Ego

Hello everyone. And welcome back to another episode of gay men going deeper. This is a podcast where we talk about personal development, mental health, and sexuality. Your hosts today are Matt Landsiedel, Calan Breckon and myself, Michael DiIorio. Collectively we have over 40 years of experience in the personal development world. And if this is your first time listening to us,

we want to welcome you to the show. We each have our own coaching practice. And in this podcast, we’re giving away all of our best stuff. So in today’s episode, we are going to be talking about ego. We are continuing along the spirituality theme of this month. And today we’re going to focus on that little thing that often sets up along the spiritual path.

So we will be answering these three questions. How do you distinguish between ego, self and higher self? How do you regulate your ego and how can you develop a greater connection to the spiritual self? All right. So before we jump in, we have a few little announcements and some housekeeping items for you. So for anyone listening out there, if you want to join in on this discussion about spirituality,

please join us on Thursday, June 30th, where we will be hosting a zoom hangout. This is where we give you guys a chance to share your own thoughts on the topics we discuss here on the podcast. And this one seem has been spirituality. So if you want to attend, go to the gay men’s brotherhood, a Facebook group, and check out the events tab to RSVP.

We’ve got two time slots available for you to choose from another lovely reminder that this podcast and YouTube channel is listener and viewer supported. So if you are enjoying these episodes and want to show some love, please head over to our Patreon page in the show notes, where you can support the show. You can also subscribe to get early access to episodes on apple podcasts.

The link is also in the show notes and all of this helps us to continue making content and supporting our community. So we thank you very much in advance. Also the game and going deeper membership is open. That includes two of our amazing courses, healing your shame and building better relationships. We’ve got over 35 coaching videos in there from yours, truly the three of us and access to a members only Facebook group and monthly zoom calls.

So if you’ve been wanting to go deeper on your personal development journey, we invite you to come and join us. We would love to have you there. So head over to gay men, going deeper.com to register, and it is pride month at the time of recording. So for those of you who are in the greater Toronto area, or we’ll be visiting the greater Toronto area or want to visit the greater Toronto area on June the 18th Kalyn,

and I will be hosting at gay men going deeper meetup in the park. This is going to be at Riverdale park. It’s going to be from six to 8:00 PM. So if you are in the area, come and say hello, give us a big hug in person and meet some other guys are going to be there. This episode comes out after that.

Oh wow. So it’s coming out on the 30th. Sorry. Well, we hope to have, so We hope we have, we hope we met you, But you know what else we have done these before and we will do them again. So either way, why don’t you go over to the events tab? Because we will have more of these events in the future,

right? Maybe All the other next one Might be doing them as well. All right. Thanks Colin. I already happened. I’m living in the past. Okay. It must’ve been a really good time. Yeah, it was so good. We had to do it again. All right. So as we do here, before we jump into the topic,

we want to read a review. This one’s hot off the presses from apple podcasts just a couple of days ago. So the title is called coming out day five stars. Our favorite. And this gentleman says I listened to around 10 episodes yesterday and they’re all wonderful. Today. I came out 64 years young. Yeah, I feel so good. And I’m very ready to live my best life.

Thanks for such an amazing podcast and happy pride month to all. So that makes me feel so fucking good. So good Episodes in one day two, that’s a 10 hour binge Fuck time. I can’t even listen to myself for that long, so good job. Alright. So without further ado, let’s talk about ego. All right. So we’re talking about ego and I want to start us off by talking about this concept of the two selves that we hear a lot about in spiritual world and spiritual teaching.

There was a small ego self, like small S self, and then the capital S self, the spiritual self. So some of my favorite teachers on this topic that I, that have influenced me have been Deepak Chopra, Eckhart, totally Gary Sue, cough to name a few. There’s a few that I’m probably forgetting, but this is a very common concept.

And I’m really curious also to hear what pat in town have to say about the, so here’s how I like to differentiate between the two. And I want to note that they, the eco self and the spiritual higher self self are both without us at all times. They’re both equally accessible to us, but how we’re identifying in that moment, whatever our perception is in that moment will change the way we see the world and our lives.

So if this is your first episode, I would maybe recommend going back and listen, listen to the spirituality episode, which would give you a really nice foundation for which we’re about to go through here. But if you’re already into spirituality and all that good stuff, then you’re going to be just fine here. All right. So here’s some ways that I like to identify between ego self,

the spirit self, the ego self perceives the world from only the five, seeing touching, tasting hearings, public, all those things. And that’s the only way it perceives the world. The spirit self. On the other hand, proceeds beyond those five physical senses into the realm of the invisible, the unknown, the unseen, okay. Then you go self as mortal.

So once Michael Diorio meat dies, Michael Dario gone. However, the spirit self lives on that is immortal in the ego self. If you identify with the ego self, you’re more likely to feel alone and more separate from the world. So I see me over here and Callum’s over there and Matt’s over there and that person’s over there. And we’re all a little silos islands upon ourselves.

When you’re identifying more in spirit self, you realize that we are all connected. So even if we are separate beings, we are all connected to that same energy. And we are never, ever alone the ego, self craves, external power, and the need to control. This is very much resonates with me because I still have this very often loves power,

loves to control, needs to control, to feel empowered. Whereas when I’m identifying more in that spiritual self capitalized self, then I’m more likely and more willing to surrender control because the power is not outside of me. It is within me. The ego self is motivated by fear, losing that power, losing, you know, the sense of image from,

from other people. Whereas the spiritual self is motivated by a reverence for life, all of life, underlying all life. The ego self identifies with the objects outside of us as, as a way to gain our identity. So my job title, my relationship status, my body, you know, the things in my life, the things I have, whereas the spiritual self identifies only with that,

which is within and connected to the above. Again, it’s four of the invisible, not the visible, the ego self serves me. What’s good for me do that. Whereas when you’re more in that spiritual self, you’re identifying as we, what is good for me and the rest of the community, it’s more of a, we mentality. Ego is a source of suffering and worry.

If you let it control your life, or a spirit is a source of healing and peace when you can tap into it. And finally, the ego criticizes and judges also very much part of my personal story, critical of myself, judgemental of myself and others. Whereas when I’m more into that spiritual capital S self it’s more accepting and forgiving of again, myself and others.

