Worry is a state of mind that is not productive. You can lose sleep when worry is left unattended… meaning, that after you’ve thought of what the worry theme is about and what you can do about it, then putting the worry to bed (and away from your good sleep 💤) is productive.
…If only it were that easy! 😉
But it’s a smart choice we get to make to let go of worry that drains.
We can’t always choose what happens to us or the thoughts that enter, but we can choose what we do in reaction and what thoughts we allow to stay.
Because worry can linger around like heavy gray clouds until it passes.
And walking away is one proactive way to get away from worry. At least temporarily…
You can quickly distract yourself from worried thoughts by changing your scenery.
Your new sensory environment changes your thoughts even if it’s just clearing your head walking down the hallway.
And this is because we get a new perspective in sight, sounds, and smells.
For me, colors, music, and pleasing scents break the pattern in my world.
And that can be for you too. You may not have yoga as a practice, so that could also be a pattern break.
In yoga poses, when you look up to the ceiling or sky, you get a different perspective than when you look down to the floor or to the side of the room that can change how you feel… calm, grounded, inspired…
Away from a mat, that’s the effect exciting travel has. When you explore a new city or place, your new senses are heightened.
If you spot a new painting or a new view from a picture window, this can be a joyful experience and mindful change of pace.
But as time passes, wherever you are and no matter how far you’ve traveled, the original worry thoughts creep back in.
The euphoric feeling from distractions wear off and the worry thoughts pop back in as easily as they popped out.
You can only distract yourself for so long and then your mind catches back up to reality.
…Your life reality (that can be worry-free thoughts).
But that’s why no one can run away from problems carried in the conscience for long in conscious living.
I tried one summer when I was 20, moving away to the beach. It didn’t work. 😀
But so often we choose to numb in semi-conscious daily living.
Like when we’re on a mission, we tend to forget nature buzzing around us carrying out life. They’re in their environment and we’re in ours, even if it’s within earshot.
As long as we’re not in harm’s way, we can miss what’s happening around us… and sometimes the calls to us that could lead to our greater life’s purpose.
If you think about it, a bird chirping is pretty loud in decibels. But often we don’t hear those over the voice and noises in our head…
And I’m no bird expert, but I’m told this bird in a tree is a red tailed hawk. It caught my eye because of its sounding vocal chords.
While I stopped to stare at the big bird for a few moments, I also noticed most people in the parking lot didn’t do the same.
…In fact, no one around me looked up. They just went on their busy day’s mission.
That’s how it is with us if we’re running on our mind’s mission. We don’t make time for interruptions… and sometimes opportunities calling us.
When we’re in a hurry, that’s even more true listening to our daily to-do list creating stress.
Worry and stress thoughts can be loud like that.
…So loud that we can miss that they’re robbing us of our full presence and better happy day.
And worry especially can play into our insecurities without us knowing (in semi-conscious living), affecting more than just our daily choices we make.
Worry is part of our DNA. It’s a Vata sign and trait in Ayurvedic terms.
Most of us have some or dominating Vata in us.
If you find yourself worrying for no good reason about everything going on in your life and others, then you likely have a Vata imbalance.
For most, that can be restored with simple lifestyle changes.
It’s not a sentence you’re stuck with in life.
If you want to know if you have a Vata imbalance and then how to restore, take the body balance quiz.
Your body helps us out by giving us preferences and through our senses.
But sometimes those are blocked from us for reasons like the noisy complex culture we’re in.
…So even if a meditation or yoga break sounds like a good idea, we could put it off even though we could definitely use the reset to help remedy our worry.
And transforming worry ways as a daily way is very possible… I know because I did just that. I got tired of holding onto worry. It’s too darn draining.
And as some friends would say, “Girl, I ain’t got time for that!”
One good habit that changed it all was to proactively pray off the worry. That was one of the 8 ways I shared to live out a don’t worry be happy life!
And another way is to picture yourself bold and fearless. Or put yourself in that frame of mind by reminding yourself how you feel and act when you’re confident…
If you’re a caring or reserved person, this is where you stop caring so much about what others think or what will happen.
You get out of your head and into your empowered self and abundant life.
It’s not about others or what happens next… it’s about you and your peace. What makes sense to you? Do it.
Let the outcomes happen. Your life is rigged in your favor with the Universe on your side.
You will be met on the other side with your bold confident moves.
The world wants the best YOU and you get to decide what that is!
So let go of worry and let go of the control of how things pan out. I know that was one lesson that took me the longest to embrace.
When I could trust “what happens next are meant to be’s,” that released me from unnecessary worry.
You’re equipped with the intuition. So when you have to make a choice, do your best and let the rest work out… even if it’s in another direction or environment.
Love over ego has never been so needed in our world of multi-dimensional complexities and chaos.
If we were able to act in love in every one of our situations and everyone did the same, then our planet would be a place of peace.
And in our smaller world we live in, it’s easier to find daily love amid our joy that we get with peaceful and feel good micro moments. Like when we have chocolate dipped strawberries. 🍓
Enjoyable moments help us get through our challenging situations.
