What is the authentic self? We each are a spiritual beings inside of a human body. That’s a heavy statement! The authentic self is the spirit in us acting true to itself. But most of the time, we do not act true to our spirit. We often let go of this power to our ego. Don’t get the wrong idea about the ego, it’s not inherently evil. It’s a tool.
The ego is a product of a brain that has evolved over thousands of centuries. The brain is a fantastic tool for building skyscrapers and repairing broken bones. But, it is only a tool. The predicament we fall into is identifying fully as our brain when there is so much more to us than that.
The brain is a tool instead of the full experience and ego is a byproduct of our self identifying with our brain. When we act to feed our ego, we fall into the trap. Because we are identifying with the brain, we become dependent on the outcome of situations to reinforce our own ego. The ego becomes under threat because it believes it is the end all be all of ourself. If the ego goes, “I” go.
The ego’s feeling of vulnerability masks our authentic self. It orders us to act a certain way and to comply with social conditioning. The reason why is because it is dependent on the outcomes in order to maintain itself. This is how our anxieties around socialization exist. We are dependent on everyone liking us (or the inverse: dependent on not being judged.) Therefore we act in an inauthentic way. A way that is clumsy, challenging, and cumbersome. The cure to this isn’t to learn a secret formula for speaking to people, but instead to learn how to exist as the authentic self, the spirit. This is important. If we do not live authentically, then we are not truly living in a way that is in alignment with ourselves.
This is how all the drama starts! We let the ego take charge and it makes the decisions in accordance to its conditioning – not our authentic self. The ego is only doing its job, though. But what this turns into is a life full of decisions that are not aligned with our true desires and wants. We are taken in a direction that is completely opposite to our inherent path: the path of the heart.
But, once we realize that we are so much more than the egotistical mind, we can really start to connect with ourselves. As we sit quietly and listen deeply, we can hear the whisper of our spirit. Then we can stoke the embers and give fire to our existence. We can feel the burning passion to live and to live authentically, truly, to our self – the spirit. We can exist, comfortably within our bodies. We can follow the heart path and live impeccably in accordance to the life that is available to us.
