The Ego Loves Avoidance (Predict and Protect)
I’ve been stuck in a state of avoidance.
I have business tasks that feel overwhelming because they require a level of authenticity I haven’t had the courage to express. It’s not that I am not capable of building out the business of my dreams, the one where I have time, location, and financial freedom (something I call Total Freedom) but it’s the self-justification that the ego creates for me to not do the things I want because they are unpredictable and unknown.
It’s this narrative that I don’t want to do the work (creating the product, promoting it and actualzing my ideas) because it’s not truly aligned with what I want to do.
It kept me under the idea that “you will feel something when the work is aligned, so you must try and find that feeling.”
So, I kept me searching for alignment instead of being in it.
It’s done this to show me that I am aligned in every moment. It’s given me this avoidance so that I remember that my ideas are not mine.
The avoidance was asking me deeper questions about it’s very existence.
Why am I hoarding ideas? Why haven’t I shared them via products and business?
Then after zooming out of my avoidance through introspection, it hit me.
My ego fears who I’ll become if I embrace the uncertainty and build my dreams in the present moment instead of searching for solutions in the world of negation that it creates for me.
Meaning, the Ego had been justifying my fears about producing a product under my name, actualizing my ideas, and my worries about “if they would be good enough for people to gain value”.
It kept me back from BEING by making me DO other things because I wasn’t ready yet.
As I write this, an Eckhart Tolle quote comes to mind. He writes,
Whatever that ego seeks and get attached to our substitutes for the being that it cannot feel. You can value and care for things, but whenever you get attached to them, you will know it’s the ego. And you are never really attached to a thing but to a thought that has an “I”, “me” or “mine” in it.
-Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
And this one too.
You can only feel when you get out of your head. Being must be felt. It can’t be thought. The ego doesn’t know about it because that is what it consists of.
-Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
My identification and attachment to the product being mine put me in an Ego Trip.
An Ego Trip is a cyclical pattern designed to keep you stuck in constraint.
It had me searching for a feeling of alignment to keep me from Being aligned in the present moment. Plus, it sent me into a spiral of perfectionism and procrastination.
Because I had paid attention to the thoughts from the Ego that fed me the lies that I couldn’t create products because they wouldn’t be good enough or give people enough value, my external environment created this huge avoidance for me.
It stunted my energy to do the work because it gave me a perception that I couldn’t do the work, that the work to create a product was too difficult, that I didn’t know how, and instead told me I needed to search for ways to “make it better”.
I hadn’t even started making the product, because my ego told me whatever I made wouldn’t work.
It didn’t even let me try to build.
And I let it hold me back.
Yet, I knew exactly how to create the product, because everything I needed was already inside of me. I had all the ideas, and couldn’t write them out.
This Ego Trip limited me from creating the very things that my future self would be so grateful for had I committed to them in the present moment.
It felt like I was “working” because I was engaged in self-study.
It’s the ego’s subtle trick, the search for novelty, that kept me stuck.
This hunt for novelty told me that I didn’t know how to do what I wanted to do.
It was a lie that kept me in a constant state of searching for answers.
Overcoming this avoidance was first understanding where it came from, and secondly standing in commitment to the creation despite the narrative.
From my new vantage point, I see the Ego Trip for what it was, a loving effort by my ego to keep me safe, and I held space for that effort from my good friend.
However, I know that I can close that door and open another one.
Opening The Next Door
The avoidance kept me in The Suffering Point or The Ego’s Homebase.
When we suffer in The Suffering Point or when we are trapped in The Ego’s Homebase we live under a paradox that says:
I don’t have what I want OR I want what I don’t have.
This is the trap that I fell into and that kept me stalled from the business for months.
I only have a few months left in the year to make money.
I am excited to get started.
I am making a commitment to actualizing my ideas and creating value for others.
My ideas are not mine, I am merely a vessel for them to flow through me.
This takes any perception of pressure off of me and invites a deeper sense of love, authenticity and peace within the creation of my product.
When overcoming avoidance it’s best to see it for what it is, make a commitment to create an environment where tasks feel easy, and be in the moment.
I am excited to dive in.
More soon,
Izzy
p.s. I am creating a course designed to help you collapse your constraints so that you can achieve goals that stem from love and desire and not fear. Learn more here.
p.s.s. I work with professional athletes, CEOs, and Entrepreneurs to free their mental and physical constraints so that they can do what matters most. If you are interested in learning more, click here.