…That can happen daily and in everyday moments.
One big reason is because the ego strikes for no rhyme or reason, and shuts out love. But we’re equipped to override this from happening.
In my journey, I discovered this phenomenon from my office working life situations where I was tested and I sometimes saw two sides in people… almost like a head and a tail side of a coin.
…One minute, a person could be acting pleasant and then the next minute, not.
You probably know what I mean…
Someone is triggered or irritated by something someone else says or does.
At the time of witnessing this, I thought these types of recurring scenarios with different people and situations were because of personality differences… or if it happened often with the same person, a personality clash.
💡But then later got revelation: that was only part of the problem.
The root problem is that all of us have a built in brain ego-feature that doesn’t act when we want. And can act up in our minds.
And we have the choice to choose self-awareness and to find love over ego.
Those are the two sides of the coin.
Love is love and ego represents fear.
Love is more obvious to us, and ego and fear are not. So that makes ego super dangerous.
Fear can be triggered in anyone at any time. Fear can show up as subtly as insecurities that cause irrational decisions to be made.
But if we replace fear with joy inside us or in our spirit, then we can revert to love that’s in us.
Either way, it’s no one’s fault as we’re all damaged goods in an imperfect world.
No one living is perfect, but our damaging ego in us wants us to believe we are in some way.
So getting that deeper love message into our core is our ticket out of fear-based living… that’s all the things we’re scared and worried about in this world.
But first we want to heal what’s broken inside us.
If we never get through our pain and suffering that still needs healing from the past, then we have wounds that show up as resentment and unforgiveness that’s not love.
In my life, I didn’t even know early on that I needed past healing until I did self-help reflection and shadow work inviting in love.
I could’ve let clouds hang over because that’s how the ego thrives.
I didn’t know there was another way.
And anyone who you come across who hasn’t declared healing from their past is living in some form of their ego cloud when clear blue skies ahead are available. 🩵
My early goals in life was to come out unscathed. Or I should say that was my naive ego goals.
…But I didn’t even get past my early 20’s before I knew every bucket area of my life was off… nothing was as I thought it should be as an adult. I measured myself against those around me, my culture’s shoulds, and what my ego led me to think.
The biggest problem is the ego voice and personality is usually the loudest in the room in us and around us. Ego blocks out quieter spirit whispers and ideas of what would be best and most loving.
…So back to my past office work situations, I did not understand what was happening to the person sitting in front of me.
It felt surreal what I was experiencing as unpleasantries and the tone coming from their mouths.
And I found this could occur in personal situations with immediate family. So it wasn’t just work bosses.
Ego infected moments were all over this world… and destructive.
And even the most unaware affected are aware they are not happy and causing destruction in relationships. It’s a sad way to be.
A way to stay clear from being run by your ego and causing damage is asking: what did I do to contribute to this? How can I change the future from repeating?
How can I bring back love into this situation?
Another way is to get informed such as from an article like this.
This shines light and responsibility to making a positive change and seeking personal growth in an imperfect world.
Otherwise the past never gets healed and no healing growth happens.
Then the ego continues to deeper infect and spin perception of reality for a lifetime if allowed.
🌟Good news is, anyone can end this destructive ego pattern in them if they also choose to be better internal listeners, and let in love over ego no matter what siutuational triggers they receive.
Committing to be a better person is one good motivator.
You can’t change others, but you can positively affect your life one situation and moment at a time.
The Seeking Love Over Ego Opportunity (Or Challenge) For You…
🌱Commit to evolve quicker and embrace change.
🌱Identify with your loving self because you are loved.
With those loving mindsets, you move your sails toward a greater future destiny, even when you don’t know what that is.
🌱Let down your guard sometimes.
What If you let yourself be vulnerable?
Let in new better ways… remember, you can always go back to the old ways that weren’t working well. 😉
Show up as the lovely person that people refer to as kind or doing good. They’re the ones that attract others and have a happy life because they live aligned.
With lovely attitudes, there’s no room for ego plays.
🌱Find yourlove over ego in situations.
This bypasses unproductive anxiety, fear, and worry that rob joy.
Reset by going to bed early could be the remedy for a bad day. A good night’s rest is known cure for getting more loving thoughts.
🌱We can openly talk about more adding love (and less ego) in everyday life instead of making it an “elephant in the room”because it’s not exciting to talk about and ego conceals itself.
If we brush aside our ego fears but let those eat at us, then we pay the price and the people around us suffer too.
“Love” spelled backward is “evol” and when we add more love with “ve”, we get evolve. And we shut out fears.
And, these are loving life goals we can consider:
Seek meaningful work for a satisfied life.
That can be easier to find and do if we disconnect weekly from our noisy surroundings, so we can listen to what our inner self is trying to tell us is best for us.
When we re-strategize and are willing to pivot with a little risk, we get to live out our best life and the world around us gets the best of us.
Choose to live love on purpose.
