Tag Archives: inner work

Chuck’s Place: I Am More Than My Ego Identity

Time for transformation…
– Illustration © 2022 Jan Ketchel

In a dream, my son is my friend. I have no memory of him as my son. Upon awakening I am fascinated at this absolute lapse in memory of such a prominent waking life relationship. This is a glimpse of life beyond the veil.

“What veil?” you might ask. The veil of ego identity. Ego is the part of our soul identified with waking life in the physical body. Ego is the main player in the waking life drama we are fully engaged in. The ego’s veil is its narcissism, though not necessarily pathologically so. It simply only knows itself as all that it is.

The ego is also quite prejudiced with material bias. The physical world is its oyster and all that really exists. This in-body perspective has been critical to keep the focus on the intent, the fated karma of this current life adventure. However, as is more than evident in current world events, Mother Earth is in labor. Her water has broken and full-on contractions have begun.

Birthing is our first rite of passage in this life. The journey into life is a solo voyage fraught with breathlessness, volcanic eruption, violent collision and claustrophobic containment. Arriving into our separateness, at birth, requires surviving the perils of these initiation challenges as we push out into new life. Currently, Earth’s initiation challenge requires us to navigate her violent changes as, once again, we find our way to new life.

New life on this planet is the discovery and integration of life beyond the confines of ego identity, life beyond the veil. Our materialistic focus, with its land-grab mentality, has saturated Mother’s nurturing capacity. She requires now a greater soulful human presence, a maturity beyond the childish dependency locked within the ego’s veil. To achieve this we must expand our knowing of all that we are. To achieve this we must venture into the transpersonal dimension of our being.

My amnesia of my son, as my son, was such a transpersonal journey. The more we cling solely to our relationships of familial association, as our definition of who we are and how we should live, the more we remain separated from the overall needs of the greater whole world. We are birthing into a consciousness that extends family to all, with equanimity.

To experience my son as friend, with no proprietary rights, breaks the illusion of special connection. Yes, of course there is special connection in the drama of this life. That can’t be erased. But to wake up to the greater reality, that all that is is part of that same whole, extends love to all; we are all simply inseparable. With this knowing, we are fully poised to grow beyond the limits of ego narcissism.

This journey to our transcendent selves, as we navigate the violent contractions of now, does require that we suffer the full knowing of our suppressed and repressed selves, what Jung called the shadow of the personal unconscious. This is the work of recapitulation, fully exploring the triggers of daily life, which bring forth our inconvenient truths.

We are aided in this journey by guides and by our Higher Soul, which resides in the transpersonal dimension of our being. Our ego soul becomes our left brain navigator on our voyage of recovery and discovery. Though still engaged in material life, our needs become more soulful and refined. The spirit of a gift outweighs the material gift.

Bob Monroe left us with a set of tools to discover that, yes, “I am more than my physical body.” As we traverse that non-physical reality, the ego discovers that it is part of its greater Soul. Indeed, that I am more than my ego identity. And with that we are truly birthing into new life.

I am more than my ego identity,

Chuck

Soulbyte for Monday August 1, 2022

Let your mind be still, windless and calm. Let your body be calm, quiet and cool. Let your spirit be cool, within you and yet beside you so that you may know yourself as more than just a physical being. Know that in quietude this is possible, to know the self as calm, quiet body and spirit. Pause often to arrive at this unified place of peace within. Sit in the peacefulness and know your Self in this way. It’s a very helpful practice in a busy world.

Sending you love,
The Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne

Soulbyte for Friday July 29, 2022

Save your energy for what’s right. Rather than doing too much that doesn’t serve you, do only what conserves and at the same time utilizes your energy so that you are neither depleted nor overloaded. When you think about taking care of yourself, check in with your energy and decide what is the best use of it. Energy implies not only how much you have but what your spirit needs, what your inner you needs, and what your physical you needs too. Check in with the whole self often throughout the day to see how you are doing.

