permission of the publisher.
Ego: A Lousy Guide to Relationship
by Carolyn Godschild Miller, Ph.D.
Carolyn Godschild Miller, Ph.D.If you are to utilize guidance to find a soulmate, the first thing you need to do is learn to tell the difference between the voice of your inner teacher and that of your ego. This is not really difficult, since your guide and your ego espouse entirely different thought systems. Indeed, cultures throughout the world seem to resonate with the idea that there is a high-minded influence within us that argues in favor of love, humility, and forgiveness, and that it is opposed by another that urges us to be egotistical, selfish, and judgmental. The cartoons of my childhood, for example, depicted what I am calling ego as a little red devil whispering malicious advice into a character's left ear, while a winged and haloed angel representing guidance spoke words of generosity and tolerance in the other.
Guide's Thinking Differs from Ego's
The simplest way to explain the difference between your guide's perspective and that of your ego is to say that the former believes that love is real and fear is not, while the latter believes that fear is real and love is not. It may surprise you to learn that your ego doesn't believe that love really exists, but it's true. Just think! When you allow your ego to direct your search for love, you are actually asking the only thing in the universe that doesn't know what love is, to find it for you. Talk about letting the inmates run the asylum!
How is it that our false self knows nothing about love? Well, that's the way we designed it. From a metaphysical perspective, the human mind invents an ego for the purpose of making love seem unreal.
And just why would we want to do such a silly thing? A number of spiritual traditions suggest that it is because God is love. They say we wanted to forget about our Creator for a while, so that we could play at being creators ourselves. And since everything that God creates is a perfect reflection of divine love, the only way we could generate an experience that would be uniquely our own was to make up an imperfect world where love's opposite -- fear -- would appear to rule. Thus, fear is our own original contribution to an otherwise loving universe.
The ego's problem is that any experience of love, however attenuated, threatens to trigger our memory of reality, and spoil the game we came here to play. Its job is to make sure that doesn't happen. Thus, we might compare the ego to the weight belt a scuba diver dons to counteract her natural buoyancy. If a diver took off her weight belt, she would quickly bob back up to the surface. If you and I released identification with our ego, we would quickly bob back up into reality; where it would be apparent that love is everywhere. As long as we prefer to remain immersed in frightening illusions, our ego is necessary to filter every trace of love out of our perceptions -- no mean feat in a universe made entirely of love!
The fact is that whenever we genuinely care for anyone, we do bob back into reality, although usually only briefly. That's why being in love is so heavenly! It's like an all-expenses-paid vacation from fear. Our ego has to be extremely vigilant to nip this sort of thing in the bud. It knows very well that once we start loving, there is no telling where it might end. Today your dog or cat -- tomorrow the world!
Why Egos Seek Love
You'd think that if our false self is so intent upon preventing us from experiencing love, it would actively discourage our search for it, but this is not the case. Our ego doesn't just warn us not to trust those who care for us; it also inveighs against the horrors of a lonely old age. Indeed, far from being indifferent to love, our false self often seems almost obsessively concerned with finding it. To hear our ego tell it, no real happiness is possible in life until we unite with that "special someone" who alone can validate our worth, give meaning to our lives, and solve all our earthly problems.
What we need to understand is that our ego knows perfectly well that love is the only thing we really want or need. This leaves it with no alternative but to become embroiled in our search for a soulmate. If it said what it thinks -- that love doesn't really exist, and only fear is real -- we would very quickly see the absurdity of searching for fulfillment within a loveless illusion. At that point, our ego's whole world of distressing possibilities would be canceled for lack of interest -- and our ego along with it!
No, our false self can't induce us to remain in illusion by ignoring our desire for love. None of us is so deluded that we'd put up with that! So instead, it carries out its mission by offering to show us how to find love, and then making sure that we never do. Like a carnival scam artist, our ego assures us that there is no reason for us not to win the romantic jackpot on our very next try. But somehow it never seems to work out that way. There is actually no "danger" at all of finding a soulmate as long as we play the game by our ego's rules.
How can our false self guarantee that we will not stumble upon true love despite its interference? It can't. But what it can do is make it very difficult for us to recognize what we've found. Egos render love "invisible" in much the same way Siegfried and Roy make tigers disappear on stage in Las Vegas -- through the skillful misdirection of attention. First our false self reassigns the name "love" to something that poses no threat to it, and then it keeps us so busy searching for the wrong thing that we wouldn't notice the right one, even if we tripped over it.
