circumstance, there is always a powerful, responsible choice available. What do you need to ask for? What do you need to let go of? Whose help could you request? What's the next step you could take? What is your ultimate outcome? When you take responsible action, you are responding to Spirit. Don't be a victim, make a conscious new choice.

Radically Reduce Thought
For most people, this is a tough one. Our human Ego-dominated minds like to run non-stop. Are you doing the thinking, or is Ego thinking you? Even the most intelligent minds must ultimately learn to break free of thought and find stillness because this is where true freedom lies. It is only in the stillness of the mind where our connection to Spirit comes alive.

Humility
Ego is about being right, criticizing, and judging. Stepping into humility is the fastest way to release the Ego's grip. Admitting critical, judging, or self-righteous behavior is liberating. Stepping into not knowing is more powerful than being right. For more about humility, I suggest the article Humility from Soulfully Living. (www.lifecoachmary.com/issue25.htm)

Listen to Spirit
How do you tell the difference between the Spirit voice and the Ego voice? The Ego voice is almost always associated with feelings of angst, resistance, doubt, fear, questioning, guilt, and confusion. Spirit's voice is clear, wise, knowing, precise, and brings peace; it more often serves your Greater Good.


Soulful Challenge:
One of my favorite practices is to just act on Spirit's voice. Throughout the day, consciously listen for Spirit to guide your decisions. Clear your head, ask for guidance, and listen. Then act before your Ego can jump in and start analyzing Spirit's request. Just trust and go with it. If Spirit doesn't respond immediately with direction, just wait, an answer will show up. Often it doesn't make sense in the moment, but then becomes clear later. Try this for one week. The gifts are incredible.

Commit to the Process
To cultivate a deeper relationship to Spirit and radically reduce the control of Ego in your life is a process. You'll notice yourself getting stuck, being fearful, resisting life, and blaming others. But, as you deepen your commitment to the process, you will find you're able to recognize the destructive and unconscious patterns in your life more quickly and make responsible, conscious choices leading to empowering action.

Jeanna Gabellini, CPPC is an Extreme Abundance Coach, author, speaker, and facilitator. Read more about Jeanna and her zest for life at www.MasterPeaceCoaching.com
First appeared in the Feb/Mar 07 issue of aspire… Magazine.