We can focus on love that is healthy.
For ladies, think of yourself as a ladybug. There are 5,000 species despite similar appearance.
Our destiny was there even if we couldn’t see it fully. We had a few red ladybug stripes.
Before we became our ladybug selves, we went through a caterpillar metamorphosis.
Through younger struggle and experiences, we became our full potential selves. We saved plants on our journey as our loving work on our planet. 🪴
We also showed up lovely and cutely clothed with ladybug matching black polka dots. We’re admired and even called good luck. 🐞We added more love tho this world.
That’s what our life legacy and relationships can be like. 🧡
…You can also get in your Dolphin pose right where you are! 🐬
For inspiration, dolphins are one of the friendliest animals to us out there… and we think of them as our happy, summer ocean friends we can pet.
…Next to our dog land friends. And maybe that’s why the yoga Dolphin pose is similar to Downward Dog… and both poses are done on dry land.
In Dolphin pose yoga moves, instead of your arms fully stretched out, your elbows bend while your forearms and palms are laying flat like pancakes on the mat.
Because of this, your nose in awareness is also a lot closer to the mat.
…Like dolphin beaks called rostroms that are in placement where noses usually are on mammals.
This gives dolphins their appearance that they’re smiling and then when they show their pearly whites, we smile… and maybe that’s partially how they charmed their way to Hollywood as celebrities in Dolphin Tale with Florida home perks. 😉
But back to noses, dolphins have blow holes at the top of their heads where air is connected to their lungs.
This is where they breathe like us (and not like fish with gills)… and we can remember them in our daily Ayurvedic yoga breathing.
On the mat (…maybe you’re there now?), our Dolphin pose yoga fins and palms are also flat on the mat for good yoga form.
You get a good stretch in your entire body from head-to-toe in Dolphin pose yoga moves.
What you may notice that’s different is your body formation.
Your top half of your body may not be the same length as your bottom half.
If you have long legs and a shorter torso, then you won’t be as high peaked.
Your upside down “V” in the air will look different if that’s your body description. So you get to play around (or splash around 💦) in your Dolphin pose.
…You’ll be more like a hill than a mountain by design.
And that helps you to embrace your unique body and special creature that you are!
…You look more like a dolphin swimming instead of jumping hoops in dolphin show formation. 😁
Like us, dolphins are social and intelligent creatures with abilities.
To get more of their vibe, you can swim with a dolphin and not be afraid that you’ll be thrown.
Well, I take that back…
Once upon a time I swam with dolphins… or a better description is I was thrown from a dolphin’s beak landing into a pool of water.
That was a dolphin ride! Even though in the beginning I wasn’t sure what to expect 🤔
But I did know dolphins are happy and friendly creatures, so I knew we’d get along great in the end. And we did that day.
In that spirit, you can try these other water animal yoga poses that help with flexibility, and you can do on dry land without a splash.
Water Animal Poses
You can use Dolphin pose as a transition break pose before ending in Fish Pose (that’s an opposite position pose on your back), reminding us that dolphins aren’t fish.
And if you’re starting in Dolphin, you can then transition into a Turtle Pose, turning and facing sideways on the mat.
This way you can use the length of the mat and get a new perspective of your surroundings.
💡This is a good metaphor in life to change your perspectives for good outcomes.
TurtlePose is especially good for shoulder streching and tight hamstrings where you’ll feel a good stretch in those parts.
In the pose, your shoulders are a bit hunched over forward to give that turtle back look. 🐢
Turtle is a low to the ground pose where you’re seated and legs are ideally in “V” formation laying flat on the mat, or with slightly bent knees until you get more flexible.
Yoga is a journey.
Then you span your wings (that were fins in Dolphin pose) as far from one end to the other underneath your legs.
Maybe you bend forward with body closer to the mat if you can.
You can challenge yourself daily to bend forward as much as you can in the pose, and then build up your flexibility with knees straightening and legs flattening down toward the mat.
Then after you’ve spent enough time as a turtle, you can turn into a frog.
…Which btw, turtles are reptiles and frogs are amphibians even though they both live on land and water.
And in your land-water abilities, still optimizing the length of the mat, you can flow your legs that were positioned forward in a “V” previously… and move them behind you like frog legs.
Your arms can rest on the mat and floor in front of you.
FrogPose is exceptional for inner hip and thigh flexibility.
🎉Between turtle and frog, you’re getting full upper leg stretches. Your legs are in the largest muscle group in the body.
You optimize your legs in Frog pose that looks just like the yoga pose name, so it’s easy to remember and get into the position.
If you’re a swimmer and know frog swimming strokes, then you’ll be a natural. 🐸
This is a good pose to challenge yourself and see how low you can go eventually, but if you can’t get there just yet (and still feeling a bit like a turtle), blocks are good to rest your forearms on.
For any yoga pose, don’t hurt yourself by overdoing it the first go-round.
Let yourself open up slowly like a lotus 🪷 and that way you protect your joints and tissues from injury.
