7 Ways to Tame the Ego and Become Instantly Likeable

 “If you want to reach a state of bliss, then go beyond your ego and the 
internal dialogue. Make a decision to relinquish the need to control, the need 
to be approved, and the need to judge.” ~ Deepak Chopra

What is the Ego?

I remember having a conversation with someone once, we were talking about Eckhart Tolle and the ego identification.  The lady I was talking to piped up and said, ‘well, I don’t have an ego’.

“Do you get that an ego is the identification you have with your self and who you are, what you do and how others perceive you?”

Let me make this perfectly clear:  Everybody has an ego!  Here is the dictionary definition of this fruity little word:

e·go – 

  1. the “I” or self of any person; a person as thinking, feeling, and willing, and distinguishing itself from the selves of others and from objects of its thought.
  2. the part of you that reacts to the outside world and thus mediates between the primitive drives of the id and the demands of the social and physical environment.
  3. egotism; conceit; self-importance.
  4. self-esteem or self-image; feelings.
  5. the enduring and conscious element that knows experience.

Aligning with Your Awareness of Ego

Book Cover CARPE DIEM OR BUST

Read this authors latest book – Paperback available at Amazon and other leading bookstores for $8.99

Are you a prancing show-pony or a shrinking violet?  Either one has an imbalanced sense of self.

Now that we have cleared up the myth of the ego being only a no. 3 definition of the strutting peacock itching to get recognition and praise, we can move on to ways of coping with your ego.

“Ego is the biggest enemy of humans” ~ Rig Veda

Do you get that an ego is the identification you have with your self and who you are, what you do and how others perceive you?

So even someone who is timid and an introvert has a problem with ego identification.  It is just in reverse but the principle remains.  When you feel yourself either inferior or superior to others — you have ego issues.

Disidentifying With the Ego

The ego is an inseparable part of you, it is not the enemy.  It is how you let your ego use you that can be detrimental to the quality of your life.

“Masters know when to speak, when to be silent and when their words will be like farting against thunder.”

I am, in no way, saying that the ego needs suppression or containment, just proper management and understanding — it’s as simple as that.  Your ego identification is an integral part of you, and like the universal concept that we are both yin and yang/light and dark, you need it.  You are a unique individual with irrevocable personality traits in your toolkit — this is the part of ego that can be embraced.  The key is to see this beautiful quality in every other soul.

Here is the pitfall of the ego — it wants to be separate from the whole, better than the rest and put itself somewhere untouchable.  This is the downfall of our current society, it is a separatist theory that pits people against each other and keeps them in an ‘us against them’ mental construct.

This is the dangerous element of the ego — the total takeover and manipulation of the authentic self.  Unfortunately, most of our worlds cultures are primarily caught up in the subconscious identification of the ego.

So how can you disconnect and tame your ego?

Let’s Spring Clean this Concept

There are 7 fundamental principles to keeping your ego in check.  Let’s explore them now:

