Hi Sheryll and WaterBird!
I think you might find some great benefit by jumping ahead to Embracing Freedom Meditation 9 on "Humility." Jeddah addresses the challenges inherent in letting our egos run the show very eloquently in the introduction.
I have excerpted a couple of paragraphs that I think are particularly helpful:
For it is a burden to carry our ego. Not because there is anything wrong withhaving an ego, not at all. It is because our individual desires, wishes, wants create content - more and more content. And all this content is in the form of energy strands and patterns. The egoic world becomes increasingly complex, like living in a multidimensional spider web of energy. And as energy beings ourselves, we become ensnared in the fashioning and maintaining of this web and in keeping up with our own point of view. We become weighed down by the demands of maintaining our identity and the effort of trying to make it all fit neatly into a consistent perspective. Humility does not seek to maintain this identity. But to allow the ‘self’, which took so long and so much effort to create, to disappear into nothingness takes courage. For the ego even the thought of it is overwhelming.
Humility frees us from egoic effort and struggle. We don’t have to try to be anything because what we already are is far beyond what we can ever create. We can then participate fully in all of life’s content without becoming trapped by it. The relief that this realization brings is a giddy moment.
Plenty of food for thought in that one!
Lots of love,
Wendy
Last edited by Shawn_Grim; 09/22/10 05:52 PM.