💡It’s better to start up high and easy and then work your challenging way down, down, and more down to the mat over time.
In a good way, yoga can take you out of your regular norm and reset your mind because usually going down references in your day are easier than getting up and going.
You can pause and think about that one in the pose. And the longer you spend in the pose, the better! 😊
If you spend 5 seconds in a pose, that counts for total time. If you spend 30 seconds in one pose, that’s 6 times the amount for total time.
Not that you’re playing a game of keeping score, but the point is the longer you spend, the greater the daily benefit… and for next time.
Yoga flexibility is all about gradually stretching further each time.
The longer you hold the pose, the more flexible you become in your body’s abilities.
So don’t expect it to happen the first time.
And if you take a break or a season off from yoga, you’ll start over in flexibility. BUT, the your body cells don’t forget so you’ll likely get there quicker than the first time you tried.
Like dolphins that have good memories, body cells also have good memory.
And like the turtle fable metaphor, slow and steady wins the race.
If you’re naturally super flexible, you can rest your forehead on the back of your hands in front of you for both poses.
Then to round out your water poses, you can finish by going into a seated position and laying back into Fish pose. You can do a Dolphin pose yoga move before your transition if you like.
Fish Pose is a great stretch for your neck.
You lay back with your elbows resting on your mat behind your shoulders like you’re catching some rays. ☀️
Then you let your neck rest backward behind you.
Your neck could be wound up as we spend most of our day with our heads and necks leaning forward especially if we work most our day on a device.
So a counteracting reverse pose like Fish Pose helps our neck unwind.
Before you try it full on without prep, it’s good to stretch your neck looking up first to get it more ready and flexible.
Our necks are delicate because they have such small muscles that also have to hold up our heads that weigh like bowling balls.
Like other areas of injury, necks can take weeks to fully heal so be gentle the first few times.
For precaution, a good pre-stretch for the stretch can be practicing looking up toward the ceiling at least 15 seconds several times a day.
I micro-habit stack this move while I’m filling up the filtered water pitcher that takes about that amount of time.
You can also do head circular motions wherever you are and turn your neck from side to side. Those are good if you spend a lot of time car seated.
Hope this keeps you encouraged in your yoga moves and instruction. Stay cool! 😎
Brain fog is a way to describe the forgetfulness nature that Ayurvedic Vata minds commonly daily express that we accept as part of us.
Brain fog accumulates in our daily lives.
In this article, you can learn all about brain fog from our daily environment and simple things we can tweak. You’ll also learn how brain fog isn’t always bad like when it’s from spiritual sources.
Brain fog is the general symptom description for not being able to think clearly.
Often this is when you want the mind to work for you.
Brain fog moments often shows up as confusion, lack of focus, or forgetfulness.
So brain fog would make sense as an explanation for simple memory blips.
But there’s more to this from a spiritual lens that I explain further below on how you can see it as a benefit and a blessing at times.
Because usually brain fog only has negative connotations in our practical culture.
And this article provides some healthy lifestyle tips to eliminate those daily negative brain fog aspects, plus presenting the balancing Vata brain fog positives (that’s a common built-in feature in our Vata mind nature).
In either positive or negative case, we don’t often sit around and analyze what’s going on with brain fog when our minds are in the clouded mist.
And what we experience is usually harmless, like forgetting eye glasses on our heads and looking everywhere for them.
While that can be comical, it’s extra minutes of distraction when the answer was sitting on you above your nose.
For daily routines and tasks, Vatas often create forgetfulness habits to set reminders and purposefully not forget.
High Vatas have active minds of worry-anxiety, more so than Pittas and Kaphas that can have other brain fog distractions.
This btw happened to me when I baked a healthy dessert for the morning and next morning. And the next morning, I forgot about all about it in my mind’s distraction.
A simple scenario like that happens to all of us at some point.
Peach biscuit. Recipe is below. 🍑
…And when I remembered the forgotten cool peach dessert, it was actually when I would appreciate the bite more after lunch so it could be an enjoyment positive experience.
In your daily life, if someone ever asks you why you didn’t do something and you answer I forgot, you often don’t get a lot of out-of-the-ordinary questioning.
Because forgetting is so normal.
Forgetting can also be healthy for us who like to control ideas. You let go of controlling your mind or the device in front of you that you’re tethered to.
This can invite in creativity inside us and help us let go of rigid ways.
But then there are also negatives such as cognitive decline brain fog instances we want to help prevent. It’s the “elephant in the room” but a diagnosis growing in our world, and that’s something we can be aware of and doing something about in our lives today.
Preventative Healthy Living Helps With Brain Fog
Brain fog can grow when we have these elements in our daily lives: high-processed foods, pesticides, phthalates, non-purified air, and mold, to name a few culprits in our modern lifestyles.
They alter our bodies and that affects our mind in the body-mind connection and in our mental health.
Processed foods for example become whole nutrient-stripped in the plant process (as in factory plant 🏭).