I'll say more about the love substitute our ego keeps us searching for, but for now, let me just call it conditional love or infatuation. When your ego offers to help you find "love," it doesn't mean real love -- the unconditional kind that fills you, and those around you, with lasting joy and satisfaction. To find that kind of love you'd have to abandon your ego and relate only with your soul. No, the kind of love your ego has in mind for you is something quite different. Once you've become deeply embroiled in the search for it, your gaze will pass right over the real thing without a glimmer of recognition.
You see, the human romantic dilemma isn't that true love is so very hard to find, but that it is too ordinary to withstand comparison with the exotic illusions our ego offers in its place. In the same way that diamonds seem precious while the pure water we need in order to survive doesn't, we take love for granted and strain after the impossibly beautiful substitute our ego offers in its stead. Infatuation ravishes our senses, and seems to promise gratification beyond our wildest dreams. Unfortunately, when we mistake it for the genuine article, we slowly starve for love even as we seem to gorge ourselves on it.
Real love is actually a pretty pedestrian affair, characterized by simple virtues like patience, forgiveness, tolerance, humor, gentleness, empathy, tact, honesty, discipline, and practical support. It is not heralded by a state of breathless exaltation, but by a sense of peaceful contentment. Chances are you've had many opportunities in your life for "true love" that you passed up without a backward glance.
The "Special" Relationship
A Course in Miracles contrasts the special relationship -- which is based upon infatuation -- with the holy relationship, which is grounded in real love. Special relationships are all about how love is supposed to be. In pursuit of them, we do our best to achieve a union where everything looks perfect, regardless of the way it feels.
The ego's fantasy of "special love" involves a partner so obviously desirable that he or she reflects glory on us every time we are seen together. A suitably romantic courtship, during which both parties do a flawless portrayal of people in love, culminates in a fairy-tale perfect wedding. Then the lucky couple goes off to live happily ever after in the local equivalent of a palace, producing beautiful, trouble-free, high-achieving children, who reflect well on their parents. It will all be just perfect -- as long as everyone does their damndest to keep up appearances.
Unfortunately, concern with the outward appearance of a relationship always comes at the expense of content. It is exhausting to hold a pose for five minutes, much less a lifetime, and however "perfect" special relationships look from the outside, they leave the participants feeling empty and alone. Both know that they are valued only for the act they can put on, and that any attempt to reveal their true selves will be regarded as a breach of contract. As the Course points out, the special relationship is a very impressive frame, but the picture it holds is dark and depressing.
Holy relationships (think wholesome relationships if you find the religious connotation off-putting) are achieved only when we forget about the frame (the way our union appears to others, all the social and material advantages it does or doesn't offer), and focus instead upon content (the glorious way it feels to be with someone we truly enjoy). The holy relationships soulmates work to create don't necessarily look like anything out of the ordinary. Your friends aren't going to drop dead with envy when you walk into a room on the arm of a man or woman whose chief appeal lies is the fact that he or she really understands who you are, shares your enthusiasms, and enjoys hanging out with you. But being with such a person feels marvelous! You can finally stop smiling for the camera, let your belt out a notch or two, and be yourself.
Are you beginning to see what I mean about real love being too ordinary to compete with our ego's dreams of achieving glory through the conquest of a very special partner? In interviewing couples for this book, I've been repeatedly struck by the way people seem to reserve hyperbole for individuals who appeal to their egos. When soulmates describe their early impressions of each other, "nice" is the adjective that crops up most frequently. Nice feels awfully good, but it is of no use whatsoever to our ego in its quest for glory.
In closing, I'd like to point out one other interesting feature of soulmate relationships -- the way everything else seems to fall into place once we make love our first priority. The Bible says, "Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, and all else shall be added unto you." The literal truth of this statement is repeatedly demonstrated in soulmate unions where someone gives up "everything" for love, and then winds up getting it all anyway. Karen, for example, thought she needed a man who was rich and successful. By choosing to love and marry her soulmate, despite the fact that he was poor and unsuccessful, that's exactly what she got. Invest in the picture that brings you joy, and the universe may just throw in the frame for free!
GUIDELINES FOR ACTUALIZING A SOULMATE RELATIONSHIP
1. Look for the sort of person you'd want as a best friend even if you weren't attracted to her or him sexually.
2. Don't cultivate a relationship with someone "superior" whose love appears to "elevate" you in some way, but with an equal you enjoy.
