Part of my journey of self healing from physical and emotional dis-ease was becoming more aware of the ego. As I did I began to watch myself heal in a way I never thought possible. Now, as a holistic counselor, working with energy healing, I understand how the negative beliefs in our mind (fueled by the ego) prevent Life Energy from flowing freely throughout our bodies and minds. So an important step to self healing is understanding what the ego is. The ego is the part of the mind that is constantly looking to make you feel better about yourself, to make you feel worthy of love. Our ego develops early in childhood as a natural and instinctual function of survival (in order to feel love from our parents we compete with our siblings for our parent's affections). Yet left unchecked, this aspect of our minds become a dis-ease. Healing is becoming aware of the ego within ourselves and how it controls our thoughts, emotions, and energy. When we do we have the choice to change our focus away from egoic action, towards what we prefer.
Our ego looks to the outside world to tell us what it means to be a “good” person, to be someone who has earned the right to feel good about themselves. As we grow older our ego becomes more subtle and fine tuned. A pat on the head from our parents becomes competing for our teacher’s approval in school, or for our boss’s approval at work, or for any indication that we are okay and doing a "good" job in our lives. The ego constantly searches for representations of love in the form of attention, approval, role identification, success, material possessions, and sensory gratification. This constant search to feel good about ourselves causes our mind, emotions, and body to be in a continual state of low level anxiety and tension.
So we make sure to get a good job, please our parents, strive to have an attractive body, please our partner, and earn a respectable income. The subtle (or not so subtle) anxiety that drives us to achieve this “success” takes a toll on us, mentally, emotionally and physically. As we focus our attention on these lesser vibrations of emotional energy (fear, anxiety, etc.) our bodies manifest this experience within our minds and emotions. These negative thoughts and emotions ultimately cause dis-ease in the body. The process of healing is identifying these mental and emotional patterns, and then replacing them with thoughts and feelings that are in alignment with the version of ourselves that we want to create. This can sound a lot like the Law of Attraction, and it is. The distinction that I teach is that it is important to use the Law of Attraction in integrity with your heart, creating a life out of love and peace, not from a fear of lack.
This does NOT mean that you need to quit your job and start meditating and doing yoga all day!
All that is required is that you CHANGE the ENERGY in which you do the things you do. However, you may find that as you start to honestly look at your motivations, noticing when and how you are acting out of anxiety and fear to create your life–and seeing the connection between this anxiety and your state of dis-ease–you will likely want to change.
The more you can see the energy motivating your thoughts, emotions, and actions, the more CHOICE you will have, and the more likely you will CHOOSE to create the energy and lifestyle that does not make you sick (this happens in every moment as a decision to release negativity and tension, allowing love to flow into your body through self acceptance!
So begin a daily practice of watching your thoughts. What does it mean to watch ones thoughts? It means that you take a moment after you have a thought to simply notice the energy of the thought. For instance, as you have a thought in the form of a judgment, “that person is so annoying, I can’t stand them,” take a moment to stop and notice how it feels to have that thought. Was that a negative thought or a positive thought? How did it feel emotionally and physically to have that thought? You may notice judgments feel good in the moment (they temporarily strengthen your ego–a brief feeling of superiority) yet ultimately leave you feeling drained.
Ego thought patterns to become aware of:
-Judgements of other people, judgement about yourself and your health, boredom, irritability, frustration and anger with other people, comparing yourself to other people as better or worse than, thinking about future sensory gratification (earning or spending money, eating, sex–there is often a subtle form of anxiety disguised as excitement in anticipation of pleasure in the future).
Pay particular attention to your judgments of yourself and other people. These kinds of negative thoughts can keep you in a cycle of negativity and perpetuate dis-ease.
So become the witness to your own thinking mind, watching for negativity, watching for judgement, watching for how the ego operates, always searching for the underlying feeling of the thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations. When you identify a negative thought or emotion, simply notice, relax and release, and then choose to shift your focus towards what you prefer. This is a simple technique of mind over matter, utilizing the law of attraction.