  • Water Off a Ducks Back — do not take things
    personally.  When you do, you are subconsciously (or consciously) in agreement with whatever you have taken offense at.  This can leave you in constant need for validation from external sources which is the need of the ego.  Be at peace with what other people think of you, even if it is not congruent with how you see yourself.  You are never going to have universal appeal, there will always be someone out there who doesn’t like you — get over it now and save yourself any future distress.  Acceptance of what is is key.  For more about this in-depth trait, click here: Do You Take Things Personally?
  • Think Before You Speak — honour the power of your words and you will honour not only others but your sense of self.  Choose your words wisely.  You will be in control instead of having a hurtful motor-mouth.  People will pick up on this and return it in kind.  Practicing the integrity of your words will result in a better quality of life for yourself and those with whom you interact.
  • Hold Your Tongue — the ego loves to make itself right.  A common trap to fall into is trying to make someone else see that you are right. Really?  Is it that important for you to force someone to see life through your eyes and perceptions?
    No, that is your ego trying to justify itself.  Masters know when to speak, when to be silent and when their words will be like farting against thunder.  Control over your mouth is like having control over your sphincter muscle at a dinner party.  Exercise it and you will notice how easy it becomes to have total control of outbursts or having to explain yourself constantly. The best book I ever read about learning to be impeccable with your words is ‘The Four Agreements’ by Don Miguel Ruiz (a must have for your spiritual library).
  • Don’t Buy into the Labels — get in touch with who you really are and reconnect
    to your source or core being.  Look past the labels and identifications that society plasters you with.  You are not your profession, you are not the role you play in your family or community.  You are a special individual spark of the Divine that is nameless and authentic.  Get to grips with that through meditation (click here for an article about 5 Easy Steps to Meditating).
  • Quit Comparisons — learn to be comfortable in your own skin.  There is no-one in the world like you — from your individual fingerprints to all the exclusive experiences your soul has accumulated.  Comparing yourself to others is another trick of the ego — don’t fall for it.  Fall in love with yourself (read an article about this HERE).
  • Count Your Blessings — instead of complaining about all the things that are wrong with your physical appearance and situation, try to see all the positive
    aspects of your life and body.
  • See Divinity En-Masse — don’t try to elevate yourself above or bury yourself below others.  You are part of a collective consciousness of Divine souls here on Earth.  See the divinity in yourself and see it in others too.  The ego won’t be able to do this.  If you are finding resistance, you need to go into why you can’t accept that your fellow human beings are just as much a part of God as you are.  To see the internal beauty in another will put you on a level playing field instead of comparing yourself and others and passing dangerous judgments.

Why Will This Guarantee My Success?

How to Train Your Dragon of an Ego by Cherie Roe Dirksen

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When you tame the ego, you are paving the way for smooth and easy life flow.  You relinquish judgments, comparisons and the need to be or feel superior.  This is a frequency that you will project and I guarantee that people will be attracted to you.  People standing in their truth and integrity are like moths to a flame — be it in your personal or professional life.

Your ego won’t go away but you can have control over it instead of it running amuck with you.

When you do have control, you will never feel the need for superiority nor inferiority to any one else.  You simply are — a state of grace, least resistance and an inner knowing of peace.  Now isn’t that something worth going after?

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7 Proven Tactics to Spread Joy Around the World

7 ways to spread joyDoes it not feel wonderful to be the catalyst that activates the pay it forward system?  What is paying it forward?  For those of you who don’t know — it is when you perform an act of kindheartedness with no need for reward, the receiver of that action then pays it forward to someone else.

“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.” 
― Rumi

This creates a cycle of goodwill that can, hopefully, snowball — spreading out into the world at large.

Do you feel like starting an avalanche of joy today?

How Can I Be of Service?

Here is a simple list of things that you can start to incorporate into your every day life, scattering those seeds of love and bliss.  I guarantee that the pay-off will be huge — just watch how you start affecting people’s lives.

  • Smile at people — especially the ones that look grumpy.  They are the very ones who probably need your beam of sunlight more than anything!

  • Hug people
    — most people are tactile and appreciate some physical contact.  It could mean the world of difference to them if you hugged them instead of just standing there like a great lump!
  • Genuine compliments — don’t hold back on this one but don’t force it either.  There are so many times when we think something nice about a person but never actually open our mouths to voice it.  Just one little spoken observation could make someone’s day.
  • Practice kindness — be gentle and giving in all you do.  Don’t only reserve yourself for friends and family.  Treat everyone you meet as If you were long-lost buddies. Do this with animals too; they just thrive on unconditional love.
  • Be impeccable with your word — think before you speak.  Try to filter out your blurbs.  Sometimes we say too much or let slip hurtful things that we can’t retract, so be mindful of your dialogue at all times.  People will notice this and want the same quality.
  • Thoughtfulness — bring tokens of love and gratitude whenever you visit or bump into someone.  I learnt this from Deepak Chopra.  He said that this can be in the form of a silent prayer or blessing, a bunch of hand-picked flowers or a poem.  It needn’t cost anything but the thought.  People really do appreciate your consideration.
  • Greet – always try to say a cheerful ‘hello’ to passers-by, shop assistants or anyone who catches your eye.  This is a simple yet effective practice that works because you are acknowledging their existence.