So that’s, those are some ways that I like to distinguish them. And I’m going to ask Madden calendars as well. But I want to also mention that ego isn’t all bad, right? We need it. We are after all physical beings. So we’re physical beings living in a physical world. We have this ego, we just need to learn to deal with it the way I like to think of it.

And this is from Gary Zukav that I learned, this is there’s a spiritual self and there is an ego self. And when that ego self serves that greater spiritual self, that is when the magic happens. That’s the sweet spot. That’s why we’re all here. We are here, physical, tangible beings to create, to talk, to, to do things,

to make things, to enjoy things. But when we’re doing that in the service of our spiritual self, it’s amazing things can happen. That’s, that’s how we raise the consciousness of the world. So every experience, every decision, every moment in your life is an opportunity to align that spirit self with ego self. And let me tell ya, it’s not easy.

I get it wrong a lot of the time. And, and I think that’s why we’re going to talk to us. We’re going to talk about today. So personally for me, that’s, that’s my, that’s my goal. My goal is to enjoy the gifts of this tangible world and enjoy it, but allow my spiritual self to shine through that. As much as I cancel it,

let me give you an example. My ego self asked my partner this, cause we were talking about it just before this started. I said, how do you define between spirit and Nico? And he had a great example. He said, you know, my ego self won’t want to apologize before he has, because I’m like, I’m not gonna apologize.

Cause I would make me feel beneath, like my ego says, oh no. Then, then you’re, you’re at a, at a disadvantage, right? So when I’m thinking for Megan, like, I’m not gonna apologize until you apologize bitch. Whereas when I’m more aligned with my spiritual self, there is none of that, like better than less than comparing.

It’s just like, I will apologize whether or not I get an apology back. Cause it, it cleanses my own soul. Another example is winning at all costs. I have, you know, when you want to win at all costs just to prove your worthiness, that’s the sign that you’re coming from from ego. Whereas when I’m more in my spiritual self side,

I just enjoy the journey. Whether or not I win or lose doesn’t matter because it’s, it’s, it doesn’t affect my worthiness. My worthiness is intact regardless of that. Alright. So enough from me, let’s now pass it over to you guys. So first question, and we’re going to go to, we’re going to go to Matt for this one.

How do you distinguish between ego self and higher self? This is a big question that the whole concept of eco is a very big concept, but so I tried to kind of break it down, I think. Okay. So I want to teach a little bit about some of the psychology around ego, because I think oftentimes in mainstream culture, we hear the word ego and we think,

you know, somebody’s egotistical, they’re grandiose. They think they’re better than everybody else. And there’s this, that, that attachment to it. And I just want to say for the way I interpret ego, I won’t be referring to that aspect of ego. I’ll be referring more to the personality structure that we develop. Usually they, they say in psychology around like seven years old is when the ego starts to form.

And this is when we start to see the world around us and we start to see ourself in that world and how we are different and how we are same. And we identify, we start to form this concept of, I like I am Matt. I am a boy. I am this. And we start to have this distinct separateness from the world around us.

And it’s like an identity. And there’s something also called a premature ego formation. And for people that develop an ego prematurely, it’s usually because of trauma or something they experienced in their, in their early years where this part of them, which in my opinion, is a more inauthentic aspect of our nature. The ego, the soul is more the authentic expression of who we are.

And when we have this, this premature formation, we develop the masks of who we are and the, we, we conform to the world around us because we, we, we, we have to feel safe. So it’s kind of like a fawning response from trauma. And this can cause a lot of disturbances in the development of the child into, into becoming an adult because we didn’t have enough time to form our authentic self.

And that’s the core wound. Right? And I think a lot of gay men have this core wound because we did feel like we had hide aspects of who we are. And we started to have sexual feelings at a young age and we had to hide these. And I just think that the premature ego formation, I see this in a lot of the work that I do with gay men.

So I just wanted to bring a voice to that. The, I, I think it’s really hard to talk about eco without really bringing voice to do Allity and how this question is really the question of duality, right? Duality is about having this, this very human self and then having the spiritual self, the ego and the spirit and the, the spiritual path for me at least has been about reconciling that duality and working more towards non-duality,

which non-duality doesn’t mean the extraction of the ego. It means the acceptance and the love and the befriend meant of the ego and bringing that into unity with the not being fully governed by the ego and allowing yourself to be governed by your spirit or your soul or whatever you want to call that type of consciousness. So I just think that, you know, the ego tends to be more geared towards separation and the soul tends to be more geared towards unity,

right? The me versus the wheat. And I love what you said, Michael, because they’re very, they’re both very important. And I think the ego gets the, gets a bad rap. And especially in the spiritual world that gets about rap. And I always say whenever, whenever somebody in the spiritual world is saying the ego is bad and that the ego should die.

And these sorts of things, that is the ego saying that they right, the ego is trying to annihilate annihilate itself. And it’s really just two forms. One is the material ego one is the spiritual ego. It’s the same shit. Right? And, and I just think it’s so important to be able to identify that. And I fell for that trap so hard,

so hard. I was operating within love and light and rainbows and butterflies and all these things for so long because I was spiritually bypassing and spiritual bypassing is really the spiritual ego just in full formation. Right. So, so I wanted to bring voice to that as well. I see the ego as almost like this, this voice inside my head, that constantly is narrating my experiences,

right? And it’s like, I’m always at odds with myself when I’m in my ego. I’m always at odds with others. I’m always looking for how I’m different than other people and how special I am and, and how unspecial everyone else is. And, you know, creating illusions of power and control in my mind, which really I don’t have any of that.

Right. I don’t have power or control over other people. I just convinced myself that I do. These are all kind of the cunning things that the ego does to try and create safety. Right. And I think that is the biggest thing about the ego that I want to bring voice to is because it is very adaptive. If it gives us formation of identity and it gives us safety,

then it’s very adaptive, but it becomes on adaptive in certain situations or maladaptive in certain situations. And I think it’s really important to be able to, to recognize that. And I think for the longest time, my, my mission with my spiritual practice was to annihilate my ego and to there’s, there’s some bodies of research that’s will not even call it research,

but like some bodies of philosophy we’ll call it that say that, that you can, the ego can die and there’s ego death. And it’s talked a lot about in the spiritual communities. And I just, I don’t agree with that concept. And I know there’ll be people that disagree with me making that statement, but I think that ego, what it does is it sheds,

it’s like a snake it’s constantly shedding its skin. And it creates that, you know, people who have been traumatized and who are using their ego to guard and to create power and control, it’s a very rigid ego. And I think as we shed skin, we become more flexible. And this has been my experience because we had a very rigid ego most of my life.

