3: Beyond the Rat Race: Demystifying the Ego Pt. 1

In this episode of The Miracle Path, hosts Julie and Kylie demystify the ego as an activity of "loveless chatter" stemming from a belief in separation from God. They explore the ego's reliance on lack, attachments, and the illusion of control. Through personal stories of overcoming identities tied to careers and alcohol, the hosts show how awareness and faith liberate individuals from the "rat race" of seeking external fulfillment.

The Three Beliefs of the Ego: A Sufferer's Guide to Freedom

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the Miracle Path podcast. I'm Julie here with my beautiful co-host, Kylie. So happy to be with you today. We have an amazing conversation in the works all about one of our favorite topics, the ego. And it's one of those topics that really needs to be talked about because there's so much that people don't know about the ego. And once you really start getting into it, it is so clarifying. It is so relieving to know a lot of these things. And it's really just such an important topic to be talking about. So welcome. We are so happy you're here. It is a beautiful day. I am sitting here with my sweet baby.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Our new first guest.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Our first listener, our first guest. Yes. She might she might make a few uh coups or maybe even a cry, but we're hoping she stays sleeping for the remainder of this podcast. But just so blessed. I have my sweet baby girl Adelina. She was born about two and a half weeks ago at the end of January, and life has been such a whirlwind, but I really have been realizing the beauty of God, of creation, of motherhood, of being a newborn, you know. I've I'm first hand seeing what it's like to be a little little newborn in this crazy world, and just how blessed I am. So it's really been nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Thank you for sharing that. And one thing that I just am curious, because you have such a strong foundation in who you are and all of the work that you've done, and including this ego work that we're gonna talk about. I mean, like, how do you think you would be in this new stage without this awareness?

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Whoa, that is such a good question. Now that I know what this is like, because postpartum is very, very multi-dimensional.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

Yeah, it's a big topic.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

It's it's wild. And I kept telling my husband Dan that I was asking him this morning, you know, do you do you think that all the people who say, oh, having a new baby is so hard, like do you agree with them? And it's just really like you cannot know what it's like to have a new baby until you're experiencing it for yourself. So no matter what people have told you, no matter what you've read, no matter what you've tried to educate yourself on, those are all really important. But until you're experiencing it firsthand, you can't know what it's like. And so I'm just so grateful to have this faith. I will say that's the one thing that I'm just super blessed for, especially because I have an amazing support system. My husband is amazing, my family is amazing, my parents have been over a few times already, my sisters have been over. Uh, we've had neighbors come bring us food. We've had so much support over these last two weeks. It's been amazing. But when I think about all the times that I'm up at 3 a.m. and she's wailing, or the other day she was having a really fussy day and just would not sleep, what is the thing I continue to fall back on is my faith. And just being able to say, God, help me in this moment. I trust you, God. I know that you are helping me. I know that you will help my baby is huge. It's absolutely 100% huge. And I will mention to the labor when I was in labor, there was a point in the labor where I was really scared. I was super scared that she was, her heart rate was dropping, and I was scared I might have a C-section. And I just didn't know how things were gonna play out. About, you know, a couple, I would say about 10 hours into labor, I was really nervous. And thankfully, my two, my mom and my mother-in-law are both very religious and faithful and spiritual women. And they just told me to trust in God. Trust in God, that's all you can do. And I remember thinking, okay, God, I'm just gonna completely trust you. And two hours later, she arrived and was completely healthy and everything was great. I pushed maybe two times, two, three times, and she was out. And I just feel so blessed, and to really experience that faith. Um, that faith coming, you know, making a difference. So yeah. So it's really I so important, my faith. My just relaxing into knowing this is God's plan. I'm not in control, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:45

He is, yeah, that certainty that you have.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Oh, yeah, it feels so good.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

Yeah, it's amazing. And um, wow, what a blessing that you have family members like that in your corner.

SPEAKER_00 5:57

My gosh, such a blessing. It's it's really it's so amazing to see this happen, you know, and feel the love. Truly feel the love.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

And you reached out in that process, I remember, and you texted me and you were like, prayers, please.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

And it's just like we need to know that it's okay to ask our friends, people that we love for prayers. It works.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Thank you for saying that. Prayer is so powerful.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

That's a whole nother topic.

SPEAKER_00 6:37

That is a whole nother, babe. Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, today though, we are talking about the ego. So we're gonna switch gears a little bit. Yeah, and I do have some questions for our listeners as we kind of get started, because as I mentioned before, there's a lot of different facets to the ego, and we're gonna get into most of them today. This is gonna be a part one episode. So this is part one of demystifying the ego. We will come back for part two, but I want to get us started thinking about some questions that I wonder if our listeners have ever experienced, because I know I have experienced them in my life. Questions like, why am I like this? Why do I feel this way? What's the point of this? What's the purpose of my suffering? Why am I feeling out of control? Why why do these thoughts reign over me? Why does nobody like me? You know, why does nothing ever go my way? These are all really common human thoughts that are rooted in something we call the ego. So, Kylie, what can you kind of tell us about how to understand this concept?

SPEAKER_01 8:09

Yeah, and before we get into it, we both read uh three beliefs of the ego of the ego, and that's written by Aaron Abkey. And a lot of his concepts that he shared was inspired um to this podcast, and we're just navigating it because I I find that before I read this book, and of course, in miracles also talks about ego, like almost every page it's brought up. And I appreciate because I find that when we don't have an understanding of a concept of a thing, then we engage with it improperly. And it's almost like I don't want to say a waste of time, but when we have an understanding of something, then we can take on and learn and grow from it. And I think a good start would be to talk about definitions of ego. So here are some few definitions, and Julie, if you had to add any, feel free. Um, so here's a few.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

Yes, I remember in a return to love, I think by Marianne Williamson, she did mention that we have we have this like constant uh narrative, like you just said, but that's not normal. That's not that's not our true self. So I definitely related to that too.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

Right. And it's loveless chatter. I love that definition. Um, somebody special told me uh edging God out is ego, and that was profound for me. And the fact that it's not a noun, it's a verb, it's this narrative, it's a chatter. Um, so a lot of people that I've talked to, some I was lucky enough where, well, this is just my perspective. I didn't grow up with the conversation or labeling ego as like the devil, and I hear that a lot, and that can be, I think, detrimental to some people because if you just reframe it and you rename it to ego, it can feel less scary. And I find that just calling it what it is, which personally ego, and the fact that it's just a verb, it's just an activity, it's not a thing. However, it's something that I can't like remove from me. Like I it's just a part of our human experience. And it's there for a reason. So, you know, we can either subscribe to whatever ego says, that activity, that loveless narrative, and subscribe to that, or we can disengage through awareness. Say, I hear you, but I know that's not real. Yes, huge. Yeah, and a Course in Miracles says it's a thought system based on the belief in separation. And the question, another question that I think is important is um, why do we have ego? And again, it's it's we wouldn't have a concept of growth or spirituality at all if we didn't have it. I think we would, if we didn't have ego, we'd be walking around probably in bliss. Um we wouldn't have a concept of of struggle. Um, we wouldn't feel joy. It would just be a it would just be a different human experience.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

It it would be bliss, but we wouldn't know it was bliss. Yes, it was bliss, yeah. Yes, so Aaron Abkey, Aaron Abkey does a good job in explaining uh in the three beliefs of the ego, he does a good job in explaining that the ego is not necessarily something bad. It is something that, like you said, we need to recognize and be conscious of so that we can engage with effectively. But it is the way that we can experience, like you said, total love because we can know the opposite side of that is engaging with the ego and being completely depressed and sad. So it's like, which way are you going to engage with this verb, this this piece of yourself on a day-to-day basis?

SPEAKER_01 13:26

Right, right. And a big part of the book, obviously, it's called The Three Beliefs of the Ego. So, ego, just like anything, we operate in a way because we have a certain belief that we believe in, and so our actions align with our beliefs. Same with ego. So the ego operates on um a different set of beliefs, and he nailed it down to three. Um, number one, lack. I pretty much it operates on I am incomplete. So that not enoughness, that unworthiness, that feeling of missing out on something, like something is missing. That's a belief of the ego, another one. Attachments. So my happiness depends on outcomes. So once I get this, once I get this relationship, once I have this house, then I will be happy.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

Once I have this baby, yeah, a lot, a lot of people feel that way.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Yeah. And it's really you're agreeing to outside solutions for an inside problem. And then the third one is the belief of control. So your ego says, I am in control. I'm the one that made this happen. I'm the one that created this. And so it's a belief of personal doership.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

And I'm the only one that can fix this, right?

SPEAKER_01 15:14

And when you really think about it, like it doesn't even actually make sense because so many things had to line up prior to for that to take place. And so this is a big one that people think like ego is like the like a big, big self sense of self. And and yeah, that's that's a a belief that is really hard to um translate and understand, but that's ego. And he has this beautiful quote. Let me end on this. Um please the belief in lack always leads to personal desires, which always becomes attachments, and those attachments always lead to the need for control to acquire and protect them. And one of the concepts that I've heard, and it wasn't from this book, but it was about which you know, you it experiences kind of firsthand from a different perspective. So when we are coming out of a womb as infants, our first emotion, and a lot of people say this, I don't know, I wasn't there. Um, that the babies cry. And so their first experience quite literally is separation. So that first emotion that they feel as a as a human coming out of the womb is fear. And that's to me, I'm like, oh, that's when the ego is developed. It's that first belief of separation, quite literally.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

And the cry is how you know that the baby's alive, right? So, what were we talking about earlier? Ego is a part of us, it's not a bad part of us, but it is a part of us. And exactly when when the baby is taken out of their cozy, comfy, you know, womb where they were warm and taken care of and into this world that's cold, and you know, just lots of input and stimuli, how could you not feel separated? Right. But the beauty is that she has two loving parents who make her feel good by giving her everything she needs, and I think that relates a little bit to our creator is once we look to our creator for what we need, the ego is totally diminished, right? The separation is no longer there. So when she is with me and she's snuggled on me, she is happy as a clam.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

Same thing with our our god.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

Totally. No, I'm grateful that you added that, and and leading into um, you know, you becoming a mother and you are stepping into a new identity, and ego has a relationship with identities, and in that book, um, it's allowed me to really question a lot of the boxes I put on myself and the identities that in the past kept me really stuck. And I'd say right now, the what I feel comfortable in identifying as something that um feels more liberating than in a box is I'm a sober child of God and I'm a wife, like everything else. I'm like, uh it's just not interesting to me anymore.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

That's great. That's fantastic. Your ego is saying is shaking its fist at you, right? But that's fantastic because then you don't have those bonds. You're not you're not in bondage, you are not tied to this identity of what what were the identities before? Do you want to share with us how you felt before feeling like being a wife and being a child of God? Yeah, is your true identity?

SPEAKER_01 20:12

Yeah, I would say I identified um as a party girl. Um that was an identity of mine. That when I experienced the removal of my alcohol craving by the grace of God and Jesus, um my whole identity shattered, and it was a painful experience because everything I did was wrapped up into like always being down to have a good time and to go out. That's how I socialized. Um, you know, I didn't really identify so much with my career because I'm still in a phase and I've always been this way that I'm just like, I have no idea what I want to do when I grow up. And I'm grateful for that. Um, I know a lot of people um identify with their jobs. Um, and I I find that I'm grateful that I don't. Um, but yeah, I'd say that it's just I had to work so hard at fulfilling my identity. Like I had to work towards fulfilling that to reinforce my identity. Um and so yeah, when when that was removed from me, it was just like I had no idea like what I was. And then that was in my discovery of whoa, like I'm actually an extension of creation. To me, that's so empowering. Um, you know, my consciousness is is in this body that was assigned to me. And so it's my job to not only accept this body, but to work towards loving it. Um, which, you know, it's it's a journey, but but yeah, the identities part is is fun because a lot of people will say like something to you, oh, you're such a good like teacher or whatever. Um, and I find that we like to put people in boxes. Um and that's just something I'm I'm so conscious of right now in my journey. And I don't have to identify as really anything.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

I think that's beautiful. Let me see if I can girl give this girl her passy. Um she's good. I was wondering as you were kind of talking, we talked about lack being the belief. What did you think your identity as a party girl?

SPEAKER_01 23:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

What do you think that stemmed from? What lack were you were you dealing with?

SPEAKER_01 23:16

I believed that alcohol enhanced my experience. I believed that it enhanced my personality. I thought that I was funny because of alcohol. I remember when I first had tequila, I was like, oh, this is like who I am. Like, I am like my best self because I'm like, you know, it was just an illusion, but yeah, I thought that it enhanced my my personality. It put me out of my shell. I was able to go into any room with confidence.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

Isn't that crazy to think you needed something outside of yourself to be funny? I mean, to feel good, like now. That's exactly what we've been talking about.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

Yeah, but but I think people to some degree believe that alcohol does enhance their personality in social settings. And I think that is, you know, that's another topic. But wow.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

But it gives you that short, that short time of that short high or or whatever you call it, yeah of hey, I'm actually people like me because I am funny, but the only way I got this way was by taking a few shots of tequila.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

So right, right.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

You know, everything I thought was true. If if I just continue to be this party girl, then I am, I am this this person I want to be.

SPEAKER_01 24:44

Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_00 24:46

It's like when you turn that on its head, it is such a weird di you know, thought process, but gosh, it's so normal, it's so normalized for a lot of people, and for you, I mean, it was.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

Yeah, no, but but it took me a minute to um recalibrate and rest.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

Well, I remember you said in our first episode when you talked about when your craving was taken away, that afterward you didn't know who you were after they took or you after your craving was taken from you and you were sober, you had to figure out what you liked, you had to figure out what brought you joy, you had to figure out who you were as a person. Right. Which what a gift, even though that was hard. I know you shared something earlier with me that when we transform, what was that? What was that little quote?

SPEAKER_01 25:45

Oh yeah. Um, our identities are brittle during transformation, and experiencing that to what it feels like uh a major change and a erasure of something, it it's initially like painful. And it it would for me, it was a shock to the system.

SPEAKER_00 26:12

And I think that pain, you talked about it with me a couple of days ago, that pain and suffering, it's not something to run from, right? It can be a really good sense of change, of transformation. And I was even reflecting on the fact that I just had a baby. How do babies come into this world? Through some serious contractions, and let me tell you, those contractions are painful. But we deal with contractions in our everyday life when we deal with pain or suffering. It's it's our mind telling us, hey, I don't need to rely on ego beliefs to feel good. I can I can find a better way, I can rely on my creator, on my faith. Um I did want to share too just how I felt because you had brought up being attached to your career or having an identity of your career. So I'm a teacher. I haven't mentioned that yet on the podcast, but I started teaching about 10 years ago. I first started in sixth grade. And when I first started teaching, I had such a hard time. I want to give a shout out to all the teachers who might be listening because that career, though it is so worthwhile, and you get such so much can come from that career, it is one of the hardest jobs, I believe, to have. And we do not respect or pay or all of the above our teachers in the US enough for everything that we that teachers do on a daily basis. So I just want to throw that out there. But it is a very hard job. And when I became a teacher, I identified with that fully because I wanted to be so good. I wanted this proof that hey, I am good at this. I practiced for so long, and it was a dream that I had to be a great teacher. And I will say I had this lack of probably self-love and and self-confidence. That was the lack, and that's how I identified with being a teacher, because I thought, oh my gosh, if my kids could just be the best behaved classroom, if my kids could just get the best scores on state tests, if I could just have the best observations, if I could just get, you know, accl accolades or awards, or you know, not so much awards, but if I could just get recognition that I'm a good teacher, then I will finally be accomplished. And so I felt that way for I'd say I felt that way for five to six years in my job. And it's crazy because I never once truly felt that I was fulfilled ever. People could tell me, oh, you're such a good teacher. I had parents tell me how much they loved me. I had admin tell me I was doing a good job, but I never told it to myself because I truly believed that I wasn't good enough. The ego had me believe that I could always be better.

SPEAKER_01 29:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:54

And uh I just that caused a major deep depression. And I talked about that on our first episode. So but it was always like you said, it was always an outside source that I was looking for to make me feel good on the inside, right? Yours was tequila, mine was kids behaving. But the crazy part is that kids are gonna be kids. Like there was not much I could do. I could try my best, but in the end, uh and I was teaching first grade for about four years. Yeah, I taught for four years first grade, and they are six and seven years old, they have big emotions, they aren't totally regulated, they're they're not developed, and so I was placing so much of my of my livelihood, of my self-confidence on these children, yeah, which it was crazy, absolutely crazy. But the ego said, This is your job. If you're not good at your job, you're not you're not anything, right? I was like, and I was attached to that for so long. I was attached to that identity for so long, but thankfully I was able to see that my identity is not a teacher, and it was really sad because I had to let that go at one point, and I it felt like a breakup. It felt like I was breaking up. I thought I was gonna quit teaching altogether. I didn't. I ended up getting my master's in reading education and became a literacy coach. I am much happier now to be out of the classroom. I still get to work with kids, but I'm I released that sense of needing to be perfect as a classroom teacher, and it was really, really helpful. So lots of different ways the identity piece of ego can show up.

SPEAKER_01 31:57

Right. And Aaron Abke in the book mentioned something that I find funny. I love visual visualizations, and he's like, Yeah, you can continue, you know, being on the rat race and chasing the cheese. And once you get that cheese, then that fleeting moment of victory, it's fleeting. Yes, it's not sustainable, and it could last a week if you're lucky, and then a month rolls by and you're you're ready for the next. And you know, you're you're chasing the cheese, but at the end of the day, an ego consciousness, um, you're still a rat.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

Yes, yes, you're still a rat, and you're never gonna be satisfied. Yeah, you're never going to feel that deep sense of relief because there'd be days where I'd have a great day at school and I'd think, wow, okay, the kids were listening. I got all my lessons done, I feel good, and that lasted for however many hours until the next day rolled around. And either it was a good day or a bad day, but it never lasted. And I tried so hard to say, okay, like brand new day, we could do it, but it's I put so much pressure on myself because of the ego.

SPEAKER_01 33:18

Yeah, and thinking that you are in control of your circumstances, exactly that too.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

Yeah, it's just absolutely wild. So I just want all teachers out there to know that your identity is not a teacher, and it's funny because I've seen a lot of memes on social media where it's for Christmas, teachers get Chris, teachers get teacher gifts. A lot of people want to give people who are teachers like teacher gifts, whether that be pens or mugs or whatever. And it's like, okay, you are a teacher, but that's not who you are. Right. That's your career.

SPEAKER_01 33:59

That's society, though. It's like we see things and put people in boxes, whether that's politically, religiously, but yeah, that's ego consciousness. And um, yeah, this is gonna lead into part two, more on the ego, but but yeah, I think identifying what the ego is was helpful for me personally, and then the beliefs that it has. And I was like, whoa, okay. Um, so there's so much to go into it, but just to to wrap this thing up, I'm just so grateful for this conversation. And if you listened all the way through, thank you. Um, we love you.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

Uh there's that's so funny. And she said, okay, podcast is over now.

SPEAKER_01 34:51

We are done. We are done, but just want to thank everybody that's listened. And um, we love you and God bless you. And um, you know, get curious. Get curious about your thoughts.

SPEAKER_00 35:04

Please reach out if you have any questions about the ego or anything we talked about. We would love to have a conversation with you.

SPEAKER_01 35:13

Awesome. Love you all.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

Love you, bye bye.