Looking back, last year was an ego death.
It wasn’t a dark night of the soul – I’ve had those. It was more so a beautiful messy emotional and true period of time in which I allowed anything that didn’t feel good to dissolve and disassemble, and where I actually, genuinely and truly came to love myself.
Honestly, I wish this for all of us. It was the most gracious thing that could have happened to my life.
My self esteem had always seemed to be fine, but as it turns out, I didn’t feel lovable. I felt that what had been reflected to me, over and over, was a sense of being picked over, or (men or potential clients) not valuing the offer of my heart. This impacted my self value and financial value as well. It sounds so sad, I know. And it was! It felt awful trying to constantly overcome that and keep putting myself, my work, and my heart out there. (I wrote about what took me down last year in this post here.)
The journey to one’s own genuine lovability is a bit like walking barefoot on uncomfortable gravel in wet clothing with too few coins in your pocket… for a long time.
And then truly realizing and knowing your lovability is like warming to the bone, chill be gone, and all the comfort returns.
My father had this cassette tape when I was growing up of a sermon where Pastor Ed of my childhood church talked about five-year-old me. My PopPop had just died, I was five, and I was apparently in Pastor Ed’s office for him to console me. I genuinely liked him. But the sermon he gave talked about how I recognized that he wasn’t feeling well himself, and the line that my father quoted about me my whole life was when Ed said, “Her arms went strong around my neck.” Lately, I’ve been thinking about the five year old me that knew how to love like that.
She rocks.
Her heart is good and she’s more than lovable. I love feeling her heart that is my heart.
You know how when you do EFT (tapping) and you say the script, “And I deeply and completely love, honor, and accept myself?” Well, a year ago, I was tapping with diligence and I didn’t know if I truly believed the script. I wanted to, but the feelings didn’t match up. Did I not love myself? Was I feeling the chilled-to-the-bone feeling of unlovability as it had been reflected to me? Either way, it was unpleasant period to traverse.
Now, I tap and I’m like, “Yeah I do!” and it’s very real. There’s not an ounce of doubt. I love, honor, and accept myself. I’m not perfect or flawless, but I’m good. I love my goodness. Like that five year old me, revealing the pure heart of me, I like my loving heart.
Loving my heart is different than loving my ego or personality. It’s not egoic. It’s like knowing that I’m good with God, that the “I” doesn’t matter as much as the love, and acting through love.
Recently I was talking with a friend about the concept of identity. Sometimes we feel like we need to have words to describe identity. Like “Gay, straight, pan, woman, man, trans, teacher, entrepreneur, soul-preneur, healer, partner…” and so on. We, the human with the life we try to construct and put together, and the ego with the questions that ask “Am I good enough yet?” “Have I done enough yet?” these are the parts of us that want to make sure that everyone knows who we are.
And those were the parts of me that didn’t know if I was lovable, because the metrics weren’t really showing the proof that my ego needed.
Was my work enough? Was my love enough? Why wasn’t it being reflected back to me?
Last year, was I loved or lovable was the question that I walked through unexpected mud with, and then, the liberation came through something like a love affair with the divine. Or just the Sacred Remembrance that the love of the divine is mine. The human in me will fuck up or not know what to do, make mistakes in relationships or be too much for someone and get hurt. These are conditional, and these are human conditions. My personality will continue to be involved, because the ego never goes away so long as we’re still human, and that’s perfectly fine. So the term “ego death” is a bit metaphorical, because the ego stays. It just ceases to control you, it ceases to be your why.
Right now, I honestly don’t know the exact place of the woman named Sarah Poet. I don’t feel attached to that. That’s not my focus. Rather, my focus is listening for what wants to be created through the life force that I am. My focus is on being love in more moments. My focus is in living a mission I was put here to live. Really, it’s to feel and express the mission my soul came with in this lifetime, and the “I” follows that.
Part of that mission, I know this to be true, is to gracefully experience love. First in my own heart, and with the divine, and then with others. My mission is also to write, to bring forward the teachings that life has given me while I’ve been fumbling around the past number of years so desperately trying to be successful yet with awakening details that blow one’s mind – my ego personality was working hard, and Spirit was still working through me, and if I can go ahead and enjoy some newfound stability, then I can organize these findings into some healthy transmissions that maybe, just maybe, can impact the world on a larger scale for the better. Not because my ego personality wants to make money or run a business, but because the world could benefit from what I’ve learned.
As a mentor of mine said to me this week, “Sarah, you’re a teacher.” It’s true. I was a career educator, it is throughout my Human Design, and Spirit’s been nudging me to recognize the words “spiritual teacher” lately. This is a funny and wild thing for a human woman to recognize, to accept, to commit to walking the path of without corruption that comes through the ego. Thank God the path has lead me through such humbling depths such that the ego is now subdued enough that I can get the work done without being attached to the identity of teacher. Well played, Soul. Okay, I accept. Let’s do this.
I’m working on allowing myself to recognize that what happens when the ego lets go, and the life is lived through love, is probably a pretty amazing thing. It’s probably bigger and more successful than anything my ego-identified self ever dreamed of before. And I am so glad that it is not my ego that will be driving that train, and that my love, and the vastness of my heart, finally feels ready for what may happen – if my soul and the divine decide this is what is meant to be.
Thanks for reading my update. This was part 2. I’ll be back with parts 3, 4, & 5.
Do you have a desire to be able to own your full story, the full truth of who you are? Join the Sacred Remembering Community today. www.sarahpoet.com/community