I reckon my ego hates stillness.
Your ego is always seeking safety for you. Your ego is doubtful that stillness is a route to safety.
Is stillness a route to safety?
Ask the ninja warriors.
I guess they would say that mastering stillness makes one better able to protect one’s safety when fast self-defence is needed. How are my self-defence skills? Or better put, how could my self-defence skills be improved?
By mastering stillness.
Ha! And how might I do that?
By letting nature be your guide. See how still and rooted is the tree. See how patiently the flower waits. See how little need has the bird for task execution.
I can almost imagine settling in to the rhythm of nature, as its student and disciple. What would I learn?
You would learn how to hear the messages of the wind in the trees, how to interpret the sun’s rays upon the rocks, how to commune with the birds and the insects. And what of all of this? You would develop the ability to attune your frequency to the harmonics of the ages. You would open your heart to the landscapes of the cosmos.
A little fly has come to have a fidget around on my laptop. What is it teaching me?
That life is fleeting. Make good of the time at hand.
Teach me how better to make good of the time at hand – in a way I can understand and respond to, long term.
Learn to recognise certain decision types which are ‘forks in the road’. One way is the ego’s path, the other is the higher self’s path. Learn to sense the difference between the two. Learn to recognise the feeling underfoot of each path, and to distinguish the air, the landscape, the ‘flavour’ of each path. Neither path is ‘wrong’ or ‘harmful’, but one path is circular, and the other is directional.
This is what I know of the Ego’s Path:
- It always feels great to start off with – fresh, fine, true, sensible, wise, promising
- I generally secretly expect it to bring me good things – money, success, recognition – though I might not say aloud that’s what I’m wanting out of the venture.
- Often, the crucial factor of success depends on A.N.Other person in whom I have put my confidence. I have impressed them, and they have promised me good things, implicitly or explicitly. I believe we have an understanding.
- Sooner or later, it turns out that my hopes were rather too high, and unfounded…
- The person or offer or opportunity turns out to be less than I’d hoped for
- I’m soon losing energy, feeling drained, starting to doubt myself and resent the tasks at hand.
- I wish I hadn’t started on the path, and I start complaining, procrastinating and retreating.
- Eventually, I make a break for it and cut my (often substantial) losses, letting go of the relationships involved as I run…
Argh! Awful. Now that is a karmic cycle and a half.
And what do you know about the path of the higher self?
This is what I know of the Higher Self’s Path:
- It is virtually always modest, understated, under-the-radar
- It tastes ‘sweet’, it sounds ‘quiet’, it feels ‘private’ – no one’s congratulating me or clapping at the end of it (!)
- It’s small scale – generally 1:1
- Generally, someone actually gets helped – by me
- The financial returns are low… and therefore I doubt whether I’m actually doing the right thing because ‘surely my duty is to earn enough to support myself and ultimately create some savings so I can be self-sufficient…’
And so then you stop doing the HS Path and return to the Ego’s Path (‘for the money’) and take a loop round the hamster wheel, and then come back to the HS Path… til you stop yourself again (because, ‘where’s my cash?’) and hop back on the hamster wheel…
What might happen if you were to steel your nerve and stay on the HS Path?
I guessssssss, something could actually grow out of it, which would be soul-satisfying and eventually economically viable – if I stayed with it.
Given that life is fleeting, and getting better at choosing the Higher Self path at ‘forks in the road’ is a key skill, what can you do to harness the knowing you shared above?
Maybe I could assess some of my projects. I would just need to work with this formula:
- Who gets helped in this project?
-
- Me => Ego Path project
- Others => Higher Self Path project
-
How do I resolve my concerns about money then?
By asking for the money you need, for the work you are meant to do.
What work am I meant to do?
Casework: by this is meant, the healing work of your profession, directly not just ‘indirectly by teaching the skills to others’. You long to help others and for now you are seeking to do so by training others in your professional skills, but in doing so you are left uncertain as to whether your teaching actually has the least impact on those who need it. It does, but you have absolutely no way of knowing this because you never see your trainees again, so you are left with a data vacuum which ultimately stops you getting the ‘satisfaction’ of service to others.
That makes sense. The thing I like about casework is that I need to get into a very centred state to be able to undertake it. It’s a state that nourishes my being. I feel very connected to the person. With my training, on the other hand, I often feel I am performing, jazz-handing and impressing… It exhausts me as I make my impression by chucking louche at the trainees… 🙁
Softly, dear soul… Softly. Your thinking about casework is all that was needed for today. As for your remembrance of the ‘very centred state’ you harness for casework – know that that same state is the state of nature that we described earlier. When you commune 1:1 with your client, you are the tree in the forest, the flower in the garden, the bird on the telegraph pole. That is all. Settle into a focus on casework. That is all. That is your Higher Self Path. Let the Higher Self work out the finances in due course. Your role? To stay on the path when the money doubts creep in. We’ve got you. Cleave to the path which leads forward.
So, settle into the Higher Self Path work – casework. I can do that. And I can finally market it as well. I know I can. I must be brave and trust.
You are held.
I am settling into a focus on 1:1 casework.
I am recognising the Ego’s Path is always circular.
I am following the path of my higher self which feels under-the-radar, but could actually progress if I stayed on it.
I am focussing on my Higher Self’s Path