Organic plants 🌱 are better options where we don’t find the same trace levels of pesticides that are found in non-organic foods.
If you garden, you know what natural sprays you’ve used or not used in your care. And when you bake like I do, you know what ingredients you’ve added. You know the wholesomeness details.
In grocery stores, we see the ingredients in our carts we’ll be using to cook with or eat. And we can read labels.
But we don’t see the processes in-between, so this makes comparing foods an apples to oranges experience.
Cheese is an example. Rennet that is found in some parts of the world isn’t the pasteurized cheese process found along the shelf rows in our American grocery stores.
The goat and sheep’s cheese that the Sardinians farm and eat isn’t what we find in our guts.
And for daily coffee drinkers, switching to organic is good for preventative health as coffee is naturally high in mold.
Mold is a brain fog offender.
Organic coffee is considerably more expensive and more difficult to source, but it’s out there when you look and put your health first.
You can get resourceful and save money by buying whole roasts and then doing the grind work yourself. You can feel much more grounded like your coffee when you do. 😊
Daily clean air is also going to be healthy preventative help against the brain fog cause. Developing daily hayfever-like allergy symptoms is one common sign.
And building in more wellness habits and healthy intentions to your life is going to help you most in your sleep, health conditions, and mental fatigue. Yoga is one way to bring in more self-awareness intention.
When you calm and relax your mind and self that also brings down your stress and anxiety levels that help Vata brain fog.
Calming and Relaxing the Mind
Good answers and thoughts show up when the mind is calm and relaxed, and not anxious or worried like when running with high Vata brain fog symptoms.
When our minds are under stress, often we can’t think of the answer when put on the spot.
If we’re asked a Family Feud game show question like what is the first thing you do in the morning?, we can usually come up with an answer. And maybe one that lights up on the board.
But when someone asks us the same question in an interview where we know others will put judgment on what we say, we can’t come up with the answer under mind stress.
We could just give a safe answer.
…Or you may surprise yourself by blurting an answer that surprises you.
Those answers that pop up in memory unexpectedly often come from our spirit.
The answer that pops in our mind come from our deeper wisdom inside us.
We didn’t rack our brain for the answer. They just entered out of no where.
Those thoughts can be blessings when you connect-the-dots.
I’ve had a lot of time and spiritual experiences to teach me wisdom lessons learned to show me this.
Over time, the lessons gave me a different perspective to gain the deeper meaning behind those memory moment lapse blessings.
Once you know you can’t go back to not-knowing and wouldn’t want to as cracking the code secrets toward a happier life.
And you can notice when thought lapses land in aligned perfect timing.
That’s when it’s a spiritual miracle and blessing.
An example is we forget what we were going to say from our rational brain from losing our train of thought.
We get other thoughts that enter.
In groups I attended, we called these other thoughts: popcorn thoughts. These answers come from our heart as though we didn’t process the thought first.
If it’s a helpful suggestive thought, it’s often helpful for others to hear who need the suggestion.
If you can get over what others will think or any insecurities you have in those moments, and blurt out what you’re thinking, often it helps someone else.
You don’t necessarily know how it will help, but it does when you dare to stay vulnerable in sharing.
They are spiritual collaboration opportunities that are expressed when you speak them aloud. You can feel good about showing up.
In the same token, sometimes others blurt out something you needed that sticks with you. It’s the same when purposefully listening to a podcast or a message that you need.
So we’re giving back in a way.
We can all contribute and give back in the energy of life in this way and without much effort.
If you want more of these opportunities to show up and are willing to have your day rearranged in some way, ask quietly aloud or in self-talk: what can I do today to be helpful?
Then be prepared to be useful to others. 😊
And in daily life, these prompted thoughts and memories will show up more frequently if you pay attention (that’s an active move).
You could ignore and override those thoughts to stay on your linear agenda.
That’s how I was until I knew better.
As a planner, we don’t prefer going off course. But over the years, I grew to embrace impromptu thoughts entering, seeing this new spiritual perspective.
And maybe that would help you.
Spiritual impromptu thoughts help you align and redirect to a better way, day, and life. They lead to a life of more purpose, happiness, meaning, and fulfillment. 🎉
So you can be curious next time and openly ask yourself: why did I have ____ particular thought? And see if you get anything back as a thought.
Most likely you won’t immediately.
But that makes you consider another way of thinking and living that can be spirit-filled and coming from deeper inside of you that knows deeply what you want.
And you can stay curious and wondering until something clicks like it finally did for me.
So if we wonder about those spiritual impromptu thoughts, that opens the door to our exploring our spiritual wisdom inside us that isn’t brain fog.
This can be our new norm.
And for our daily mattering lives, we can invite in ad hoc thoughts in our mantras, meditation, and centering to help advise us on what to do next.
And as you can tell, I enjoy baking meditation where this dessert was dreamed up and you can enjoy making.✨
Shadow work helps dig out the deeper things holding you back that may be hidden from view and you may not be aware of today.