And I was very controlling. And then I did a lot of work, deep, inner work, deep shadow work, and I was able to shut a lot of these skins. And now I have more flexibility in my approach to life and that’s constantly happening. Right. I think that’s one of my spiritual goals and it probably will always be, is to have more flexibility in the way I approach the world and approach myself.

So yeah, that’s kind of the main point I wanted to make. And then I didn’t talk a lot about higher self for a reason, because I think a lot of people, I really wanted to kind of set the tone for what I see the ego as, and, and how it has impacted me. But for me, the higher self is this.

It’s almost like detaching from this concept of, of an identity and it’s more flow. It’s just more flow. It’s an energy, right? My higher self is an energy and it can show up in any moment in whatever shape it wants to show up in. It’s very malleable. Whereas the ego is just not, it’s very rigid. So I see my higher self as a witness consciousness when I’m in my higher self.

It truly like, I love that because the higher self is like, bird’s eye view of you, right. And you’re able to see how you’re playing out and you’re able to see things and you’re able to see other people. And so I think, I think the higher consciousness in me, it relates to the world around me by being able to see the divinity in myself and the divinity and others.

Whereas my ego is it doesn’t have that ability. It only has the ability to see the personality structure of another and the personality structure within myself. So when I’m operating in higher consciousness, I can see my, my personality and another’s personality, but I am, I’m always reminded that their personality is just their ego and that beyond that they also have this divine nature.

Right. And that’s been one of the greatest ways of being able to switch from me to we at times, is to be able to see people that everybody has a divine nature. And when I opened my heart and I opened my mind, I’m able to really connect to people in, in their higher self and my higher self. And I think that’s kind of what I’m learning now in my life is like how to spend more time in that energy.

And when I am an ego to, to apply my higher self to that as well, because I think I’m able to like recognize when I’m an ego and I’m able to kind of challenge myself and enter some, the space of humility and be like, oh yeah, okay. Matt’s operating in this really controlling energy. And what is he trying to protect?

What need is going unmet? So I’m able to kind of really negotiate between these two worlds now, whereas before I didn’t have a strong enough ability to be able to do that. So I know that’s a lot. I feel like I just dumped a whole bunch of stuff, but it was like, it’s so much percolating. I love this topic. So I felt like I was like,

wow, a lot, a lot comes alive for me, but yeah, what’s going on for you, Kelly. I’ve just been sitting here listening to you guys being like cool, cause I’m like really, you know, I’ve done work in this, but it’s not something that I’ve really dove into. And so I just really enjoyed listening to what you guys had to say about the ego so much.

So that I’m like, what was I going to say? So, And that’s a part of it too. The ego side of me would have come in here, super prepared, wanting to say specific things. But then the non ego part of me is like, oh, I’m just here to listen and like to talk and like have a good time and enjoying the conversation and not really care about the perception of other people who are going to be listening to this are going to be of me.

If I don’t have something super angel lightened or intelligent to say, if I’m just here being like shooting the shit, having a good time with you guys, you know, and for me, that’s what a lot of my ego experience comes down to of is am I being performative? And I, am I focusing on what other people’s perceptions of me are?

And am I changing my genuine internal in order to affect my external so that they see a certain thing that I want them to see that to me is playing in the ego. Whereas if I’m just enjoying myself and I’m not worried about what that person has to think about me, that’s when it’s more of the higher self, like I’m just being me, I’m enjoying myself and it’s kind of this constant battle back and forth because you’re always rubbing up against other people and their egos and their ego can bring out your ego.

Like I had an interaction recently where somebody like really tried to rip me down and everything that I was doing. And it was all very fear-based and very, like, be conscious of what other people think about you. Like, you know, you come off as a certain way, this, that, and the other. And it really threw me off balance.

And I was like, my ego freak the fuck out. Cause I was like, oh my God, is this true? But then the other higher spiritual self of me is like, well, I’m always just being myself. And if they don’t like that, then that’s on that. Like, I’m still, I still know I’m a good person. I still know I’m doing the right thing.

And I still have belief in myself and what I’m doing. So like this must, you know, I’ll take on board. Some of the things that resonated, but other things it’s like, Hmm, that’s a huge thing. Because if your fear ego is so worried about what other people think that you think you need to warn me about how you think other people perceive me,

then holy shit, you are in a big fear zone of what people’s perceptions are of you. And because I’ve done my work of my ego and working through this stuff that I’m like, I can see that I just no longer care. Thank you very much because I would love other people to like me. But man, we’ve had this conversation on the podcast before.

It’s like, I’m now okay with being the, the, you know, the bad guy in somebody else’s story. Like I’m okay with being not because not everybody’s going to like me 100% of the time Bernay brown. One of my favorite people in the whole world gets shit, talked all the time online and people rage against her. And she’s, Bernay brown,

man. She’s amazing. And so it’s all down to people’s experiences and perceptions and that’s part of the world’s experience. Like that’s what we’re here for. We’re here to rub up against each other and to go through these experiences. And so for me, distinguishing between my ego and my higher self, is those moments of like, am I practicing being angry at somebody?

Am I practicing a story in my head that I want to be right about when I like have this conversation or when I meet this person or when I, you know, talk about this thing, am I looking to be right and to portray a certain way and to like come out on top and be the winner, or am I going into it with curiosity and an open heart and like a strong back and just kind of being like,

you know what, I just want to have fun. And I want to enjoy this moment that I’m in and people can perceive me however they want to fucking perceive me because that’s on them because I’m enjoying my experience. And by me enjoying my experience, I hope it lights other people’s candles. But I also know in delighting those other people’s candles, it’s also going to read the fucking piss off a lot of the other candles who don’t think they can get to beam where this is on their journey.

And so there’s, there’s always going to be a divide between those two because there’s going to be the ones that really love it, that they’re like, this is awesome. And then there’s going to be the ones that it rubs up against and it’s on their journey to be pissed off because they need to learn whatever on their journey. And so my ego is dances between the knowingness of like,

people gonna hate you. People gonna love ya, but you really just have to do your own thing. And I know that I’m really in higher self when I kind of get to this point where I’m like, okay, I really need to have this really hard conversation with somebody. And my ego wants to be right and wants to make them feel small and wants to like say all of these things.