Acknowledgement — ‘I See You’

I would like to share a story with you.  I was walking in the streets of Cape Town when asub button homeless man on a bench asked me for some change.

I stopped and started looking in my bag for some money.  While I was scouring my untidy bag for loose coins he started to mumble something like ‘sorry for wasting my time’ to which I replied that he could never waste my time.

He looked quite startled at this and said that I had got him wrong, he had actually said that most people tell him that he is wasting their time and was really thankful that I had even stopped to talk to him, let alone give him money.

I did manage to fish out a few coins for him, as I handed it over I apologized as it wasn’t much.  To this he replied, ‘it is not the money that has made my day, it is the fact that you even stopped to acknowledge my presence.’  I held back a bit to talk with him and he said something else that I found remarkable but understood him completely.


Don’t Judge a Book by it’s Cover

He said that he was not ‘this’ as he pointed to his disheveled clothes — referring that he was not a vagrant. 

He said that he was a soul on a journey, just like everyone else, and he has chosen this path to learn something that he still needs to figure out.  I found this man to be a truly courageous and enlightened human being who taught me something very valuable that day. 

Do not pass anyone by, make sure that the very least you give is your attention — this can be their gold nugget.

*Original article written by Cherie Roe Dirksen for Purpose Fairy — to read the original article click here and here for the second part.

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3 Simple Steps to Release You From Depression

Every Road Leads to Rome

Everything is, and will always lead us back to the Divine Source.  However, sometimes we take detours along this path to try to discover more about who we are.  So sometimes ‘all roads lead us to roam’ in some cases.  Some of us need a little reminder or nudge to get us back into alignment with our mission in life.

What is our mission in life you may ask?

To discover our divinity and this is done through lessons.  However, we sometimes fall so deeply into fear and depression that we can’t see that the light switch is dangling just above our own heads.

Polarity

Everything has its yin and yang (it’s positive and negative attributes). So does the Divine Source. We are here to experience both sides of polarity, to eventually work our way back into the light, which is all-encompassing.

“We can plough it with antidepressants or we can just leave it and let it fester, but neither way is addressing the root of the problem. When you face the fear, you can walk through it.”

White light holds every colour in the spectrum; what a great metaphor for us. When we can work out the extreme opposites and find a balance between the two poles of existence – the yin and yang – we move back into an integrity that has been long-lost and forgotten through the widespread broadcasting of fear.

When we hold our emotions in fear we tend to feel it in our solar plexus, that feeling of ‘butterflies’ or ‘a great pit’ in the stomach. This is our emotional reaction to let our body know something is amiss. We can plough it with antidepressants or we can just leave it and let it fester, but neither way is addressing the root of the problem. When you face the fear, you can walk through it.

Here are 3 simple steps to take which will enable you to realign with your purpose:

  • HermioneGet Vocal — Adopt a ‘Listening Buddy’ — Sometimes a problem doesn’t even need your ‘listening buddy’ to come up with a solution; why is this? Because, we intrinsically, just want to be heard and acknowledged. This can bring us into balance. When we voice out loud our ‘mind chatter’, we can often make sense of it for ourselves just by hearing the power of the emotions taking the form of words. The words are a manifestation of the emotion, and therefore can sometimes be released when spoken. That is why some people calm down considerably after being allowed to ‘say their piece’.
  • Get Creative — Is there a hidden passion in your life, something that you love to do but have been suppressing or putting off?  No more excuses, get back on that bike and ride!  When you engage with the right hemisphere of your brain (where your creativity lives) you will feel elated.  It realigns you to your feminine, nurturing, explorative, passionate side and can ignite the flame for your ultimate purpose (if you don’t already know what that is).  Explore different avenues of creativity until you find the one that just simply ‘clicks’ into place with you.  You will find it, you just need to exercise patience and endurance.  Engage your inner child with this and see every new venture as an ad-venture.  No time is ever wasted when you are having fun.
  • Get Quiet — Find time to meditate or do some breathing exercises, yoga or Tai Chi. Find something that enables you to quiet your mind and have some free space without thought.  This will get you in touch with your higher self and will realign you to your greater purpose.

For more blogs about meditation, breathing exercises, creativity, please see the linked list below:

Do You Need To Meditate?

Making a Commitment to Creativity…Do You Lack Self-Worth?

What is Your Quality of Breath?

Are you stressed out?

 

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3 Motivational Tips on Getting Back into the Artistic Arena

I am back from my trip to Egypt and what an adventure it was!  More about that on my Thursday blog though.

Inspiration and Chaos

It was a whirlwind of events, inspiration, emotion and culture shock but inevitably, on the plane home, I started processing my experiences and began to drift into the abyss of ‘what am I doing with my life?’.

You know the feeling, right?  You go on holiday and then you have to come back home to the same old same old…

“Go full throttle or go hide under a rock!  Instead of grabbing the bull by the horns, grab it by the balls…more risky but you will get an infinitely more intense reaction.”

Not me!  I made a firm decision not to climb back into my safety box — Oh no!

Time for Change

So what changed?  3 things spring to mind:

  1. More Risk — I decided I needed to take more risks.  So what if I fail, at least I tried!  This can be on the artistic front and dabbling more in multi-media projects;  trying out new techniques and new marketing techniques.  In fact, a few days before I left, a good friend of mine and NLP/Reiki coach (www.soulworks.co.za), did some Reiki on me and said that when she approached my throat chakra, she sensed that I was not sticking my neck out enough.  How right she was!  The trip made me see even more clarity in that statement.  Go full throttle or go hide under a rock!  Instead of grabbing the bull by the horns, grab it by the balls…more risky but you will get an infinitely more intense reaction.
  2. Simplify — My day-to-day life and schedule was a bit ‘all over the place’.  My big toe was in this venture and that.  I needed to get real about my goals and to simplify my agenda.  This took me one afternoon to sit down and write out my new set of goals and ambitions.  Now I have a clear intention about where I am heading and it is much more flexible than my old agenda.  I have a lot more free time to just be.
  3. Be Authentic — Find out what you are about. What sets you apart from others?  What is your true passion?  What can  you do differently?  How can you incorporate all your multi-faceted uniqueness into one ball of creativity?  Brainstorm these questions and come up with your own set of rules for riding out the next wave of your life.  Surfs up!

The last thing I’d like to add is — don’t sweat the small stuff.  We often get so hung up on the finer details of life instead of looking at the bigger picture.

“You will be amazed at how other people don’t really care about your failures, it’s more about your damaged ego than their perception of you…”

Everything will be alright if you are in your integrity and walking your path of power and purpose.  Trust in that and enjoy your life to the fullest.

If you fall off the bike, dust yourself off and get back on again.  Who’s looking anyway?  You will be amazed at how other people don’t really care about your failures, it’s more about your damaged ego than their perception of you, so what have you got to lose?

Finally, what are you doing to increase your creative stamina and keep the flame alive?

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Is Humanity Divine?

Is it really a surprise that instead of searching outside of yourself for a saviour (someone else to come and save you) that, indeed, you are that saviour?

“If we are to take back control of our destiny and life as we know it on this planet, we must never hand our power over to anything or anyone outside of ourselves.”

The cliché that everything you’ll ever need is within you now appears to be an absolute truth. In fact truth is better defined as integrity, which is an undivided completeness and/or a state of totality with nothing wanting. It is a much easier, and if I may say, lazier route to hand over the job of spirituality and the understanding of the ‘God’ concept to someone or something else outside of yourself.