Artwork is one metaphor for our lives. This spiral art piece brings out the light and shadows where you’re seeing only a partial angle. This can be what’s it like when we look in the mirror at ourselves, where we don’t see the light in our inner selves.This is a full view of the same art piece by Ellsworth Kelly that shows many more lines and color dimensions that can shine like us in our discoverable selves.
It’s work and discovery you do on yourself that pays off as you learn more about your inner self so you can better shine in your authentic and best you you’re meant to be.
And you can find your loving self and steer away from your darker sides that cast shadows in your life.
I know this from my own journey. I was a late bloomer for many years and areas of life. And just when things were coming together nicely, then all of the sudden around 35, I went into a now what do I do? season.
I was hit with a spiritual intervention and no roadmap life manual to help me along that season.
Life springs things on you where you have no concrete guide to follow. No one teaches you that a spiritual intervention can happen at any time in your life journey on your life blueprint that you don’t have access to.
A spiritual intervention is not commonly heard of but it does happen in this miracle we call Life.
And yeah, that’s what happened to me.
Before I get into the details, the reality is we’re not in as much control of our planned future as we want to think. We get to choose to believe in faith over what we think is our future based on our past and what we’re currently working on.
And believe that a greater force above has our back and a better plan.
And in my spun out-of-my control season, I ended up relocating back to where I came from when I had no plans or thoughts to do so. It was more shocking to me than to my friends and family who were happy to hear I was moving closer back to the area.
It was a healthy move, even though it was unconventional as spiritual changes and growth often are.
The days leading up to my move, the healthy marriage I was in fell apart because of the intervention reveals that made the step-to-step moves easier. There was sadness leaving, but no drama.
I ended up in a hospital with no physical health diagnosis. There was nothing wrong with me. What appeared as a mental breakdown I knew as a spiritual awakening. Is that how you diagnose inner voices? Apparently.
The immediate trauma reality I felt when I was released was the sting of the hospital bill. Ouch and oh btw, I would have to pack my life up today and start all over with new work, step back, and build a new adult life while the world around me kept going.
I couldn’t even tell you the songs playing on the radio waves then or what the major news headlines were going on.
Those few final days and weeks before were a total blur. I must’ve thrown out many scrapbook album memories in the preparation for my move. Discarding my past was a metaphor representation of how I felt with this new life ahead of me.
It was nothing less than an invisible higher force that took over and moved me one step at a time.
And I knew this as God co-creating and ordering my footsteps, who got in the car with me and drove me back to the area I had left.
It was surreal. My hand was on the wheel but he was unmistakenly the GPS, so I felt safe even though I was confused.
So there I was back to the area where I grew up with a higher plan that I expected would unfold. An old church friend God-wink coincidentally had a room available as her last roommate had just moved out.
Even though I was in the same area I grew up in, it seemed miles away from my growing up familiarities. This time around I was closer to the city and further away from the towns where many of my first memories of childhood and early adulthood were formed.
Some memories were accumulated past trauma from childhood and early adulthood that I needed shadow work for to help me discover forgiveness.
And others were happy memories from friendships and past experiences made.
It was a bittersweet come back. I was then recently laid off from a career job I had been at for years, so I had to lean on trust that I would be provided for during those recession years that wiped out businesses and the corporate tech industry I had just come from.
But this life changing event wasn’t about just a move, a job change, or a season transition. This was a life transformation.
I was entering a new way of life on earth that was foreign to me and the cascade of events leading up were so bizarre. Even though I felt secure under the Universe’s wing, I didn’t know how to start this new shaken up chapter of life.
Now what? kept coming up in my thoughts.
One of my first set of tests was letting go. I didn’t know how to surrender my old thinking ways. And that’s when I got really deep into introspection and shadow work and trying to figure out what happened on my own.
Miraculously, planted in me was the awareness of harmful ego ways. With a little freed up headspace from not being so busy, I became aware that I had healing work to do on myself. I had never paused before from work to successfully get to know the real me.
I went to church healing rooms to see if I could gain a little insight and closure. And got some comfort and was able to purge some past trauma. This was as close to therapy as I would get.
Life Before The Spiritual Intervention
I was always choosing to be busy and that was ingrained in me in the DC metro area culture I grew up in and was now back in. But this time around, my surroundings were quiet as my friends were grown up too. They were busy with their family and lives. I had to figure mine out.
My life looked nothing like most those I went to college with where they moved up the corporate ladder, settled down, and had a family. They lived close by but our world’s were far apart.
I felt alone in navigating what next, but I also felt optimistic that my life would take off because of the spiritual intervention experience I had lived out in the hospital that showed me some prophecies about work and relationships in my distance-off future.
I knew there was a plan but I just didn’t know when, how, and what the real life specifics were. And when some life pieces came to life, I recognized them later on as shown to me in prophecies.
Those were miracles, and it all sounds bizarre on paper, but that’s how it also felt. Beautiful and bizarre.
And at the end of the day, none of us know the uncertain future so nothing looked that unusual about me or my life from an outside onlooker.