But my higher self knows that nothing really good is ever going to come of that. And so how can I have this conversation that’s uncomfortable and difficult or bring about this topic with kindness and compassion and a curiosity and a willingness to learn and the grace to accept the fact that my ego is going to come out at some point and maybe it’s not going to be perfect.

And that that’s okay too. And just allowing myself that grace to kind of float in between the two of them is really important to me to give myself permission to fuck up and stuff like that. And I want to take it back to what Michael was saying about, you know, mentors and leaders, because I think that that’s really important when you do this work is finding those people that you aligned to.

And I really liked what you said Michael, about like the ego conserve the higher purpose in a good way, because I thought instantly, I thought of like Gabrielle Bernstein. Cause I know like she’s one of my first teachers and I know people must have, must think she has an ego because she’s written like nine bestsellers. And like she does so well for herself.

She can’t be doing that without some sort of an ego because it’s like, she’s earned that. But her ego is serving her higher purpose of what her journey is and what she’s doing in this world. And so I’ve never had that thought of like my ego serving that purpose in that kind of a way. And so I found that that was a really interesting concept and I really liked it.

So I’m going to take that on board. And I’m going to think about that a little bit more for that. Well, thanks Gary Zuckoff, which is where I learned it from, but the book was called seat of the soul. But the way I like to think about that is, is if I’m, if I’m like the spirit, the spirit self,

I like to think of it as a, as a thing or a person doesn’t have words, Hans doesn’t have the tangible, the ability to, to affect change in this physical world. Here we live in ego self. Michael does eco self Talon does, and Matt does. So it’s like they need to work together. That’s the way I like to think about it.

This, this sort of purpose comes from above or whatever you want to think. Cause this pulls from the ether, this, this unseen world. But when I can tap into that and I can kind of shut off my mind and just feel into, okay, what is my purpose here? What am I here to do for me? What comes through very,

very loudly is some kind of contribution of service. And then the question is, will the fact that I’m just, I’m just a little Micheal here, what you want me to do. But if I listen, then I will get my, let’s call it an assignment. If you will. And you know, here we are, this podcast is part of that.

And I think for all three of us, so, you know, that’s, that’s how I like to think of it. And part of that is okay, well, if we’re going to do this podcast, then Eagle Michael needs to get in line with the higher self. We need to promote it. We need to show up. We need to do,

we need to talk. And not that part of the ego is beneficial when it’s serving the higher purpose, But that part of the ego still gets like messed up in some people’s minds, especially in my mind, because sometimes I’m like, oh, people are like, eh, cause especially this interaction I had recently, it was like, they were pissed off that I was so confident in promoting what I do because they didn’t believe that I deserve to do that.

And then so there’s like that part of like, oh, well maybe like the ego is too big, but then the other side of it, it’s like, no fuck you. Like I deserve to do well in this world, regardless of what you think, because you’re one person against the, how many thousands of listeners do we have? And like how many hundreds of thousands of downloads weekend?

Like I like, okay, like there has to be some sort of ego in there. So it’s like, yeah, here’s my podcast here. Take my card. There has to be a certain amount of it’s okay to let people promote the things that they love and to do the things that they love in the world because you know where, and so where does that,

where does that balance come in for you guys? I’m curious. Cause this is kind of still the same question. It’s like, where’s that balance of like I’m allowed to fucking promote myself and do what I need to survive to bring it for these amazing things into the world. You know, what comes alive for me is this whole notion. And when you were talking about being right,

the ego wants to be right. I think when it comes to letting go of perceptions of others, I don’t know if we can ever fully let go, but we can start to prioritize our perception of ourself over others. And when are noticing that we’re triggered by other people and their opinions of us, it means we are in ego. We’re receiving that feedback from ego because our ego is like,

no, no, no, I’m right your wrong. That’s what the ego does. Right? So when somebody starts to attack us and say that we’re being too egoic and we’re being triggered by this, it means we’re operating an ego saying, no, I’m right over here. You’re you’re wrong over there. And I think when we do start to shed skin of ego and become more flexible,

we enter this space of gray, right? I can be right. And you can be right. That’s what higher self says, because truth, truth is, is, is subjective, right? It’s to the person. And we all, each one of us has a separate reality. Right? You see the world Callen through a lens that was formed by your experiences.

I have, I see the world through my own lens as well. And so does Michael. So that means that we’re all constantly creating our own truth out of our own perceptions of reality. Right? And this has been some of the deepest wisdom I’ve been able to connect to within myself and how I’ve let go of people’s opinions of me and needing to people,

please. I was the biggest people pleaser for most of my life because I was so terrified of people not liking me. Right. And that all that healing came through. So I just think that once you do start to let go of this need to be right, it will serve your relationship with you and it will also serve your relationship with others. And I just think that’s so huge.

And I, it reminds me of the keyboard warrior shit that we experienced in the gay men’s brotherhood at the beginning, everybody fighting and like I am right and you’re wrong and all this. And I, I stopped doing that. I stopped engaging because I’m like, I don’t need to prove another person wrong so I can feel right. I can just be right.

And I can say to the other person, your right to your right, to, from the reality that you’re choosing to look at the world through your right as well until you decide that you are wrong and want to change your perhaps limited perceptions of the world. I can’t do anything about that. Right. And that’s freedom. That’s truly freedom for me.

Once I started to taste that and start to apply it to my life. So I don’t know if that answers your question, but that’s what came alive for me when you, yeah, No, but I love that. Cause it is shades of gray because there is this interaction that I had. It was like, there was a lot of attacking and a lot of stuff coming up a lot of really mean spirited things.

But even through that, I was allowing myself to go, okay, you know, this is really difficult to hear. This is really hard to hear. This is really nasty. And my ego wants to just fight back and be like, fuck you. But then the other aspect of me was like, you know what? I can still take this on board and sift through.

What’s real for me. And what’s not real for me. And I can acknowledge things. There was things that were flat out lies that I was just like, well, that’s a lie. And I know that’s a lie and I don’t need to prove that that’s not a lie to you, but like go, you believe what you want to believe. Good for you.

