It’s been quite a while since I wrote about ego and its impact on my life. And these past few months, something has been crystallizing: I keep falling back into the same pattern – getting hung up on ego-based introspection / daydreaming instead of doing action. No matter what I do, how much I meditate, the ego never disappears completely – it adapts. And I think I finally understand why.

These past months, I’ve been practicing meditation differently – not by sitting alone in my practice, but bringing mindfulness into a new relationship. This deeper consciousness led me to explore and reflect on when I last felt the kind of flow, the presence of pure action. That led me back to 2014…

At the time, I worked on various projects that had an impact of some kind above just earning me some money. A time when I traveled for roughly ¼ of the year. When I was getting recognised during concerts as the Inspector for filming musicians. I wrote articles, made video interviews and shared ideas.

During that time, the choice what to do was, in the words of Jim Carrey, without the idea of a me. They just flowed out – both what I chose to do and the energy for the work (and the world exploration).

And the most troubling period of my life was the exact opposite – when I fully blocked this energy out by believing that things weren’t supposed to just happen – instead I should think and know and decide on what’s about to happen.

I should have a better story, I should be trying harder, I should be more like Steve Jobs. This led not to more meaningful work – but to paralysis. Nothing I could do would give me that story immediately, so I did very little. Just waiting for the golden opportunity, for some cosmic shift.

Of course, the ego knew what it was doing: by demanding I have a story first, it kept me from the scary, vulnerable work of actually building something. Clever.

When I started exploring spirituality, around late 2020, I got to know the concept of ego – a necessary step in becoming mindful. Even understanding the concept – while the application was not even conscious – I swung the pendulum away from the constant daydreaming towards letting the work and creation just happen.

Two-three months later the same pattern kicked in – why am I burning myself out, exactly? I should be this and that, I should be allowed to have my vices (distract myself, run away, cope).

Right around that time I accidentally discovered Dr. K’s videos, earlier ones, where I gained even more and deeper understanding of the ego, spirituality, meditation, yet – some piece of a puzzle was still missing.

Why am I bouncing between these two poles? Why the shift, why the tension between these two sides of my psyche?

I could and still can detach from the outcome. I can simply show up daily, to practise my work, to serve my clients, family, friends, my significant other. But I would passively, even though more silently, have a lingering question – shouldn’t I have a story? Shouldn’t this lead somewhere? Shouldn’t I be someone..?

This question grows louder sometimes, then relaxes, as if the universe is breathing in and out slowly, with my own process of healing contracting and expanding, contracting and expanding.

The universe breathing in (ego reasserts control) and out (I remember to flow from heart).

I used to think that having a healthy ego – or even detaching from one – was a singular event – you realise the truth, throw down the illusion and it’s done.

Instead it’s a process of peeling layers of understanding. Realising, even later, during reflections, that I was indeed in the contraction part of the rhythm – making myself small again, not letting myself to take up space, to feel the abundance of the world.

In the past, the contraction took the form of “I should have a story” or “I am not worthy”. Nowadays, it’s the strengthening of my OCD symptoms – the brain would form beliefs, isolate me, limit me away from the world, from engaging with people.

The ego realized that “be like Steve Jobs” wasn’t working anymore, so it found a new strategy: OCD. Lock me in loops, keep me safe from risk, prevent transformation.

From simply showing up and channeling through the heart. From making “this life and everything in it […] a play of form. Something to toy with and play with, and make something good out of.” Words of Jim Carrey yet again, as I quoted him when I first wrote about the ego four years ago.

Going full circle here.

When I was reflecting on the topic of this post with my significant other – who’s also doing her transformation, and we can both witness each other’s journey – she noted that more often than not she sees me stuck in my mind space, and barely ever being present and true to my heart.

It’s so easy for me to fall back to only trusting my mind. And I have yet to build enough trust that my body and my heart know everything they need to succeed and whatever the mind chooses is not necessary for neither my survival, nor greatness and abundance.

So what’s the pattern underneath all this? Whether it’s “I should be like Steve Jobs” or OCD loops keeping me safe – it’s the same mechanism: the mind trying to control, to plan, to protect.

But the work that mattered – 2014, the months after discovering ego in 2020, now again – never came from planning. It flowed. From the heart, not the mind.

The mind could neither see, nor understand this. Would require an explanation over and over again. The mind needed to be needed.

So instead I will simply let the heart show the way, allow the creation to flow through me, without needing anything as a reward – as a sanskrit saying:

“You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action. Never consider yourself the cause of the results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your duty.”