How to Tell the Difference Between Your True Self and Your Everyday Self

It's important to be yourself. We're all told that, and it's true—we know the damage done by being false to ourselves and to others. But I'd like to suggest that to "be yourself" goes much deeper. Most people don't know how much wisdom and power resides in the self, which is not the everyday self that gets mixed up with all the business of life, but a deeper self, which I call, for simplicity's sake, the true self.

The true self isn't a familiar term to most people, although it is close to what religion calls your soul, the purest part of yourself. But religion depends upon faith, and that's not the issue here. You can actually test if you have such a true self. How? You know that sugar is sweet because you can taste it. Likewise, the true self has certain qualities that belong to it the way sweetness belongs to sugar. If you can experience these qualities, repeat them, learn to cultivate them and finally make them a natural part of yourself, the true self has come to life.

The trick is distinguishing what is your true self and what is not. If we had a switch that could turn off the everyday self and turn on the true self, matters would be much simpler. But human nature is divided. There are moments when you feel secure, accepted, peaceful and certain. At those moments, you are experiencing the true self. At other moments, you experience the opposite, and then you are in the grip of the everyday self, or the ego-self. The trouble is that both sides are convincing. When you feel overwhelmed by stress, crisis, doubts and insecurity, the true self might as well not exist. You are experiencing a different reality colored by the state of your mind.

At those dark, tough moments, try to get some outside perspective about what is happening. The qualities of the everyday self and the true self are actually very different:

1. The true self is certain and clear about things. The everyday self gets influenced by countless outside influences, leading to confusion.

2. The true self is stable. The everyday self shifts constantly.

3. The true self is driven by a deep sense of truth. The everyday self is driven by the ego, the unending demands of "I, me, mine."

4. The true self is at peace. The everyday self is easily agitated and disturbed.

5. The true self is love. The everyday self, lacking love, seeks it from outside sources.


7 Steps to Forgiving Yourself (or Anyone Else)

1. Responsibility

Tell yourself you will no longer assign blame for the action.

2. Feeling

Recall what the incident felt like at the time. Feel it in your body.

3. Labeling

Put an emotion to that feeling. Was it anger? Fear? Sadness?

4. Expressing

Write down what happened in the incident in the first person, then write it down as the other person. Finally, write it down as an objective 3rd person.

5. Sharing

Look at the person next to you and share your story, or share it with someone you trust.

6. Releasing

Tear (or burn) up that paper.

7. Celebrating

Stand up and celebrate the release. Maybe do a little dance.


Follow Your Spiritual Path.

There are natural stages of life and activities that suit each one:

Infancy: a dependent time, the basic needs being love, protection and nurturing

Childhood: a growing time, the basic needs being to playing, learning and physical growth

Adolescence: a transitional time, the basic needs being self-development, adapting to society and relationships outside the family

Early adulthood: a time for independence, the basic needs being deeper learning, acquiring an identity and deciding on a career

Middle adulthood: a time for increasing responsibility, the basic needs being for solid achievement, a secure family and social duty

Maturity: a time for wholeness, the basic need being to merge inner and outer life

Fulfillment: a time for wisdom, the basic need being to reconcile the deepest questions about life and death.

Get Over Your Negative Mind-set.

Any negativity in the mind must be worked through. The following stages are involved:
You face the negativity without shrinking or cringing.
You listen to what the negativity wants to tell you. You assess what you hear.
You get to the stage where you understand and at the same time feel what is inside you.
You send the negativity away and resolve it.
You atone with others as needed.
You celebrate and accept a self that no longer needs this particular bit of negativity.


Make Better Relationship Choices.

Certain obstacles are hindering you, and the list is fairly long:

Wanting to fulfill a fantasy.

Denying what is before your eyes.

Trying to reinforce a cherished self-image.

Buying into beliefs that don't fit reality.

Stubbornly insisting that your way is the right way.

Depending on others too much, or the opposite, trying to control others too much.

Acting immaturely.

Imitating your parents' relationship or the opposite, trying to have the opposite of their relationship.

Repeating the past because you distrust the future.

Projecting on to others what you cannot face inside yourself.

These are the big 10 ideas to keep in mind when it comes to relationships that repeatedly fail by falling into the same repetitive problems.

Emotional Energy Centers of the Body

What Consciousness Is

Here is a simple way to think about consciousness:

Imagine holding a four inch length of electrical wire in your hand. Picture about an inch of the outer coating stripped away so that you can clearly see all of its components at a glance: the metal, any insulating material between the metal and the outer cover, and the outer cover itself.

Consciousness is every component of the wire and every aspect of its manufacture. It is the elements that evolved into the base metal; it is all of the knowledge that went into designing and building the machines that dug and hauled the metal and that is used in the wire factory; it is the science of metallurgy; it is the human intelligence that put this all together; and it is the current that flows over the wire once it is put into use. (Of course, it is also the “you” who is reading and thinking about this piece.)

You get the idea. The point is that consciousness is everything and everything is consciousness. It is the physical, the mental and the spiritual. And from an evolutionary perspective, because the physical predates the mental, and both of these are necessary to perceive the spiritual, the common conception of “spiritual” consciousness being somehow superior to the others is just not correct.