But then there were parts where I’m like, okay, well maybe I’ll take that on board and I’ll sit with that. And I’ll think about that. And I’ll experience that moving forward. And I’ll see where maybe that is coming up for me because there is, there is always going to be some truth in somebody’s words, because there’s like you said, my reality,

their reality, and then there’s the reality in between in the middle. And so it’s like allowing myself to kind of let my ego go a little bit to explore in that gray. That’s when I really go, okay, I might not agree with you, but I’m going to come to the table and have the conversation and kind of sift through the stuff later to see what really did resonate,

what didn’t resonate. And that is truly letting the ego like chill out. It’s still in the back seat. It’s still in the car, but you’re the one driving and it’s just piping up every time it wants to change the, like the radio station, you know, like that’s kinda how I think about it. You know? Like the, Yeah,

that’s a, that’s a great example. I love that. It’s so alive for you, Kyle, and I could sense it in your, the way you’re showing cups that it’s a perfect topic. Maybe Very alive today. All right. So one thing I did want to actually add to this before we move on to the next question, is that sense of lack?

I think we’ve all kind of talked about it, but I think the ego sees things as, as there’s only a certain amount of pie and if I have pie, then it means there’s less pie for you. And maybe that’s where he’s coming from Palin. I’m not sure, but that’s a lot of, it’s like, oh wait, well, you’re doing well.

And that means that I can’t, whereas spirit, there’s no set. There’s no lack. There’s no scarcity. You have like the abundance of the world more than the role of the universe. And so there is no lack. And so you could be having so much success over here and it has nothing to do with me over here has nothing to do with me.

Not, not having it. I’m just as capable. If not, if I’m in my spirit self, I’d say, oh wow, look, accountant can do it. Then I’m capable as well. Like I’m just as we are, one’s not better than the other. He’s an example of what is possible for me. Right? Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

That was a huge thing. I just want to say this quickly, that was a huge thing I struggled with. And one of the reasons why my business wasn’t grabbing traction is because I, this was probably about two or three years ago. I was competing with all the people in my field and it wasn’t until I learned to co-create and reach out to these people and be like,

let’s do a live together. Let’s do this. And this whole notion that there’s pie for everybody. And that was when my higher self came on board, but I also want to speak to the people that are like, no, there’s not enough pie for everybody. Because if somebody gets this job that I’m after, that’s the job I wanted, right?

So there is no, there’s not enough pie. But what I want to say is when you activate the higher self, you realize that that job was not for you. The next job that’s coming down, the pipeline is the one for you and it’s going to be even better and it’s gonna be more serving to your soul’s purpose. So sometimes when we’re looking through the limited lens of the ego,

we only see what we didn’t get, not what is the corner coming for us. And I just think, because I struggled with that so much around like, fuck, there’s not enough pie for everybody. I need pie, right? Pie. I want pie. And that’s the ego just like having a temper tantrum. Cause it’s not getting the exact thing.

It thinks it needs. But really the university’s just preparing you for what is to come, which is even yummy. Or you’ll get the whole pie, not just the piece, right? Because like this came to mind when you were saying that and it’s perfect. The eco is why is this happening to me? The higher self is why’s this happening for me in that pie?

It’s why is this happening to me? Whereas the higher self is why is this happening for me? Is the thought process of like, okay, so that’s love that. Yeah. I also think some of that on my board right here, a similar quote. Cool. All right. So this is perfect. This goes very well into our next question,

which is how do you regulate your ego? So we talked a little bit about that. Remember, so ego, isn’t all bad. It’s a necessary part of being alive. It’s the product of, it’s a product of your environment. And Matt, I believe it was your most column. I was one of you guys were speaking. It hit me that the is a product of our environment and of our wounding,

right. And that’s where it comes. That’s where a lot of its and neuroses come from if we want to evolve that, but it’s a product of lightening and environment. So it’s, and that builds that filter from which you perceive the world. And so, you know, Matt, you brought up a really good point about wanting to keep you safe and protecting you.

And that’s not a bad thing. It’s just maybe a little misguided. I think that’s a great way to put it. So the question is, how do you regulate your ego? But I might think of add little sub question here. How do you know when you need to regulate your ego and then how do you regulate it? So let’s, let’s go with Matt.

Okay. So how do I know when, well, when I’m fucking activated, right? Because my activations don’t come from my soul. They come from my ego. Right. So, and I’ve been experiencing that a lot even lately, like my ego has been going, I’ve been going through another shedding. So that means my ego is grabbing on and it needs control and needs all the things.

And then I’m like priming it and I’m like breathing and I’m like chill out. And I’m, and part of my consciousness is befriending the ego, right? If, when we, when we go through this journey, sometimes we start to be at war with the ego and that just creates inner conflict. So I just think that this whole notion of like,

be conscious of your ego, that’s, that’s the medicine, right? Because an unconscious ego is a very dangerous ego, but a conscious ego is a very safe ego. Right? Cause you’re, you’re able to negotiate with it. You’re able to talk to it and you’re aware of it, right. You’re not just projecting your shit all over the place.

And that’s one of the reasons why I’ve really scaled back on my social media and I don’t scroll anymore. Really. Like I will search for the things I want to look for. And then I just post and I engage with, with, with that because I don’t want other people’s shadows and projections and unconsciousness. I don’t want to consume that. I’m very sensitive that stuff.

So I really put up a lot of boundaries around that because I need to be mindful of, of that. So, and then, you know, w when, once I got that online, that part of myself online, where I was conscious of it, I befriended it. Then I had to start challenging it and exposing it because my ego is extremely cunning.

So I remember in this, when I was dating Ben, we had, we had some, some stuff that happen. I’m not going to go into that, but I was essentially gaslighting him. And he, you picked up on this, he, he brought it up and then I had to go through this whole process for like a week where I was like being with my ego and seeing how it shows up in all these cunning and unconscious ways.

And it, it, it sabotages the relationship. So I wrote down all these things, all the ways my ego plays out all these games and I exposed myself. And that was really healing for me. That was a huge pivotal point in my relationships. And like moving towards more of a secure attachment was letting somebody see the games, my ego plays,

because that’s one of the things that we don’t really expose to people. Right. And for me and Ben to have this, this intimacy around me, exposing myself and sharing these, all of these little maladaptive things I had learned throughout my life to get my needs met when really I don’t need to be playing out those games. That’s just what I, what I learned within my family system dynamic.

