Repairing Your Relationship to Thought, So That You Can Be the Boss

Practicing relationship to thought is what I do. It’s what I study. It’s what I teach.

And yet I was doing something really mundane in the kitchen the other day — I think I was making coffee — and I caught myself saying “Geez, you’re an idiot.”

I was so shocked by the blatant disregard of a fundamental practice of mine, that I stopped to consider how often this might be happening despite my daily practice of mindfulness and meditation.

But life takes you on twists and turns. And, I’ve had my share of them recently. I realized that I was nudged out of alignment such that I needed to go back to the basics of self-awareness for reinforcement and centering.

Growth often occurs in the pattern

of two steps forward and one step back.

And so I reinvigorated my practices. Meditation, mindfulness, music, yoga, examining and letting go of self-limiting beliefs, strengthening the muscle of choice. All avenues of finding higher states of consciousness, connecting with truth and reminding myself that I am a creator.

And still, even when centered, life happens —and can trigger incessant chatter which can sometimes be deafening, while temporarily disengaging the ability to choose thought.

We have all been there before — when nonstop, usually detrimental what-if’s and self-flagellating dialogue haunt you to the point of distraction.

What if this happens? What will I do? How will I manage?

or

You are failing. You are not enough. You can’t handle this.

or

You’re a loser. You’re an impostor. You mess everything up.

And, it’s indicative of an imbalance between the egoic and higher mind.

It’s very apparent to me when I have an incongruity between my higher mind— also known as the divine intelligence, soul or inner being— and the egoic mind. It’s characterized by my perceived inability to choose my thought and emotion because of self-doubt, worry and fear invading the present moment.

The itty bitty committee of critics, naysayers, and overwhelming pessimists in my head take charge of my experience and become relentless task masters.

 

I am suffocating in the chaos of thought.

I have no peace.

All of my experience is distorted.

And I am no longer at the helm of my creation.

Huh? What is the Ego, Negative Ego and Higher Mind? And What Does That Have to do With the Chatter in my Head?

When I realize that I am overwhelmed by negative self-talk, I quickly recognize that I need to make adjustments to my relationship to thought in order to take back the reigns of my experience.

And to find homeostasis, it helps to define and understand the true purpose of the ego, its relationship with the higher mind, and why the negative ego takes control.

• Ego — The purpose and sole job of the ego is to keep your consciousness focused in physical reality.
• Higher Mind — This is your individual consciousness, soul or eternal aspect of self which communicates with you through emotion and connects you to higher wisdom, divine intelligence and the unified field.
• Negative Ego — A result of our belief systems acquired along the way which told us that we have to control and manipulate our experience to be safe, to be happy and to get what we want.

A Metaphor to Help Further Define the Ego, the Higher Mind Their Relationship to Each Other.

I came across this metaphor while listening to some Bashar material and I found it to be a phenomenal teaching tool for understanding why the negative ego actually manifests in our lives.

The ego is similar to using a mask when scuba diving. You need the scuba mask to help make your dive clear underwater. This is what the ego does in physical reality. The ego is added to our human body when the soul attaches to it at birth to keep us focused and to make things clearer in the physical experience. When you overburden the ego with details and worries that aren’t really the its job, the mask (ego) cracks. This cracking or fragmenting of the ego interface is what initiates the negative ego in our experience.