It is my hope that having a more unified idea about what consciousness is will add to everyone’s appreciation of how the universe is put together and what it means that we are all one.

Living Like a Window

There are several ways of describing and prescribing escaping the pull of Ego and the self that have been popular over the years. One that we use to epitomize gracefully letting life take its course is “going with the flow.” To go with the flow means not fighting the inevitable and always attempting to be at peace with the way things happen to be.

      Thus, when you encounter someone who seems to be just living life without overly planning it or trying to control the outcome of a lot of it, you might describe him or her as “going with the flow.”

     A somewhat more religious version of this attitude is “let go and let God.” This phrase suggests eliminating any attempts at controlling circumstances by allowing a more powerful being to take over. Since you cannot literally hand your cares to anyone, this phrase mainly requires just what the previous one does, which is to relax your conscious grip on things that seem beyond you and trust that you will be cared for.

     A comparable popular Asian expression of the letting-go sentiment that is fairly unfamiliar to westerners is “wei wu wei,” which translates as “doing not-doing.” This phrase refers to the practice of being so elegantly at-one with whatever it is you are involved with that it seems as effortless as just laying back and being still. As with going with the flow or turning things over to a higher power, the serenity implied in such a way of being is compelling.

     One more way of describing mentally stepping away from trying to be in control that may sum up what the effect of all such efforts might look like is the reflection “deeds are done, yet no doer can be found.” With this, the actor disappears in the action so that the outcome appears to have achieved itself. Such an experience is one that a participant may be aware of afterward as if coming out of a trance to discover that a certain feat has been accomplished and asking, “Was that me doing that?”

     In a sense, even if none of them actually recognize it, each of these phrases represents a prescription for disconnecting with Ego and suspending the self so that the evolutionary progression of awareness is unhindered. As all of them have great appeal to anyone who seeks a more peaceful way to go, any of them would make a great bumper sticker or would rate a place on the refrigerator door as a daily reminder of changing one’s approach to life.

     But, in truth, even with the best of intentions, for most of us a concept such as really letting go or doing not-doing represents an elusive ideal. There are two important reasons for this. One is that, like sound bites, they all contain an important truth in a compressed and manageable form which makes it seem familiar and eminently accessible.

     However, regardless of being able to handily bounce them around in our minds or in conversations about becoming mellower, they are not so readily transferred into action. As with most popular prescriptions, there are no instructions included. While it may seem as natural as falling asleep, if you really stop to consider it, there is nothing easy about visualizing the merger of deed and doer much less really turning our lives over to another being to sort out.

     The second reason is that an instruction such as “just let go” is basically at odds with Ego, and is therefore the target of all manner of resistance. Ego’s job is affirming and perpetuating the existence of the self. Therefore, it is only comfortable when it is running the whole show. If it had a slogan it would certainly be “let go and let Ego,” which means that, until we are really conscious of its workings, we are more likely to be in its control while thinking that we have control.

     There is something called the “wing-walkers’ axiom” that cautions: do not let go of what you are holding onto until you are holding onto something else. This is how Ego normally works. It just seems naturally unwise for us to not try to have control. So, when we do try to just give things over our minds fill with distracting thoughts and fears and what-ifs, and we find that as soon as we try to back away from one concern, we seem to latch onto another.

     Therefore, we find it hard not to watch the news, or check the weather. We keep praying that we receive help and release. We light candles and say incantations. We feel eerily superstitious about maintaining rituals and routines. We check and recheck, plan and go over the plans again. We resist delegating even when it would be more efficient.

     In the end, the basic functioning of the self makes truly letting go the most demanding of tasks. And there is a hidden irony, which is that the act of letting go keeps control where it has always been: we are the ones who control giving up control.

     We are in charge of the “letting” in the letting go. Even doing not-doing suggests the action of engaging in a process. And as we have seen, any supernatural being that we imagine who might take charge is also a function of Ego. We are trying to make something happen that really needs to just happen all on its own.

     The instruction to “live like a window” is a step up from all of these approaches. A window is simply an opening through which things flow. With glass in place, light, color, and all other visual phenomena pass. With glass removed, potentially anything can pass. Whatever might be present will just go by on its own.

    Living like a window is perfectly attuned to the evolution of consciousness. It allows the practitioner to separate from the grip of Ego in a manner that does not set off its alarms or cause it to automatically institute countermeasures. This is because there is no direct assault on Ego; in fact, there is no potentially disturbing activity of any kind at all.

     Being window-like allows the self to continue completely unchanged. It uses the self and Ego as contextual elements to play off of as a means to further growth.

     Window-ness suggests continuous, unimpeded movement; what happens to come our way is free to transit through. To live like a window means allowing the “flow” to pass through you. No having to let go; no turning things over to anyone; no doing anything. You are just an opening through which all things stream.

     The practitioner is free to participate fully in life while his or her conscious awareness remains independent of all activity.

(Adapted from “Live Like a Window, Work Like a MIrror: Enlightenment and the Practice of Eternity Consciousness”)