And it’s, it’s unhelpful. So, and then that kind of brings me to letting go of the need to be right. Because I think for, for me, my ego, it does operate in black and white and it’s, there’s only right, which is me. There’s only wrong, which is everybody else. Right. That’s what my ego does.

So I I’ve had to really check myself there and, and taste humility. And I’ve eaten a lot of humble pie in the last few years. And it’s been tough to eat humble pie when you don’t want to, but when you do, it’s the, it’s the food for the soul. Humble pie is the food for the soul to keep going with the pie analogy,

because that’s really how I’ve settled into myself more and develop more security within myself is through humility. So I do think that that’s, those are just some of the things when it comes to regulating the ego, I will say that when it comes to exposing and challenging the ego, it is one of the most difficult things, at least for me on the spiritual path,

because you’re, you’re basically challenging all of the narratives that you’ve created to protect yourself from being wrong. Right. And we’re human beings, we’re fallible. We are wrong. Right. And we have to taste that and we have to move through that. So I just want to say, if you’re somebody that’s struggling with that, just take baby steps with it.

And, and, you know, maybe write down some of the things that your ego is doing and start to notice it. And then the more and more consciousness you have around that, the more you’re able to catch yourself before your ego sabotages, or does all this stuff, and you’re able to catch up before you do it. I think that’s the consciousness that we’re all trying to move towards is like,

how can I catch myself before I create the messiness that I usually create? Right. Cause a mess is a lot easier to clean up when you catch it midway through, or even before you make the mess. Right. And I think that’s what creates ha more connection to your higher self is like, okay, I don’t actually need to make the messes anymore in order to learn.

Right. I can learn by just being aware and witnessing myself before I make the mess. And I’m not fully there yet. I think I operate maybe 70% of my time in that, but I still have my 30% where I need to make all the mess in the world and I need to clean it up and I need to eat the humble pie and all that.

And I don’t know if that’ll ever change because that’s kind of living and learning right now That we grow. Yeah. We’re here. Yeah, exactly. I love all of that. And I love what you said, because that goes perfectly into what I want to say now, because beautiful. I was sitting here listening to what you were saying about coming together with others and like community and,

and how that, you know, brought a Pote, eating the humble pie and engaging in that. And I, I couldn’t help, but notice that my answer was like to, how do you regulate your ego is mine, is other people, ironically, it’s other people play a huge part in regulating my ego because I’m talking with my therapist, making time to have a therapist and talk with my therapist and bounce ideas off of the concepts that you shouldn’t be talking about that to friends or,

or it’s, you know, keeping it separate to have a third party outsider who can kind of objective really look at things they’ll really make you eat some humble pie when they can see that you’re like real out of alignment. And you’re like, and to take that even further is having that core group of like five people or the top people in that who have earned the trust in your life,

who you can respect when they really have to say something to you. And when things happen and your ego comes up and things start getting messy and you start questioning things to be able to, you know, have the therapists talk to, but also have these other people where you can go and go, okay, I need to check in on something. And I really trust you to keep it real with me because you’ve known me for a long time,

you know, aspects of me, you know, the journey I’ve been on. And I really need to check in with this to see if this is a reality and a real thing that I should look at, and that it’s not just, it’s just not come up for me or whether, you know, this interaction was completely bullshit. And like, it was the other,

person’s like craziness that was coming up because sometimes you get into that space where you’re like, well, is this person true talking truth or is like, what truth is in this conversation and what is complete there? And I use other people to kind of be the soundboards of that, to kind of like, it’s kind of like the, I gathered the information that way.

And then I go into self and then I go, okay, now that I have collected all of this information from different sources, let’s continue to sift through what feels real for me and what doesn’t feel real and what resonates and what doesn’t resonate. And that kind of helps me regulate my ego because if I need to be kept in check and they’re like,

no, bitch, you were like up here. And like, you need to be down here. Then I trust those people to kind of help me do that. But I also trust them to help me do that with grace and kindness and compassion, not with who the fuck do you think you are kind of energy that can come from other people who maybe are trying to knock you down a peg,

which may be, does need to happen. But the way it’s happening is not kind or compassionate or clear and not the way that it should be done because they’re not doing the work. So that really helps me in my eco, but I’m really curious and interested because the way you were talking about it, Matt, it made me think about the disconnection we have in community and why people are so disconnected in community because I’m getting the chills right now because of our egos getting in the way of allowing us to belong and allowing us to get to the point where we can eat the humble pie,

because we want to be right so badly that we’re not willing to get into connection where we will be wrong or where we could possibly be wrong. And that scares us. And instead of going into the connection, instead of going into community, we isolate ourselves so that we can be right, so that we can live in the ego of rightness. And like,

it just big aha moment happened with that connection when you were talking. And I was just like, oh shit, is this why people are so scared of connection and so scared of community. And so scared of all this stuff, it’s because of ego and being wrong. And they’re not, maybe they’re not capable or they haven’t learned the tools, how to eat that humble pie.

And hopefully listening to this podcast is one of those tools that helps people go, oh, maybe I do need to learn how to be wrong with grace and how to kind of process this stuff, because that’ll allow me to be more engaged with community and not be afraid of looking a certain way or being wrong. And I’ll give a really good example quickly.

I went to Dodge ball and I had my ear pod and I put them in my bag. And then after they weren’t there, or I thought they weren’t there. And it was the first sunny day of the season. Like it was really great. Like I was like, oh, summer life is good. And then I came home and I couldn’t find them.

And I was like, oh shit. Cause it’s happened before where like, there’s like two, 300 guys, at least in the league. And that we all share the changing rooms and all that. And so I was like, oh man, please know. And I’d looked for them everywhere. I like used my, like, find your pods, all of it.

Couldn’t find it. And then I went after, were out afterwards with my team and I had to tell my captain, I was like, I think somebody stole my AirPods. And he’s like, oh. And I was like, I looked everywhere. I did the thing. I like tried to connect to them everywhere. I went to see like, if maybe they did and they didn’t.

And then so I was like, ah, and then my team was like, oh, that really sucks. I was like, yeah, it, it’s not so much about the thing, but it’s about the safety as the community. Now people aren’t going to feel safe in the community to put their stuff in the changing room. Cause we’ve not had an issue like that for a long time.

