Everyone wants to love and be loved.
Your ego is no different. But the ego has a harder time finding love because it’s confused about what love is and where love comes from.
From its first whiff of love, the ego assumes love comes from outside. The ego sets off looking for more, and fears losing the love it has. So to the ego, love is deeply intertwined with fear.
That fear thing makes it hard for the ego to release deeply into love, and easy for ego to come up with lots of reasons why it — and you — are unlovable and will be rejected once truly seen. And thus self-loathing is born.
Sound familiar?
Not just for fairy tales
You know the part in the fairy tale when kissing the frog reveals him as the prince he’s always been?
What if your ego were like that prince (or princess)?
What if you dared to love your ego, just as it is? Yes, it takes great courage, but if you dare to truly love your ego with full awareness of all the reasons you now despise or deny it, you’ve essentially kissed the frog, and you know what happens then. You experience your own glorious essence playing as yourself — ego and all.
Transforming your relationship to ego
Try it. The next time you notice self revulsion rising, don’t distract yourself. Instead, relax into its presence.
But instead of diving into the feeling, stay present as the witness, the one who is experiencing the feeling.
When you feel the desire to love and be loved that gives rise to self-revulsion (which is the assumption that you are not lovable), settle into that desire to love and be loved, to be good, to be valued, to be whole.
Allow your desire for love to permeate your awareness and, in the depths of that longing, you’ll come to know that you are not simply loved, but love itself.
Why not give it a try? After all, what have you got to lose? Not love, and not your ego, just your confusion about them.