Sending you love,
The Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne

Soulbyte for Wednesday July 27, 2022

Refrain from negative talk and thoughts about yourself. Instead, accent the positive. Feed yourself new ideas that are nurturing and sustainable and little by little notice the changes taking place. It may seem as if negative changes take place quickly while positive ones take longer, but that’s just another old idea to drop, for things can change for the better in an instant. In a moment’s thought you can change your entire world.

Sending you love,
The Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne

Chuck’s Place: Honing Conscious Suggestion

Locking down & opening up…
– Illustration © 2022 Jan Ketchel

I place my awareness on my calf muscle.  “My left calf muscle is warm,” I state. I notice that a faint warming sensation appears in my left calf muscle.

My thinking mind remains passive; it simply observes. My subconscious mind, however, takes my suggestion as its command and orchestrates the body activity needed to create the sensation of warmth in my calf muscle.

My conscious mind has no clue as to how to create warmth in my calf muscle. Active thinking is limited to abstract thought and reason. In contrast, my subconscious mind holds the keys to the kingdom and can manifest, in some material form, any suggestion presented to it.

For instance, if I actively think the thought, “I can’t hula hoop,” my hips will rigidify and the hoop will hit the floor. In this case, the negative  suggestion to the subconscious is manifested by the body.

Of course, one might protest, quite accurately, that without practice one will be unable to successfully hula hoop. This is true, but once the ability has been achieved, through diligent practice, a trial performance will most likely fail if one negatively thinks, “I can’t do it.”

What we tell ourselves is what we become. What we listen to we become. If I incessantly listen to negative thoughts broadcast from a television station, I will become a negative person. In this case, the thoughts and beliefs I hear expressed become the command to my subconscious mind to generate the emotional body state that creates the negativity of anger, vigilance, and discontent.

Beliefs are highly insulated thoughts. Thus, if we state a suggestion that opposes an ingrained belief we confuse the subconscious mind with opposing commands. In this case, the more exercised and repeated belief is likely the suggestion the subconscious will follow.

For instance, if one holds a deep belief that they are inadequate, the command to the subconscious that “I am competent” may actually manifest as self-doubt and defeat, felt as anxiety and depression. In this case, it is best to acknowledge the underlying belief and perhaps first process experiences that have contributed to that belief, in an effort to neutralize it.

Bob Monroe suggested using an imaginary heavily-lidded box to place one’s negative beliefs in before giving a new suggestion to the subconscious, to allow for an unfettered experiment of exploration. This is akin to a scientist that may not believe something is possible but suspends judgment and submits to legitimate experimental conditions to see what happens.

Thus, for example, one might not believe they can experience their energy body. By placing their doubting mind in their imaginary storage locker, they are free to suggest to the subconscious that they experience the vibratory state connected to their energy body. In this case, with doubt suspended, one becomes open to a new possibility.

So what is the subconscious mind? The subconscious is the mind that used to completely direct the human animal, prior to the birth of human consciousness. When the subconscious ruled, it responded to the world instinctively. All stimuli to the senses evoked evolutionary programs that were automatically selected to respond to a need or challenge. No thinking was involved, simply stimulus and preprogrammed response.

Animals, for instance, know instinctively how to give birth. With the birth of consciousness, humans lost this connection to immediate, direct knowledge, as they added doctors to the birthing experience to attempt to improve on nature’s instinctive programs.

Though our connection to the subconscious is less direct than in the animal world, we are nonetheless afforded the opportunity to volitionally suggest directly to the subconscious in a way not possible for other animals. This is both a blessing and a curse.

The blessing is, we can manifest a world that functions more efficiently than our evolutionary programming. The curse is that we can manifest a world based on narcissism, which is unsustainable. This, in fact, is the crossroads that we, and our world, currently find ourselves at.

If one aligns one’s suggestions with the truth of one’s heart, one is sure to manifest a world that cares for all beings and is deeply sustainable.

Process limiting beliefs, or put them in the box, while you experiment with the subconscious mind. This is where one might truly experience a world where all things are possible.

Suggesting love,

Chuck