One area I knew I could focus on building was my deeper spiritual self and building traits I would need and may have missed developing along the way.
Ego work was just the tip of the iceberg. As mentioned, I was in and grew up around America’s capital. This is an area filled with smart, affluent people where pride and ego are waved as invisible badges of honor, but now I was ready to get rid of those non-serving ways.
People outside or living there in short transition or temporary assignments don’t realize how strong the political daily air is there outside the news. And so much so that nobody talks about it there as common practice to not create further divides.
It’s a unique invisible bubble that rarely gets talked about as ego is not usually a subject matter of discussion.
So, now you know the situation better.
And a year before this new season’s reveal, I was made aware I was holding onto past trauma from childhood and an adult situation that created PTSD I had blindly been holding onto. That’s what a spiritual intervention and shadow work can help reveal.
I grew up under the house of an immigrant parent who had a dominant ego disorder that grew worse over time. And after I moved off to be on my own, I fell victim to a dangerous work situation in a brick and mortar business.
This all came to light in this revealing spiritual intervention season.
I realized my past situations grew my victim mentality. And that fed my ego that loves to hang onto woes me for my situations.
It’s the same ego that thrives on protecting our pride and does so much damage in all of us, showing up in all kinds of daily, harmful non-serving ways.
If you’ve worked around people long enough, you will have seen this and not necessarily know that it was their ego that created their undesirable behaviors.
Our ego is our shadow until we become aware. Bringing out your shadow into the light is the shadow work that can align you to your whole self where your life begins to unfold more purpose and meaning.
I became ego conscious-aware that my ego played me in my subconscious insecurities as it does for most unaware.
Before then, I could be emotionally triggered and all of the sudden be stricken with an ugly cry with my then-husband.
It was like a recurring sound bite scene from Love is Blind where the American dating participant, Chelsea, is crying “clingy?”
Clingy wasn’t my manifestation, but my ego reared its ugly head wanting me to be right and win in partner conflicts.
And instead I lost the debate and all conscious streams of thinking that came from allowing the ego game to be played in me.
I didn’t know how to shake off or walk away from my turmoil feelings that started out as harmless thoughts.
That was work I needed to do. A real life mirror partner had reflected back to me what I needed to work on.
I ignored those prompts until I became aware of the ego years later.
Today’s Lessons
Your old brain is still a part of you that you carry along wherever you go. When you’ve moved on, your past memories and old lessons learned never die.
They travel with you and show up on your vacations.
If you’ve ever seen couples or friends fighting on vacation and you wonder, what’s there to fight about on this dreamy once-in-a-lifetime beautiful serene blue ocean or castle fantasy backdrop?… it’s the ego rearing its ugly head into the situation.
At any time, your ego can take old information and create fear and exacerbate worry in your situations today and in the future that are related to your past. Bring love to the situation is the cure.
If you bring out love from your past situations to your present, it shows up in your calm emotions today and also in your healthy body.
Ego situations and how they play out look different for everyone. If we could pinpoint one situation for everyone we would have figured this out collectively. But ego is a trickster.
Some even refer to their ego as an imposter that shows up.
The outward sign is that it’s not reality happening even though it feels like it is to you or the person. You’re not being chased by a tiger, but it can feel that way with modern digital message triggers.
Unknowingly, you undetect where the havoc source is coming from as it’s subconscious.
You can’t see through those thick clouds and insecurities. And that can lead to knee-jerk reactions.
Another sign for everyone is an unhealthy ego acting up is rooted in negative thoughts about yourself or others like self-pity, self-loathing, or blaming others.
It’s Edging God Out. The opposite is love and being conscious.
An unhealthy ego moment is a twisted form of overprotection for your best interest where you lose, lose control, and those around you lose if they get intertwined.
Bottom line: it doesn’t come from love.
Everyone is best to walk away in peace rather than play the counterproductive ego games.
Becoming aware of ego’s ability to harm you and relationships today and healing your past with new rewritten loving narrative thought memories are two of the healthiest shadow work moves you can make.
On a larger scale, you can rid of victim mentality so you can live fully whole and healthy in the now. You can be happy for others and their progress as you are for your own.
The ego will try to make these darker sides invisible to you so you continue as is, but if your desire is to grow and be happy, you can outwit your ego and not play the games.
We all are damaged goods in some way because of this built-in ego feature that we have a choice to change. It’s no one’s fault.
And that’s why when you’ve been aware long enough you can forgive others for their unconsciousness and behaviors… and hope they will try to get informed, grow, become conscious, and be accountable for their behaviors.
The Healthy Shadow Work You Can Do Today
So many of us would benefit from shadow work.
For one, you could discover and change negative moods coming from inside you. You could learn more about what triggers you.
You can replace these non-serving moments with higher and loving words such as those found in the New Testament Scripture.
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
A daily reminder verse to call out your ego thoughts front and center daily helps.