This is what has happened through the various religions and even some of the ‘new age’ practices. You are handing your power over to someone else. If we are to take back control of our destiny and life as we know it on this planet, we must never hand our power over to anything or anyone outside of ourselves.

We are powerful Divine beings.

The above passage has been taken out of my new book ‘Divine You — Redefining Love in the New Earth’, which is AVAILABLE NOW.

How are you making a difference, no matter how big or small?  

Do you feel the God Presence within you?  

How do you express yourself?

Are you feeling ‘the call’ to action and finding your Divine purpose?

You may also enjoy this article:

Finding Humility Through Wisdom


Divine You — Redefining Love in the New Earth by Cherie Roe Dirksen (List Price $8.99)

This book outlines the practical steps you can take to become the master of your life.

It addresses outdated core beliefs and challenges you to rethink preconceived ideas about love, forgiveness, fear, religious doctrine and many other emotive topics that we face in our lives.

Step into the new world within the pages of a book that offers you the opportunity to live the life of your dreams and to truly experience what it means to be a part of God – the Divine part of you.

NOW AVAILABLE AT: USA — Barnes & NobleAmazonRaider, Alibris UK —WHSmithAmazonWaterstones  SOUTH AFRICA — LootKalahari  WORLDWIDE (other) — bol.com (Holland), SuperBookShop (Croatia), CDON,no (Norway),Bookplus (Finland), fishpondIndigo (Canada)

Photography credit:

‘Buddha Statue’ by Napong

How Can Everyone Be Divine?

This is an extract from the first chapter in my latest book ‘Divine You — Redefining Love in the New Earth’ now available through Barnes & Noble, Amazon, WHSmith and Waterstones Bookstores.

Are We Really Divine?

Is it really a surprise that instead of searching outside of yourself for a savior to come and save you that, indeed, you are that savior?

The cliché that everything you’ll ever need is within you is now appearing to be an absolute truth. In fact, truth is better defined as integrity which is an undivided completeness and/or a state of totality with nothing wanting. It is a much easier, and if I might say, lazier route to hand over the job of spirituality and the understanding of the ‘God’ concept to someone or something else outside of yourself.

“…we must never hand our power over to anything or anyone outside of ourselves.”

This is what has happened through the various religions and even some of the ‘new age’ practices. You are handing your power over to someone else. If we are to take back control over our destiny and life as we know it on this planet, we must never hand
our power over to anything or anyone outside of ourselves.

We are powerful Divine beings.

What It Really Means To Be Christ-Like

The parables of Jesus Christ always felt like he had a greater understanding of people and the way this world should be experienced – especially when he spoke of our innate divinity (being the sons and daughters of God).

“Words are powerful tools of both positive and negative vibration.”

This is why I feel that the stories of Jesus Christ were tales of spiritual morality that encompassed compassion, empathy, non-judgment and love.  When someone speaks his or her truth there is always a resonance within the words being said that will affect you positively. Words are powerful tools of both positive and negative vibration.

So, when Jesus spoke his truth, it resonates within because fundamentally we know what it sounds like as everyone has this form of integrity inside them and that is how we recognize it.

Our truths are buried deep inside and the whole process of enlightenment is to shine a light on it and to bring ourselves into complete clarity and wholeness.

More Tasty Tit-Bits To Come…

Over the next few weeks I will be taking some more juicy extracts from my book to give you a taste of what Divine You is all about.  Please stay tuned…

This book encourages the reader to re-examine some fundamental qualities to living a happy and content life.  It looks at the importance of forgiveness, why it is imperative not to judge, how to use the Law of Attraction, present moment awareness, what unconditional love really looks like, how to vanquish fear, awakening the unity that is the christ-consciousness seed within you and lots more.

GET YOUR FREE COPY OF ‘CREATIVE EXPRESSION’ HERE

Do You Lack Self-Worth When it Comes to Creativity?

