HEALING MY EGO...

How can we heal our ego? Where do we start? How do we do that?... Oh my Gosh! I will start by saying we all have it and own it, and there is nothing wrong with having an ego; a good dosage helps with our confidence, but when our ego becomes toxic, it can really mess with our lives and the lives we love and care about. It's hard to accept, recognize, and become aware when the ego starts to cross that fine silver line from self-confidence to I don't give a fuck about anyone else but me🙃 Yup!.

I will speak from my own experience; being open and vulnerable is not easy for me; it's tough and sometimes embarrassing to talk about a topic I wasn't even aware of is very rare to accept. Still, I will because the #1 use of my blog as part of my own healing process and a part of therapy, #2 I hope someone out there can benefit from my writings and my story, not only in this post but also in the others as well.

Writing and talking are healers for me; I can open my heart like a book and feel safe, self-growth is an endless journey. Anyways back to it.

EGO: The word ego comes from the Latin word 'I". What does that mean to you? What does that mean for me? The simple word "I" can have various meaning, I will go with what I see now and what I wasn't aware of before: "I want that," "I can do that better than you," "I have more," "I want more," or "oh! I already knew that", "I don't need your help," "I can do it by myself," and the word "I" goes on and on in our daily basis vocabulary use, again and again, that is the part I wasn't aware of before (a few years ago back when I was living in NY, one of my loving family members shoved it, into my face "YOU ARE LACK OF HUMILITY AND FULL OF PRIDE," Girl! I was so fucking angry and offended, and my ego was writhing in the ground like a rattlesnake when it feels attacked. Did I do something about it? Not at all; it wasn't my time to curb my ego; I just kept going through life as nothing happened.

So when do I became aware that my ego was crossing that fine line? Not long ago, in fact, just a few months ago, through another argument, Yes, I know, oh well, that's me and my ego sneaking out the door. Still, this time instead of getting angry, I actually got sad, went to my room, and cried it out because this time it hurt too. Still, I also understood something life was trying to tell me, bringing the same scenario over and over again but with different people, and there at that exact moment in my bed, I decided there was a lot of work to be done in my life. It is not easy to admit and talk about this topic, especially in this era where you can find ego and narcissism just around the corner. It's normalized; A big Ego is nothing more than insecurities and a lack of empathy.

Becoming aware is crucial for self-growth in whatever area of life you want to improve; awareness is the key; understand that we are our strengths and weakness.

We all love to carry titles or labels before or after our names, like Mr., Mrs., Ms., Miss., or MD., Dr., Ph.D., or have a luxury car, a big house, a six-figure bank account, and the inventory is endless, all those are wonderful and great things to own and have, but if a label, title, and material belongings make us feel whole and are the only things that give us worth, then something is not clicking, because what if all of that is taken away from us? Who are we really? And please don't take me wrong; I am not against any of those; I'm just using them as an example. We are who we are, with or without any labels and/or material belongings, and we are enough.

Self-development, self-love, self-care and self-improvement, self-esteem are endless tasks we need to work on every single day of our lives; if we really want to be a better person and make a tiny difference in the outside world we are living in full of everything but kindness, empathy, love, care, and peace. I will never start learning and improving because I just being with my journey.

I'm going to write some tools, quotes, and articles that have been very helpful for me:

• A Beginner's mind is a term I recently learned and has really helped through this, opening my mind to everyone and everything like a 3-year-old exploring in the toy store.

• There is a quote that got stuck in my head since I read it: “When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new.” -The Dalia Lama. This reminds me of how much I need to learn.

• Again, "active listening" is a new term for me; I really like listening to others without judgment, just being there with them, holding space with all my empathy, and putting myself in the other person's shoes.

• "You must remember that humility is the antidote to pride." I read this in a beautiful, well-written article; I think it was -Thrive Global.

My ego stills here right next to me; it doesn't heal overnight, but today I am fully aware of it and the dosage I need to take so I don't get an OD; I will be a forever student, there is nothing wrong with recognizing we lack certain things in life or we have too much of others. It is never too late to heal, learn, change, evolve, and let go of things no longer serve us.

Today I do not blame "this who I am, take it or leave it." Today I am learning to apologize and say sorry when I need to.

Much love always,

-Ana.💜