Chapter Four: Role-Playing: The Many Faces of Ego

This week’s webclass focused on the many roles we play. I know that when I question clients and workshop participants about who they are, they list their roles and titles. We have become so attached to the many roles we play in a lifetime. Yet, who are we when those roles are no longer valid? This is part of the retirement or downsizing crisis – the job is gone and so is the title or role; and our identities were wrapped up in those roles. The roles, the job has become our sense of self.

"What really matters is not what function you fulfill in this world, but whether you identify with your function to such an extent that it takes you over and becomes a role that you play. When you play roles you are unconscious. When you catch yourself playing a role, that recognition creates a space between you and the role" (p. 90).

“So people who are out of touch with the power within or the place where all power resides, the aliveness itself, consciousness itself, then they feel a sense of lack. Why are they not in touch with it? Because they are not present. They are not in the present moment because the present moment is that entry point into that place of power within. If you are not present you don't realize that there is a source of power within and then you feel that you need to get secondary power from someone or some situation or other people. Then the ego plays roles to manipulate the environment and other people to get what it thinks it needs not realizing that all the thing it thinks will give it the power that it seems to lack, all that is already within you, if you could only be present in the now.” ~ Eckhart Tolle, from “A New Earth” WebClass

Common roles people play, especially women, include working woman, stay-at-home mom, female seductress, nonconformist artist, cultured intellectual, world traveler, etc. You also assign roles to others and then treat them accordingly. (How you speak to the janitor may be different from how you speak to the chairman of the company.)

~What roles do you play at work, home, or in the world?
~What roles do you assign to others?

My question to you is who would you be without those roles?

It is not too late to join in the conversation and create a new earth. Go to Oprah.com and join the webclass. If you have not read the book, you can still join in the class. At Oprah.com there are resources to help you in remembering who you really are, letting go of your ego identity and creating a new earth.

Also, if you are new to the webclass, you can access the archive of the previous classes -- on video, audio, or written transcripts.

Next week: The Pain-Body!

We are spiritual beings having human experiences!

Chapter Three: The Core of Ego

As we continue through A New Earth, we look at some key points to Chapter Three and the core of the ego.

"Anything that you resent and strongly react to in another is also in you."

“What we react to in another we strengthen in ourselves. One of the things the ego needs to survive is reacting against other people. What you react to in another you strengthen in yourself…”

“What we react to most strongly in others and what we most strongly condemn in others is usually something that we also have, a trait that we also have but that we are unconscious of in ourselves. So when we, for example, become upset if we encounter somebody who is very greedy, or we could become upset about somebody who is dishonest, no matter who, the force of your reaction usually tells you that something in you that you need to look at.”

Question: Who in your life do you consider an enemy? What lessons and blessings have you to learn from that person?

“Whatever you fight, you strengthen and what you resist persists.”

“Complaining is one of the egos favorite strategies for strengthening itself. Every complaint is a little story the mind makes up that you completely believe in… Some egos that haven’t got much else to identify with, they can survive on complaining alone. So the continuously you are condemning other people, you’re continuously criticizing, condemning or judging negatively situations that you’re in, your surroundings, other people.”

Question: Who would you be if you did not complain? How would your life be different?

It is not too late to register for the Webclass at Oprah.com. Just sign up and join in the conversation. You can also revisit past episodes in audio or video. Take part in creating a spiritual shift in consciousness across the globe.

Live in the moment,

Coach Carolyn

Chapter Two: Ego: The Current State of Humanity

Hopefully you have had the chance to watch, listen to, or read the transcript of Class Two/Chapter Two of the A New Earth Webclass. In Chapter Two, Eckhart talks about the ego; but Oprah and Eckhart began the webclass with a moment of silence. Silence is something that many of us are not comfortable with. Just stopping and listening to our own breath – this can cause some people to go nuts! We must be wired and attached to something – mobile phones, blackberries, iPods (unless you are listening to A New Earth Podcast).

One of the things that the ego does not align with is silence; because as Eckhart says, it is taking attention away from the thinking mind which feeds the ego. I have said that stopping is a spiritual action – taking the time to just be.

Being aware of your surroundings is also difficult for some of us. How many times have I had to grab someone who was about to get run over by a car because she was so engrossed in her phone conversation or her blackberry messages?

So, if we cannot be still and silent or aware of our present moment, then how do we manage to have engaging relationships? Do we really know who we are relating to? Are we really aware of what we are eating during our lunch breaks? Or do we talk on the phone while shoveling food into our mouths? Especially here in New York, I see this all the time.

What would it be like if we just went out to a park and sat? No mobile or wireless devices, no distractions, just be? I do this at least once a week – my artist date. After having that time with myself, then I can think, analyze or create.

My challenge to you is to set aside some time in the next few days to just be. Go to a park or some other quiet place where you can have no distractions. Just notice your surroundings. Notice the sounds, the smells; take it all in and then let it go. Don’t label it, don’t judge it. Just be with it.

Share with us what the experience was like. Was it difficult to just be? Were you itching to react to the vibrating mobile device in your pocket? Could you turn it and everything else off for the time?

Stay in the moment,
Coach Carolyn