I had a beautiful conversation with a dear friend recently. One of the topics of our conversation really lit me up, as it has been strong in my awareness lately. It was about birth being more like a death, and death being more like a birth. More about that, and also my own play with death.
I recently voiced a casual intention, which was this: that I undergo a complete ego death of anything in me that was still functioning from that vibrational plane. I say “casual” because it wasn’t pre-meditated (or meditated on in any way, for that matter!). The knowing came into my awareness and I intended it without further consideration. So in that way it was simple (oh Christine, you are funny! simple…). It was no surprise that the universe met me full on in response!
You see, when we intend something, it doesn’t necessarily arrive in the final cut version, the finished product. Instead, we are met with the perfect circumstances to fulfill our intention, a period known as our “apprenticeship,” as one teacher names it. So my intention was met with every possible temptation to play in ego consciousness. By the 3rd opportunity, it made me laugh out loud. It looked like this, in a matter of about 48 hours:
1. A client dumped on me (was I interested in feeling indignant?).
2. An acquaintance who I have repeatedly shown up for in her time of need told me I didn’t care and was not in my heart (was I interested in defending myself or feeling un-faired against?).
3. A friend shared how my latest energetic offering (which I was feeling kind of sparkly about), is a field she’s been in “for decades” and how lovely it is to see me now awakening into my gifts (was I interested in feeling small or taking up an attitude? Was I invested in feeling “special?”).
4. When I mentioned to someone that sometimes you just need to be bigger than the people around you, he challenged me on holding an attitude of superiority toward others (was I interested in feeling misunderstood?).
You see what I mean? It was like any area where I might be vulnerable to my smaller human evaluations or positioning was at a crossroads: either I choose to sustain and engage with this ego energy, or I let it die.
So. First let me say this wasn’t very much fun. haha!
But what I have noticed is that ego plays with ego, meaning one person’s egoic consciousness can light up another’s, and then a volley ensues that has zero to do with what either person actually is. It is just the energy of ego playing with itself! 😂
I chose to say little or nothing to the actors in this episode of “The Ego-Death Apprentice.” Because it wasn’t really about what they had said or not said, done or not done, blah blah blah. It was about my response. So I prayed ho’o’pono pono for them (I’m sorry, Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you). I prayed this for anywhere I had been less than loving in my thoughts (I had been), anywhere I had been less than gentle or patient in my mind (yep, that, too), and anywhere I had reacted to their comments from a smaller, constricted, or denser vibration (busted).
Let me say straight up that this doesn’t mean I was being a good person or doing the right thing by praying this prayer. Please no, let me not position to earn more ego points! 😂 I did it because I wanted peace and freedom. And it helped tremendously. All of my petty “WTF’s?” softened into compassion. For them and me.
So at this point I think my intended ego-death is going very well. 🙂 I find myself cheering on the dissolution, the annihilation, the death. I can see a dimension beyond where I’ve been, where the temptations into a certain kind of response no longer even show up at my door. It is so huge and spacious there.
And then comes my friend’s comment about how birth is a bigger death than death, and death a bigger birth. This made perfect sense to me. Because to come into form and incarnate into 3D density, we temporarily suspend our awareness of infinite realms, spaciousness, and freedom. We die, in a sense, as we become “finite” and “limited.” No wonder we often long so much to go “home” where it’s totally free! We rightly intuit that we experience leaving our bodies as a kind of birthing back out into the wide open spaces of pure presence.
The thing is, we don’t have to die a body death to get there. I know you know. This led me to ponder what might be birthing through this particular ego death. I wonder. It feels like a liminal space where we can be both fully embodied and fully free, finite and infinitely aware of eternity.
I’m all in.
