What is the ego?

I've heard of the ego as the inner critic, the voices in your head telling you you're not enough. The voice of someone in your past who had the biggest influence on your younger self's inability to be fully expressive or maybe even THE DEVIL HIMSELF (religious trauma still reigns free occasionally)!

There are a few ways I have experienced the ego. When I was starting to become aware of the ego and how it influenced my life, I had heard somewhere that you should give your ego/inner critic a name. I tried to think of people that hurt me in my life. Their names never felt right, feeling even more unaligned as I matured and learned that hurt is inevitable for EVERYONE, that healing is my own responsibility and I've found deep forgiveness for these people. I was on the search for the right descriptor.

At the most recent retreat in Sedona that I co-hosted with June Syndesi, where I personally worked through my tendency to play the mouse in the presence of lions, I had an awakening in meditation where I saw little Sarah, who was begging for me to deeply see her, who wanted to be heard. I began to notice over the recent months that more and more, the times that I began to self-sabotage, play small, or hide in a hermit shell, it was often scared little Sarah who was showing up, fearing being too much, not enough, and ultimately failing. Was this the ego.. my inner child?

I began to sit with her more often. I curated some of my old photos of little Sarah into a stack that I could arrange so that the most present emotion tugging at my sleeves would be front and center. I'd ask her what she wanted me to see through these feelings. I've loved on her, reminded her we're safe, over and over. And even through all this inner child work, there's been nasty nagging voices, not just tugging at my sleeves but ripping at my mind and my heart, STILL telling me I'm not enough, never have been, never will be.

I thought I cracked the code on my ego and I thought we were past such negativity. Why was it feeling like there was something more than just my inner child?

and from stage right enters "the shitty committee"

I heard the phrase "shitty committee" recently and my comedic self chuckled. Yup. There they are, all those assholes entering this pretend room in my mind to circle round me with their smug, stupid faces, sitting down in plastic chairs to analyze everything I'm doing wrong, fully disregarding my affirmations, aspirations and all the hard work I'm doing to heal myself.

Guilt and Scarcity tag-teaming me with their remarks, "you shouldn't be spending that $50 on yourself. Your husband works his ass off to pay the bills and the little money you are making between panic attacks, you're spending on yourself? He needs something else more than you do. What about your girls? They said they wanted a mommy-daughter date, you're so selfish."

Exhaustion and Aggression joining forces to remind me that I don't have the energy for all the shit I have to deal with, unless it's anger, then I can rage scream and huff about the house, slamming things all I want.

Isolation piping in with opinions, "you're supposed to be creating a community of women that uplifts each other, yet you spend 99% of your time at home alone with your toddler, attempting to take care of your family (doing a poor job at it, need I remind you), and feeling like shit so you can't even show up. Why even try to engage if all you can be is negative? You might as well continue on this lonely train and chug on away from being seen. No one wants to be around a pitiful, toxic person like you."

And the ultimate leader of this committee is Existential Crisis observing everything happening outside of the circle and reinforcing, "nothing matters, what is the point of any of this? There's really not one, so why even try to do anything worthwhile?"

Phew... holy SHIT. Yeah, they're assholes... but they're my assholes. Kidding.

here's what has worked for me to overcome their criticism:

Really it comes down to 3 main things: Self-awareness/compassion, choice, and somatic processing.

1. Self-awareness/compassion: recognizing and acknowledging that I have been letting them win. Giving myself grace for my limitations, not beating myself up even more for letting it go on so long, and knowing that it doesn't have to continue to be this way.
2. Choosing a different reality: Knowing that ultimately no one is going to fix this but me and I get to choose how I respond to these internal naysayers, so I mentally give myself back the power, and I choose to tell them politely to fuck off.
3. Somatic Processing: through my experience of receiving somatic therapy, I've come to the personal belief that the physical body is EVERYTHING. It has all the answers. When the mind can't stop spinning, all that matters is reconnecting to my body and using the tools I've learned over the past 5 years to feel into what I need to work through. Feeling not enough feels like pressure near my diaphragm/lungs. Self-doubt feels like an ocean in my skull. Anger feels like fire in my belly. So I pause, I listen, and I give my body the attention where it's calling from and let those feelings Empty Out.

Empty Out Sessions

If you're curious about Empty Out, the form of somatic and energetic processing I've been trained to facilitate, I've been opening it up to the Universe to guide me to the right modality/location for guiding. I've tried Zoom, in-person in my home and at my luxury boudoir experiences. So far in-person feels most aligned and impactful. If you know of a yoga studio or wellness space that would like to add an energetics and intuitive movement class to their schedule or at least do a trial, send their info my way.

My clients have loved Empty Out to start their boudoir sessions. It's a unique opportunity to release jitters and embody the goddess energy you want to portray through your images. Here's what my clients are saying: