This is How We Know Ego is Dying

Sorry Ego, we're onto you...

Photo by Felicia Montenegro on Unsplash

My husband drives me crazy.

And I cherish this man beyond words. I’ve felt guilty for so long about the tension that’s lived between us. But I’ve also always known there’s nothing wrong with him. He is generous, caring, loving, creative, sweet, sensitive, responsible, and deeply committed to discovering the truth about life. That last one was the real hook for me.

We are very different in how we go about life. He’s a poet at heart. I’m a workhorse. He stops to smell the roses I’m mulching. Then he quietly picks one and leaves it on my desk with a love note for me to find after he’s gone to his job in the medical field. A job that’s all about caring for others. He truly puts the care in healthcare.

For years, I’ve battled to understand how to feel the love he showers me with. I’ve known it has something to do with my difficulty receiving. It’s not that I beat myself up about it. Our relationship has just been a constant reminder that something inside me is off. A glitch in the matrix. How could I not receive love from this man of all people?

It hasn’t been a comfortable relationship. But I’ve always known it’s where I’m meant to be. Even during the pandemic, when we were homeschooling the kids. Bahahahaha! I gained such a deep appreciation for our teachers during that time. I remember hearing someone say, “We should give our teachers a million-dollar raise. A million dollars a day.” Yep.

Our marriage survived even that pandemic.

Recently, something shifted in me. An “overnight” change I still can’t quite explain. Suddenly, I can see right through the egos in my relationships, in conversation, in the tiny or loud everyday frictions of life. There’s space behind the tension.

I wrote a letter to a spiritual teacher I’ve been following lately, Adyashanti, trying to make sense of what’s happening.

---

The Letter

Dear Adyashanti,

I am beyond grateful for discovering you (and your team) and the work you do to help us wake up.

In just one week, I’ve had shifts and lightbulbs firing at a depth I haven’t experienced in all the decades I’ve been “seeking.”

I met my husband of 18 years on Match.com. I heard about you from ChatGPT. The source is never the problem. The disconnect is the problem. The mistaken identity. The Ego.

My ego is dying. I can finally feel this happening. The expansion on the other side is staying. I’m pinching myself, and it’s still here.

This crazy “overnight” ability to see right through the egos in my relationship interactions is life-changing. I instantly recognize when I’m reacting and when I’m bristling in conversation, which, honestly has been most of the time. But that tension is slipping away.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Connecting with your energy through your words is waking me up. Finally.

Namaste, Dear Ones 🙏
—Connie

---

After the Letter

When I wrote that letter, I was sitting in the spaciousness. It’s a state I can call on so easily now. I can shift into it as soon as I catch myself in reaction or anxiety.

I’ve been watching myself in awe. The shift is real. The old patterns are unraveling.

I can see through the egos in my relationships now. In my interactions with others. I feel the stillness beneath all the static. The awareness that seeped in here and there for so long is now a door I can consciously and easily choose.

I’ve had many teachers in my life, including living with an intentional community for a decade, where I was pulled out of the mud. Eckhart Tolle helped me see the ego mind over the past few years. How ego mind keeps us feeling separate and we don’t even really know it. Recently, Adyashanti pushed me over the edge. From ego mind into spacious awareness.

I know there’s more to unfold. But this moment feels like a hyperspeed toggle. Shedding the ego self. Untangling identity from ego.

It’s the real pandemic. The ego mind. One that’s been spreading for thousands of years. A heavy, heavy veil we can only collectively lift. A veil we must lift if we want to save our species and our planet.

We all know this on some level. And it scares the crap out of us. It sends us reeling into fear. Ego fear. Leaving us desperate, feeling helpless, hopeless. So we keep going through the motions. Another day of over-scheduling, constant screens, emotional numbing.

But that’s not how we’re meant to live. Our core state is happiness. It’s our natural state. That’s why life feels so awful. We’re cut off from it. Ever present ego is a constant resistance against our natural state of happiness. It’s a happiness that comes from connection.

It’s been a long, slow, painful labor to birth Self. Ego has been a lifetime of contractions.

Yet I’m convinced that the collective energy of others waking up from the ego matrix is what’s fueling my own awakening. Let’s keep going. Every time one of us breaks free from an ego story, another crack opens for light to flood in.

When we can listen to the news and feel love instead of fear, this planet will finally be able to shake it off. Like a wet dog shaking off water.

---

Wishing us the clarity to see through the illusion.

💚✨ Dancing on the Edge of Enlightened
—Edge Dancer · Connie