Transform Your Life
Solstice Blessings
Solstice Blessings
As the year draws to a close, I wanted to share some thoughts with you and offer you a free meditation to help you to move forward and align yourself to what you really want.
I know that things can be tough at this time of year and many of us can feel isolated, lonely, sad, or low. There is so much pressure to be a certain way, so many expectations to fulfil. We may find ourselves rushing around, being pulled in all directions, and we may lose our sense of centre, and feel off balance and stressed.
At this time of year, nature is telling us to withdraw, be quiet, reflective, and to look within. We can use this time to reflect on what no longer serves us in life, what we want to let go of or release. This may be unhelpful habits, thought processes, people, situations, work, or places.
We may feel like we have no choice in how things are in our lives, but no matter what we are faced with, there is always a choice. It may be deciding to respond differently to a situation, a place, or a person, or choosing to view something in a new way. Take some time to consider your situation, what you would like to let go of, what you wish to keep, what you would like to attract into your life. Then begin to find ways to release what no longer serves you, practically or symbolically, to create space for what you really want.
If you can find some time to sink beneath the chaos and expectation at this time of year and listen to the voice of your heart, away from the intrusion of external opinions, thoughts or messages, you will find that you can connect with what is right for you.
Listen to my free solstice meditation to let go of what no longer serves you here:
Ego
Ego
The ego is misunderstood in society today. It is the one thing that people avoid looking at as too much ego is usually viewed as a bad thing. But ego is a natural part of us, and we all need ego strength, to enable us to feel confident, express our individuality and be resilient in life.
We comprehend the word through the ego, it allows us to absorb all the sensory information around us and form an awareness of our reality by putting it into a context that we can understand, using form and content.
However, the ego often takes over control of the creation of this framework and applies a perception to situations that is distorted or biased. This happens when the ego gets stuck in its expansion. For example, imagine your partner accidentally deletes your favourite programme that you have saved to watch. The content is – the programme is deleted, by accident. The ego may interpret this as “they did that on purpose”, or “they don’t care about me.”
Ego stages:
- Infantile ego – this is concerned with having enough and feeling safe, things that all children need. If your ego is stuck at this stage then you may be constantly looking at others, to see if they have more than you, more money, love, affection, and so on. You may also constantly look to others for approval and acceptance.
- Adolescent ego – this is concerned with feeling good enough. As an adolescent we seek rebellion, and this is important in formation of ego and image. But we need to rebel and be good enough as well. If your ego is stuck at this stage, you are constantly trying to show that you are better than others, intellectually, physically, materially, emotionally, and so on. You may also put others down, to help yourself to feel better.
- Young adult ego – this is concerned with learning and growth. We learn about the world and ourselves as we grow up and we grow as a person as we do, strengthening our image of ourselves. If you are stuck at this stage, you think you have to continually learn and grow and this can become an unhelpful pattern sometimes.
- Mature ego – this is when the ego grasps that it is enough or: “I am enough”. It is full acceptance of who you are, recognising all the different aspects of self. Many people never reach this phase as it is so easy to get stuck in any of the preceding stages.
We can work to mature our ego, to move it through the stages and understand where we are. It is important to note that the ego often confuses us and makes us feel bad for valuing ourselves, acting confidently, putting ourselves first or speaking our minds. Society has a big part to play in this as well, with the concept of altruism so widely celebrated.
To develop your ego and establish what stage it is at there are a few things you can do:
- Write down the different ways in which you feel that you are better than others.
- Reflect on your life and your processes, and explore times in which you blame others, deny responsibility, or justify your behaviour, to yourself and/or others. This is ego led behaviour so look at the situation that causes you to react in this way.
- Accept that this is part of being human and absolve yourself of self-blame.
- Look at what you do to avoid ego, times perhaps when you cut off your nose to spite your face, and what you do to reward ego, times when you feel you are being selfish, or others say that you are.
- Work on developing your ego in meditation, simply by asking for this to happen, with the help of your guides, higher self or whatever divine being you worship.
Meditation
Research into meditation shows that it increases the production of alpha and theta brain waves contributing to a greater sense of wellbeing and enhanced cognitive ability.
There are many different types of meditation and a great number of misconceptions about what meditation is. A common misconception is that meditation is about clearing the mind of thoughts, and therefore many people think they can’t meditate as they are unable to quiet their mind. But this is not what meditation is at all, often in fact, thoughts are necessary as they form part of the processing that needs to happen, in order for us to truly relax. An experiement into brain waves during meditation showed that a deep state of meditation can be achived when the mind appears to be active and often, people who feel they cannot enter a deep meditative state are the ones who are actually in a deeper state than others.
If you are keen to meditate it is important that you find your own way. Read up on different types, try them out and see what feels right for you. It can be useful to join a class or group to meet with like-minded people, explore further and enjoy the benefits that meditating with others brings.
Check out my meditation groups and courses here: