How to sublimate your emotional pain and set yourself free from Ego
As much as suffering can be a blessing, unfortunately, like anything else, it is also temporary. I say unfortunately, yes. You read me well… and it doesn’t mean I am a masochist.
In fact, what I mean is that once the state of brokenness and vulnerability is far behind us, we run the risk of falling back into the old traps, picking up the same habits and making similar mistakes all over again. We may become ungrateful, complain, or get attached to the wrong people.
Human beings are not good learners—we all know that. We can hit the same wall a hundred times, yet we stand up and run right back toward it.
We are extraordinarily self-sabotaging creatures by nature. Even when we want change badly and strive to break old habits – bang! We are back to them in no time.
Are we masochists? In essence, no; but in the ego’s terms, yes. We are ruled by our unconscious (the ego) and our past wounds, and tend to re-enact the same old dramas in a desperate attempt to resolve and confront them. This, of course, is completely inappropriate, and irrelevant to the present. The ego is schizophrenic, a very proud ‘bastard’ obsessed with fixing that which no longer exists, i.e., the past.
We successfully pick ourselves up, and after a while, just as we begin to find joy and balance in life again, the gains and insights of our shattering moments—the promises we made to ourselves—mysteriously evaporate. We reach a point when we badly miss these first, insightful moments of our good resolutions.
Here’s a trick to avoid the ego’s trap of unnecessary suffering:
Never go back to ‘whole’ again.
Just stay broken.
And love, truly love, your brokenness.
Travel though life broken.
Exist in a permanent state of brokenness; not the weak, helpless, or frightened kind of broken, but the open-hearted, humble and vulnerable kind.
Never seal a wound that has been opened. Instead, leave it half-open as a reminder of what truly matters to you, of what you need and strive for in life, as a crack across your heart left exposed to maintain a deep connection to your true self and authentic relationship with others.
Leave the cracks of brokenness wide open, so the wind and light can come in and clean away the dirt the ego always gathers around your beautiful, glowing self.
Whenever pain becomes unbearable, strangling your heart and wrecking your body, it may be just a random thought that is generating fear and worry or a sudden state of panic and angst. Just surrender to it, each and every time.
Surrender completely, religiously, confidently and gratefully. Kneel in front of Shiva and thank him for the terrifying feeling you are going through…really thank him, and acknowledge your ‘nothingness’ in the manifested world and its greatness in the realm of the infinite Universe. Hand your ego over to him generously, with wide-open palms, and I can assure you, he will create the miracle for you. He will listen, and set you free.
All you need to do is let the feeling come to you for a few seconds, wreck you up, overwhelm you, and shiver through your entire body. Let it see that there is nothing within you to destroy any further. Your heart is already broken, but your core essence, your lively spirit, is indestructible.
Know the following: you WILL survive. In seconds, and I mean just a few seconds, you will be set free. When you let a wound open, when you invite it to flow through your whole body, you are about to sublimate your ego, your bodily pain, your inner enemy—whatever has been keeping you in fear, terror and ongoing distress.
Know, then, as you surrender completely, willingly, and physically to the feeling, that you’re about to defeat it permanently, and you will soon embrace lasting peace.
Why self awareness vital for growth
As a baby you and I were born with what behavioral psychologists call: a tabula rasa. Tabula rasa means blank slate in Latin and refers to the absence of build-in mental content at one’s birth. Any knowledge is thus achieved only through experience and perception, although neurobiologists point out that there is a pre-programed mental structure to receive and organize information, which is naturally genetically pre-determined.
Nevertheless we are born with no consciousness, no judgement abilities, no critical sense and no objective observation abilities. Unless learnt, the latter are unlikely to develop through one’s life time, remaining thus subject to their mind pre-conditioning.
During our growing-up process, as a result of this pre-conditioning, but also in order to survive, we have incorporated automatisms, habits, beliefs and defense mechanisms, to protect ourselves, and respond to potentially harming situations. These habits have remained strongly embedded in us and continue to be blindly enacted during adulthood (when the false-self or the Ego is at work).
Although, in the early days, these mechanisms had an effective and specific function, today, for the most part, they serve no purpose: at best we stagnate (by repeating the same drill, same habits, same defense mechanisms and going nowhere), at worse, we destruct ourselves (and others) by getting sabotaged by unwatched and unquestioned automatisms (behaviours, beliefs, feelings) as they distort the reality of the present moment and lead us to inappropriate behaviors.
Watch yourself and assess what habits/automatisms serve you today and what no longer doesn’t. If you decide to keep the old habits and thinking patterns, then bravely take responsibility for the life you are leading, for the choice you make each day and simply deal with the consequences..
‘Everything in your life is the result of a choice you have made. If you want a different result, then make a different choice.’
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, it is wise not to blame anyone; change and life are truly up to us. We may not have been able to choose in what family/social/cultural configuration we have fallen in, but we always choose the manner in which we live our lives and what we do with the presenting circumstances. Stay mindful, stay self-aware.