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“It may help to remember that in the cosmic design, pain is neutral. In the physical world, pain motivates us negatively, while pleasure motivates us positively. True freedom is letting go of our attachment to both. The best way to begin this process is developing a state of witness consciousness through practices such as meditation and mindful awareness.” ~ D. Chopra

This extract was taken out of the latest Deepak Chopra blog, please click on the link below to read the full article — it is definitely worth the read:

Balance. Heal. Transform. The Chopra Center Blog.

Hitting the Nail on the Head

I think that Dr Chopra really hit the nail on the head with the statement above.  It is, synchronistically, a topic that I was just trying to convey to a friend of mine.

It is quite difficult to explain that one needs to disengage or detach from any perception of good or bad, that there only is.

Your mind has been trained to mentally label things or situations as either positive or negative.  We can choose to view anything, as was mentioned in the above quotation, as a conscious witness.  This means detaching from judgment and the need to apply a label.

“…any past trauma or early childhood inhibition could seriously stop you from trying a new venture.”

When you commit to any creative endeavour, one must clear the path, so to speak, of any loose debris that might be clouding your way.  For instance, any past trauma or early childhood inhibition could seriously stop you from trying a new venture.

Do you feel unworthy?

The Self Worth Issue

Let me cut through all the BS and get straight down to the brass tacks here.  Everyone is worthy.  If you are not feeling self-worth then you have probably set yourself up with a life lesson(s) to experience this feeling.

“This means that you take responsibility for agreeing to whatever or whoever made you feel unworthy.”

Your job is to identify where, in your past, you first agreed to take on this role.  This means that you take responsibility for agreeing to whatever or whoever made you feel unworthy (please read The 4 Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz for more about this very important subject of the agreements we make and how it affects our lives).

This may sound harsh but we must get real now or face the consequences of always feeling victimized.  When you carry a victim mentality you will never feel that you can be self-empowered.

It Takes 2 to Tango

So, the first step is to take responsibility for your choices.  And please do this with compassion for yourself and for whomever else may be involved.  When we agree to take on a lesson, it usually takes two souls to tango.

“…it is so important for us to be able to forgive and to not judge.”

This means that there is usually a ‘bad guy’ (or gal) but if we could view this from a perspective that is beyond the veil of our current reality, we may find that the ‘bad guy’ is posing as such to help us fulfill a soul lesson on the deepest of levels.  This is why it is so important for us to be able to forgive and to not judge.

When we are able to see, with clarity, the root point at which the conflict took place, we are able to glean the necessary teaching from it.  When we are able to do this, we are able to forgive and move on in our lives.

Where has this teaching or lesson taken you?

What have you learnt from it?

Can you agree to accept the lesson with gratitude and move on?

Letting Go to Move On

If you can truly let go of a past trauma, you will feel the absolute liberation of taking back your power.  When you accept responsibility for your actions and choices, you become self-empowered, knowing that nothing in this Universe happens by chance — you are at the very heart of every experience you have chosen.

Now to the Creativity Part…

When you commit to a creative project, whether it be in music, writing, art or any other form of creative expression, it is important to be grounded in your integrity.

“This is why it is important to face your demons and start a creative endeavour with a clean slate.”

If you are, say for instance, writing from a place of knowledge but lack the wisdom for which you write, you are lacking a certain portion of integrity.  In other words, if you want to write about something that you know a lot about but have not actually experienced or passed the learning thereof, you are not coming from a place of true integrity.  This is why it is important to face your demons and start a creative endeavour with a clean slate.

You can of course start anything without doing the groundwork but your success is usually stunted when you know you are not acting from true source.  If you believe in yourself 100% there is nothing that will get in your way of true creativity or success.

To kick-start this day off, I am offering subscribers a FREE PDF copy of ‘Creative Expression — How to find Your Inspiration’ (CLICK HERE).

How to find your inspiration…copy of my book ‘Creative Expression — How to find your inspiration…’ HERE (or click on the book cover).  Subscription to the site is 100% free, no hidden agendas — I only wish to share this book with you.

If you would like to order the paperback version of this book, you can do that HERE.