3. Remember that your soul won't be satisfied with anything less than true love. Accept no substitutes!
About The Author
Carolyn Miller has been a licensed clinical psychologist since 1984 with a thriving practice in Los Angeles. She is the author of Creating Miracles: Understanding the Experience of Divine Intervention and Soulmates: Following Inner Guidance to the Relationship of Your Dreams. Dr. Miller, along with her soulmate and husband, Arnold Weiss, Ph.D., are founding directors of the Los Angeles-based Foundation and Institute for the Study of A Course in Miracles, a nonprofit organization dedicated to spiritual psychotherapy and education.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*One Day At A Time*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
We think in affirmations all the time:
- I don't want to be fat.
- I don't want to be broke.
- I don't want to be old.
- I don't want to live here.
- I don't want to have this relationship.
- I don't want to be like my mother/father.
- I don't want to be stuck in this job.
- I don't want to have this hair/nose/body.
- I don't want to be lonely.
- I don't want to be unhappy.
- I don't want to be sick.
This shows how we are culturally taught to fight the negative
mentality, thinking that if we do so, the positive will automatically
come to us. It doesn't work that way.
Let's turn the above negative affirmations into positive affirmations:
- I am slender.
- I am prosperous.
- I am eternally young.
- I now move to a better place.
- I have a wonderful new relationship.
- I am my own person.
- I love my hair/nose/body.
- I am filled with love and affection.
- I am joyous and happy and free.
- I am totally healthy.
Think thoughts that make you happy. Do things that make you feel good.
Be with people who make you feel good. Eat things that make your body
feel good. Go at a pace that makes you feel good.
Think for a moment of a tomato plant. A healthy plant can have over a
hundred tomatoes on it. In order to get this tomato plant with all these
tomatoes on it, we need to start with a small dried seed. That seed
doesn't look like a tomato plant. It sure doesn't taste like a tomato
plant. If you didn't know for sure, you would not even believe it could be
a tomato plant. However, let's say you plant this seed in fertile soil, and
you water it and let the sun shine on it.
When the first little tiny shoot comes up, you don't stomp on it and say:
That's not a tomato plant. Rather, you look at it and say: Oh, boy! Here
it comes, and you watch it grow with delight. In time, if you continue to
water it and give it lots of sunshine and pull away any weeds, you might
have a tomato plant with more than a hundred luscious tomatoes. It all
began with that one tiny seed.
It is the same with creating a new experience for yourself. The soil you
plant in is your subconscious mind. The seed is the new affirmation. The
whole new experience is in this tiny seed. You water it with affirmations.
You let the sunshine of positive thoughts beam on it. You weed the garden
by pulling out the negative thoughts that come up. And when you first see
the tiniest little evidence, you don't stomp on it and say: That's not
enough! Instead, you look at this first breakthrough and exclaim with glee:
Oh, boy! Here it comes! It's working!
Louise Hay believes that we create every so-called illness in our body.
The body, like everything else in life, is a mirror of our inner thoughts
and beliefs. The body is always talking to us, if we will only take the
time
to listen. Every cell within your body responds to every single thought
you think and every word you speak.
Continuous modes of thinking and speaking produce body behaviors and
postures and eases or dis-eases. The person who has a permanently
scowling face did not produce that by having joyous loving thoughts.
Older people's faces and bodies show so clearly a life time of thinking
patterns. How will you look when you are elderly?
From the most beautiful work of Louise L. Hay and the book, You Can Heal
Your Life ... Visit her site for more of her work at Hay House.
http://www.hayhouse.com/~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*First Things First*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Talk to Me
Talk to me, gentle voice within.
I'm listening for your guidance,
the message that you bring.
Talk to me, when my heart is sad and blue.
Give me words of comfort,
so I can be renewed.
Talk to me, whisper in my ear.
Softly tell me what to do,
Quietly, I wait to hear.
Talk to me, when it's time for me to decide.
Intuition is your gentle voice,
guiding me from inside.
Talk to me, I'm looking for the Truth.
I know the path You lead me to
is blessed and sure and good.
Virginia Santoro, Copyright 2000
Morning...@aol.com~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*Easy Does It*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The A.C.O.A. (Adult Children Of Alcoholic) "Laundry List"
These are some characteristics we seem to have in common due to being
brought up in an alcoholic household.
a. We became isolated and afraid of people and authority figures.
b. We became approval seekers and lost our identity in the process.
c. We are frightened by angry people and any personal criticism.
d. We either become alcoholics, marry them, or both, or find another
compulsive personality such as a workaholic to fulfill our sick
abandonment needs.
e. We live life from the viewpoint of victims and are attracted by that
weakness in our love and friendship relationships.
f. We have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility and it is easier for us
to be concerned with others rather than ourselves. This enables us not
to look too closely at our own faults.
g. We get guilt feelings when we stand up for ourselves instead of giving
in to others.
h. We become addicted to excitement.
i. We confuse love with pity and tend to "love" people who we can "pity"
and "rescue".
j. We have stuffed our feelings from our traumatic childhoods and have lost
the ability to feel or express our feelings because it hurts so much
(denial).
k. We judge ourselves harshly and have a very low sense of self-esteem.
l. We are dependent personalities who are terrified of abandonment and will
do anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to experience
painful abandonment feelings which we received from living with sick
people who were never there emotionally for us.
m. Alcoholism is a family disease and we became para-alcoholics and took on
the characteristics of the disease even though we did not pick up the
drink.
n. Para-alcoholics are reactors rather than actors.
(Adapted version) Tony A., 1977
Reprinted from WSO Newcomer, Page 2, with
permission from Adult Children of Alcoholics,
World Service Organization, P.O. Box 3216,
Torrance, CA 90510 310/ 534-1815.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*Live And Let Live*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
This Too Shall Pass
Patience is a virtue, and virtues have power
Recovery by the minute, sometimes by the hour
Remember your farewell letter, it said goodbye
Still you are longing for the ritualistic high
Although it can be a pain in the ass
Just remember… this too shall pass
Don't forget to remember the lie
The one that said it’s OK to die
All to lose…. for a perishing gain
At least in recovery it’s a growing pain
You’re not going insane, you’re getting sane
Adjustments to a slower lane
When your mind’s fragile as spun glass
Rest assured this too shall pass
Don't forget to remember the lie
The one that says it’s OK to die
Embrace the fact, it’s time to grow
If you never try you’ll never know
If your energy’s spent and your out of gas
Rest and remember, this too shall pass
Tell the disease to take a hike
Say not today, I’m on strike
Don't listen to the lies from the snake in the grass
The truth is this too shall pass
Don't forget to remember the lie
The one that says it’s OK to die
Soon the time will come alas
When you say “It’s true this all did pass”
Mark Thomas Spitler
March 20th 1997 ©
{Printed with Permission}
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*Keep The Focus On You*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Each person comes into this world with a specific destiny--
he has something to fulfill,
some message has to be delivered,
some work has to be completed.
You are not here accidentally--
you are here meaningfully.
There is a purpose behind you.
The whole intends to do something through you.
Osho
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*Let God and Let Go*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Angels can unleash hurricanes of healing,
release tidal waves of love,
move whole mountains of hatred,
melt icebergs of jealousy,
and evaporate oceans of pain.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*Come*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Angels don't disappear
even if you pretend they don't exist.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*Come To*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Angels at work - prepare for random miracles.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*Come To Believe*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*Look For The Beauty*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Love is a decision.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*Today Is A Gift*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Love does not dominate,
it cultivates.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*Keep Stepping*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Love is not a feeling, love is a behavior.
When I say that I love you......
I behave like I love you.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*Stay In The Light*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The act of love
can never be misunderstood.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*Take A Moment To GIVE (NO COST)*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
FREE Click to GIVE @ to STOP Violence Against Women
FREE Click to GIVE @ Help people in Haiti
FREE Click to GIVE RiceFREE Click to GIVE @ the STOP HIV SiteFREE Click to GIVE @ the Hunger SiteFREE Click to GIVE @ the Breast Cancer SiteFREE Click to GIVE @ the Rain Forest SiteFREE Click to GIVE @ the Animal Rescue SiteFREE Click to GIVE @ the Children in NeedFREE Click to GIVE @ to Save Our Oceans
Track Your Impact in GIVING
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*One Promise, Many Gifts*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
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~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*@¿@*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
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YOUn...@gmail.com == == "we are each of us angels
<^\()/\()/^> with but one wing,
\/ \/ \/ and can only fly by
/ \/ \ embracing each other"
`""``""`
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