And so I was like, because of that, I was like, I need to tell my captain so that you know, that like people can just know. And so then he put out a message to the other captains, just kinda like putting it out there. And then like two days later I opened my sunglasses case and guess what was inside of my sunglasses.

And so I had a choice in this moment and I know so many people listening are like, don’t fucking tell them you found it. Cause like everybody’s been told like, God, it feels so bad for you. Like, oh, if I ever felt like people were really kind and compassionate, I really appreciated that. And so then I had this choice in this moment of like,

do I let my ego win? And do I keep quiet? And just pretend that like I bought another pair and like, it is what it is. And then allow that unsafe feeling to perpetuate inside this organization that I love or do I admit to it so that the safety can still be there. And then I look like an idiot and I have to eat that humble pie.

And so I, the next, so as soon as that happened, like I gave it like, you know, a couple of hours to really process, but then I had to message my captain and be like, okay, so I’m an idiot. And like I sent him a photo and I was like, I’m society. I feel like a full and,

and like, yeah, a couple people made comments, a couple of little jokes about it and whatever. But at the end of the day, nobody’s going to remember this like a couple of years down the line and it’s going to be something that happened that didn’t change my life. And people are going to remember me as that person who also owned up to that and not the person like that,

that happened to. And so I think that that is also really important that people recognize that even in those moments, those vulnerability moments of like, I fuck, I feel like an idiot. I allowed my ego to kind of like take a back seat and go, I see you. I recognize you’re here, but I’m not going to let you win.

And I’m going to take the wheel and I’m going to drive this car because this is in alignment with my values of who I am as a person. And those have to win over ego every time for me. And so, yeah, it felt like full felt like an idiot, but ate that humble pie. And it actually brought me closer to people because they recognize the humanity in me.

They saw like this person’s not perfect because nobody’s perfect. And that kind of allows the connections to build. So a lot of wildness just happened and I have to go back and edit the podcast For the time ever. But that was my story around, around that. I love that story because of the last part that you said, which I was sure I was going to say,

and that is you get to show people how awesome you are and who you are, who you are, who you authentically are and the right people who like that. Some like needed like, okay, now I’m going to remember you. Whereas before you might’ve been like one of 200 people that I wouldn’t know from Joe now, I’m like, oh, that’s that Callan guy who did the whole thing with the AirPods.

And like, it will make me know you and it would make me want to come say hi to you when I saw you at whatever, what he’s or whatever you’re at. So I think that’s that’s for me is such a key point. So thank you for sharing that. All right. I don’t know if I answered the question. Did I answer that?

Okay. We got a little distracted here, guys. So how I know I need to regulate my ego is that desperation, that desperate need to control what shows up all the time. I’m like, okay, Michael, I’m trying to control things. I have absolutely no business controlling. And then I try to bring myself into surrender. And that’s how I that’s.

One of the ways I try to regulate is just remind myself that I actually don’t have control. I just have the illusion of control. And so I’m wasting a lot of my time trying. And so much of a Matt, you were saying what your business like when every time I do give up control, like actually give up control. I’m surprised in ways that I didn’t even see coming.

I’m like, oh, that’s why in business and personal life and everything. Another way for me that I, that I know I need to regulate is when I’m being overly critical of others and myself, that’s when I’m like, okay, I’ve heard a bit of a fair bit of it too far. And I think that comes from that, that when I’m identifying with external,

that that’s how I know. I’m like, okay, I’m I am. I like my perception of self is out here and I really need to bring it back. And so I can try to ground myself back into the feeling of who I am. We talked a little bit about witness consciousness that really works for me, or I watch my feelings and I watch my thoughts.

And I just look at Michael as if he’s this other human over here. And then I’m like, oh, look, let’s let him go. Look at this little guy, have a panic about something that doesn’t fucking matter. So getting into that consciousness of just watching myself and realizing that there was so much more to me than, than this little self little S self taking that,

you know, 40,000 foot view of my life and the world. And that I’m just about a speck on this ball of dust floating around in the world. Like really? This means nothing. So it gives me a little bit of perspective. Hm. Okay. Do you guys feel complete with that question? I want to say one thing about control because I think it was the three of us have all struggled with this quite a bit is control.

And I think that when we feel this urge to control and we don’t enter witness conscious, we stay in ego and then we go about our business and we manipulate and we do all the things to try and get our needs met. And that need gets met from a place of ego. You’re reinforcing the ego, your ego is getting bigger, right? So that’s really important wisdom because when you let go and you let someone else feel like they’re right,

or you let other people make choices and you just let go of the need for control, you’re reinforcing your higher self because you’re entering faith, trust, humility, all of those things. So it’s, it’s painful. I really want to honor that it’s painful when we have to give up control, but when we do, we’re benefiting on a soul level and the ego isn’t being reinforced.

So I just think that that’s, that’s big stuff because when we have to go through that, we can just remember that wisdom and be like, oh, y’all can I can’t be right right now. But that means that a part of me is being built. Right. My soul is being built in a, you know, put, put more online.

So Yeah, very well said. Thank you for that reminder, Marianne Williamson has a quote that I love from the book return to love and it’s God’s plan works yours. Doesn’t Exactly. That’s it? That’s all. It is very simply. But thank you, Marianne. I love Her. Yeah. Okay guys. So final question for the day is how do you develop a greater connection to the spiritual capital S self Kellen?

Let’s start with you Giving myself space. And that’s a hard one. Cause I used to be like a, I used to be a fight like used to, and still very much in like instant fight. Like when I get Bernay brown said this recently on her podcast, but when she gets scared, she gets scary. That is me. When I get scared,

I get scary and I can scare people because I’m scared. And so all the, all of the spikes come out and all this stuff. And so needing to give myself a beat and take time, you know, and that might be like, Hey, I need to take a few days and not be around you. I need to think about this.

I need the space and time. And people can say whatever they wanted, that they might not like that. But I know that in order to live into my values and the things that I am implementing into my life, I need to give myself that grace in that space in order to be like, okay, let’s really think about this and get through the instantaneous emotions and pains and fears and upsets and hurts to get to the other side enough that I can look at this a little bit more objectively and kind of see it from a more compassionate and empathetic way so that I can then have whatever conversation needs to go on or do whatever needs to happen,

but really allowing myself that time and that space to develop that is, has been crucial for me taking a step and taking a break and go, I’m not going to engage in this right now. Let’s circle back to it. And then also reintroducing my meditation practice of like 12 minutes a day before I go to sleep. Just kind of allowing myself to experience what I need to experience in those meditations.