You can build lasting character traits such as those in Galatians 5: patience, kindness, goodness, self-control, peace, joy, and love. These are the higher living ways.
They can take deep inner work and the first step can be shadow work discovery.
Becoming self-aware is timeless and absolutely necessary for growth.
And knowing the ego never shuts off and can show up in many ways in our mind roles such as:
critic
judge
competitor
fighter
dictator
imposter
One role ego doesn’t play is peacemaker. When ego is behaving and healthy, it helps you to strive for healthy goals.
We need some healthy pride to push us along. Or if you’re in real danger, ego can help motivate you to protect you.
But the undealt with unhealthy daily ego critic sitting on one shoulder shouts loud thoughts that appear logical to you (or the person), while the whispering angel spirit in you is gentle and loving preferring humility over pride.
The more you practice the softer humility sides, the more you can see the harmful pride.
Ego is subtle to you…
If you have a balanced way or a sense of making good decisions usually, logic can appear as harmless as “everyone is doing that.”
In those thought moments, you have a choice to not be everyone and do what you know is best or loving when you know better. We all have a choice.
If your ego is fighting you, you can be prepared with spiritual weapons like the armor of God spelled out in Ephesians, and in renewing your mind.
The more preparation and practice you have, your discernment increases the next time and you grow.
Still wondering how the ego shows up?…
So, I used to let the ego run the show. The daily mind show that is where I accepted all thoughts to enter as mine.
Some days a whole day would go by with the same repeated past memories. That’s classic ego.
I didn’t know I could exercise changing my thoughts. That was revelation when I learned and how to replace the thoughts.
Even if you had a great childhood or life so far, your ego will at some point take something from your past and spin it to a negative thought even if others would see it as a healthy and happy moment. It’s in your control to change the narrative fed to you.
Being the observer of thoughts and not letting the thoughts play out after the thought movie reel has been played once is a good strategy, so you don’t lose a whole day of productivity and peace.
And then stay aware the next time. You can make a decision that there’s no room for the two of us as it’s cramping growth, and simply kick out your unhealthy ego. Don’t play the games.
Sometimes it take mental wresting strength to let the thoughts pass through without energizing them to replay. Be determined to do what you know will eventually work for you.
And as part of my light bulb moment discovery, I found that ego was not just once in a while playing havoc in our lives, it’s the source of most problems in our day.
Because the ego is a feature in all of us in this world. Behaviors are trickled down among other people involved and their operating egos.
Imagine if the leader of a group or business had ego issues that showed up. You could only imagine (or have experienced before) the tricked down dysfunctional effect in the management hierarchy.
This observation becomes more obvious when you know (or have been made aware like I may be stirring in you today).
You witness in your daily interactions with people… one minute they are agreeable and friendly and then one day the season ends and they turn out to be something else. They’re unaware they’re being played by their ego.
This happens in relationships all the time and is at the crux of partner power struggles.
Without the harmful ego aspects, our world would be a better place because we would be better acting humans, heal ourselves, and those around us.
But until my hospital incident, I didn’t know how destructive the subconscious and invisible ego is on our planet, in our lives, and in me.
Shadow work examples such as going to therapy or light journaling tools can help open the doors to discover more of your deeper and hidden self.
The answers are inside you so deeper spiritual self-help may help you like healing rooms did for me.
And in my spiritual intervention rebirth.
Leading up to that point, these shadow work resources helped and can help to open the awareness…
What Did Help and Can Help You in Shadow Work Discovery
Turning to some self-help books opened my eyes. One in particular, Eckart Tolle’s The Power of Now is one of those books that comes alive in your when you’re ready for the message because your spirit lights it up.
It’s a deep book that you’re either ready for or not. You’ll know if you are because your eyes won’t glaze over the sentences. And when it’s an easy flow read, the chains have been released and the pain-body is exposed. The book is an experience. It can be so powerful that you may only need to read it once to gain the knowledge, and it’s forever in you.
That opened the spirit inside me like a lotus flower to make more room for awareness when my spiritual intervention season entered years later. 🪷
The Bible was another spiritual book I had as a tool. I had let the contents and words of Scripture occupy space and spill over inside me. 📖
You can re-read Scripture over and over again and find new tidbits of wisdom and helpful Biblical truth. You don’t get the same experience each time.
New words can jump off the page with meaning to you when you’re ready. Like my eyes skipped over the mysterious “spirit” word on the pages until I was ready.
The Bible is an instructional self-help life manual and is the only book that’s still being translated in so many languages.
Letting the higher words permeate to brain wash out all the muck that occupies the day for things that won’t matter in the years to come, is life giving.
Those are good starters.
And then be open and let your life’s journey unfold.
There’s so much more to this world and it’s inside you. As Deepak Chopra says, “the world is in you.”
“I am not in the world. The world is in me.” – Deepak Chopra
Doing deeper shadow work is underrated and will produce so much more in you and out of you as you impact the world with your greatness you were born with. 🎉
And can be born again with. Something to consider and maybe enjoy over an angel cake recipe 😇
