Listening to Our Inner Voice Rather Than Our Ego

We spend much of our lives listening to the voice in our head and believing what it tells us.

There may come a point, through inner-work, mindfulness or a dark night of the soul, that we realize that voice is not us.

The voice we have blindly obeying is our ego. We are not our ego, we are the one who has the ability to notice it.

Our ego forms as a self-protective mechanism in our developmental years.

At some point we start realizing that the ego acts in its own best interest and not ours.

We can begin quieting its voice and even challenging it.

When this happens, we may start hearing another voice. The "new" voice has been there all along, however, it has been drowned out by the tantrums of the ego.

The new voice is the voice of our authentic self, or our inner knowing.

The voice of our authentic self speaks to us logically, compassionately and with conviction.

The saying is, ‘when we know better we do better.’

We may be confused then, as to why we sometimes resist this inner and loving wisdom in favor of the louder tantrums of our ego.

The answer is simple, although not easy to navigate at first.

We have been listening to the ego for so long, that we are apprehensive about trying another way.

There is some comfort and familiarity in the discomfort.

Our ego has become our frenemy.

The thought of letting it go, and following a new path can be terrifying.

This is compounded by the fact that the ego feels threatened, so gets exponentially louder and more demanding.

So what do we do when navigating this new knowledge and way of being?

We meet ourselves and our ego with firm but compassionate understanding. We acknowledge what is happening and why it is happening, but we make a mindful choice to be a free-thinker.

This is easier said than done.

We will face resistance, fear and even self-sabotage.

This is normal.

We acknowledge it, accept it, and start again. We do this over and over, until we start building trust in the new relationship we have with ourselves.

Slowly but surely the ego will start loosening its grip, and lowering its voice.

Slowly but surely, with time, patience and repetition, our authentic voice will be the one that speaks louder, and the one that gets our attention.