Sometimes I’m thinking of nothing. Sometimes I’m thinking about a million things, but just constantly giving myself that time to do that reminds me that it’s like, okay, I don’t know everything. So, so yeah, those are kinda my two, two things. What about you guys? So I would say one of the biggest things is slowing down because my ego and my higher self are like completely two different speeds.

Actually the polar opposite, my ego is like impulsive. And my higher self is like, let’s gather all the evidence first before we do anything and very deliberate in my higher self. And I think that’s really important. Again, my, one of my responses in life was busy-ness to trauma response. I was busy. I was so busy and my ego was just governing my business,

governing my relationships and everything. So slowing down was really important for that. And then with, when you slow down, I think D you develop a different relationship with your body. I see the ego as, like I said, it’s a very mental structure, right? It happens in the mind that he goes not in the body. And, and I think the higher self is a combination between the mind and the body.

But for me, it’s been more of a body experience. Like I connect to spirit, I connect to other people like everything is an embodied experience. So a practicing presence has been really important for me. And then something that w you know, as far as a mindset shift, it’s like, don’t believe every thought you have about yourself. Like, our thoughts are just,

they’re just, a lot of them are nonsense. We have like something like 50 to 70,000 thoughts a day, and we’re not even aware of most of them. So it’s like, we’re, it’s just a wheel that’s constantly spinning. And when we create our self-concept or identity, based off of the thoughts we have about ourselves, that’s a really slippery slope.

Right? So start to challenge some of these thoughts start to be like, Hmm, that doesn’t feel right for me. Right. And I think that can come more online when you do connect more with your body and become present with yourself. And then the last thing is humility. It’s just such an underrated virtue. And I think humility for me has been everything.

So, Yeah, I think part of that witness, witness consciousness is that what you had just met Matt for me is, is looking at my thoughts. I have such, it’s so fascinating to see that happen, to see myself thinking and to see what the hell is going on in there, which is why I love journaling. Because through journaling, through asking really solid quality questions,

I could kind of put on paper or whatever my laptop whatever’s going on in my brain. And then when I look back at it and read it, I can be like, where is this coming from? Like, this is just nonsense. Like the, the thoughts that show up there and you’re right. It’s just a thought, it’s not the truth,

right? There are two different things. The thought is over here. And the truth is something very different. You get to choose to believe what you want. And I love that. I love that. I can believe whatever I want. And I was going to tell me, fuck all about it. I think that’s very, for me, that’s very empowering.

I get to choose what to believe, but you’re right. My mind, my ego, that, that, that wounded part of me, that conditioned part of me from the past will consistently offer me thoughts of not good enough thoughts of criticism, thoughts of judgment. And I think that is a very good one. So yeah, for me, it’s,

it’s, it’s that it’s looking at my thoughts through journaling. That’s how I do it. And I like to journal cause I think very quickly. So when I write it down, I can actually stop and look, prayer is another one. Again, I’m not talking about the prayer that we’ve learned in school. I just talked to God or talked to the universe as I see fit.

That’s the fuse. My squirrel friend we’ll have a little chat and sometimes it gets tense, but no, in all seriousness, sometimes I will. I will say like, if I’m, if I’m feeling at my wit’s end or if I’m feeling in, in a higher need of, of something of like actual, you know, like I need help, like kind of like I’m on my knees begging here.

I will say, please show me this in a different perspective, from your perspective as what I’ll say, like clearly whatever situation I’m in, I’m suffering because I’m seeing it from my very limited ego perspective. And I will ask for the guidance of show me this from your perspective, because I know that God, the universe does not want me to suffer.

And that is not, that’s not what’s happening here. So they’re always, I believe, anyway, this is my belief, but there always is a bigger story to tell. I just don’t see it. So that’s one of my prayers is please show me this from your perspective. And then yeah. Or, or simply show me the way I’ll be,

just be like, give up, put up my hands and be like, listen, I don’t know what to do. And Michael likes to know what to do. It’s something I like to pride myself on, which is how I know I’m in my ego. And then I’ll say, listen, I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. Please show me the way.

And I’ll just ask for guidance. And I will like Blair my lay myself, bare to, to receive whatever that may be. If it’s some kind of sign a synchronicity or sometimes a few days later, something will happen and I’ll be like, oh, okay, this is the way I’m supposed to go. So yeah, those are some of mine.

Those are some of the ways that I connect to the spiritual higher self soul. All right, guys, do you guys have any last words before we wrap this up? I think we’re golden. I’m golden. All right. Awesome. Well, this has been a wonderful discussion as always. Thank you, viewer listener for tuning in to our discussion about ego.

If you liked what you heard today, please leave us a beautiful review and give us five stars. If you’re watching us on YouTube, go ahead and subscribe to the channel and click on the bell so that you get notified. Each time we released a new episode, which is every Thursday. Again, please go ahead and check out our show notes, to learn about how you can become a patron of our show,

how you can get early access, how you can join the gay men, going deeper, a membership community. And if you want to join us on June the 30th for our talk on spirituality, please go to the Facebook group there AKA tonight. Oh, thank you. See, Kayla knows what data is. I clearly did not do not come to our event two weeks ago.

That was great. Today is episodes of it. Just like Getting your time machine everybody and go a few weeks back and go join us. Okay. Yes. Thank you so much. Yeah. Also, I wanna let everybody know. We also over on Patrion have t-shirts now. So if you want to get a t-shirt, whether it’s a podcast t-shirt or a gay men’s brother,

a t-shirt. If you become a Patrion, we will send you one of those after three months. So go and find more information about that in the link to Patrion. And we are also offering a seven day trial for the gay men going deeper membership. So if you’ve been wanting to try things out, if you will been like, interested about it,

but you weren’t sure you wanted it to be those in first, you can go to the link in the show notes and it’ll take you there so that you can try it out before you really commit to it. So we just decided to do that for everybody, you know, pride month and all that kind of stuff. So yeah. Go check it out.

Sorry. Just sorry to jump in there. Oh, that’s good. Clearly. I don’t know what data, so thank you, Carolyn. Thank you Calla for knowing what day it is. Thank you, Matt and Colin for sharing your wisdom today and we’ll see all you guys next time. Bye.