Spiritual Ego & Bypassing

Kate (00:00)

Welcome back to the Awakening Conversations podcast. My name is Kate. I’m here with my co -host Amanda. Amanda, so good to see you looking so summery.

 

Amanda (00:09)

Good to be here with you. It’s feeling quite hot here in central Mexico.

 

Kate (00:12)

I am a little bit jealous because the sun’s shining outside, but I still have jumper on. So I’ll live vicariously through your summery look.

 

Amanda (00:20)

And can you define ‘jumper’ for our listeners, please?

 

Kate (00:23)

So a jumper is a sweater of sorts. So today we are going to be talking about spiritual ego and spiritual bypassing. And these, we want to say traps that we can find ourselves in after our own awakening experience, but things that are actually quite normal processes and places to find ourselves once we’ve had our awakenings. And so we’re going to dive into really defining a little bit about what those two things are, share our own experiences of them and how you can work with yourself and work through this, if you too get yourself into a spot where you realize and recognize that you are operating from these two places. So Amanda, do you want to start by sharing with us a definition of spiritual ego?

 

Amanda (01:16)

Yeah, so I’m just gonna read us a short definition from a site called Self Mastery and Beyond. And just quickly and concisely, a spiritual ego is a mind infused with spiritual ideas and beliefs. It’s the idea and identity of yourself as being spiritually evolved. And so with that, a lot of times we may feel we are better than either we were before we became spiritual or maybe we’re better than others that aren’t spiritual. And with that, I think we can kind of dive into like how we’ve experienced this and what’s been our observations of how this can show up.

 

So do you want to dive in first with what comes up for you with regards to the spiritual ego, especially going through your own ego dissolution experience yourself?

 

Kate (02:11)

Yeah, I will say that, you know, especially in my situation where it was really coming to even learn that I had an ego that became a great awareness in my life of like learning when that part of me was where I was operating from or thinking from and, and became kind of like my work. It was my work really after that to really recognize more and more and more the ways I was thinking from that place. 

And I mentioned once before a book that I read, The End of Your World by Adyashanti and the first time I read it was fresh out of my awakening. So there was parts I took from that that helped me, but I returned to it, I don’t know, maybe a year later because I had this feeling that I’d heard something about spiritual ego and I was like, I think I might be operating from this at this point. And sure enough, I got to this chapter. I was like, oh yeah, there I am.

And I can remember the first time I read it as that’s never gonna happen to me. I’ll never be like that. And I think my experience really is, and it’s such a easy thing to kind of happen is because I think I’ll describe it as that, you know, this experience for me was so deeply transformative and it really impacted my life in a way that it did in some ways bring me more joy, more connection.

I was passionate about it, you know, sharing it with people in some ways and like, you know, it really, really gave me a new lease on my life. And it felt like everybody’s gotta live like this. Everybody has to know about it. And so I think it was driven from a good place to start, but the trick and the kind of catch here is  that this beautiful feeling of connection that we have, like the ego is such a subtle thing. And I kind of have my hand coming in at the side here of like, it kind of comes in and was like, Oh yeah, like you are this, you are someone who knows these things. You need to share them with the world. You have this really amazing perspective. You, you are the teacher. You know what I mean? Like it’s a real subtle voice in the back of your head. It’s like, yeah, I know something. I need to get this out into the world. 

And, you know, so it comes somewhat from a, you know, genuine place of wanting to share, but at some point there is this, I got myself to that place of exactly like feeling like, you know, the guru, you know, and that this person, oh, you know, you just need to do this, right? You need to, I, I’ve been there, I’ve had an awakening. This is what I learned. And, you know, you’re, this is your ego talking to you and, you know, become this kind of like bit preachy, I think in some ways. And that is our ego identifying with our spiritual experience, our spiritual awakening. 

And then, again, the thing to understand about our ego is it identifies with these things. And then it says you are that, I am that, and actually the ego is not the the awakened part of us, it was the fact that our soul became awake to the fact that we have egos or, you know, it awakened to the fact that we’re even aware that we have one. 

So it’s an easy trap that the ego can be like, Oh, I am now this, you know, it’s like getting your like graduation cap of like, now I am the doctor or now I am the radiographer, like, it kind of takes it on as a role and an identity. And so, yes, the motivation behind it might very much be this pure intention of wanting to help people and share and spread the message and help them to see themselves in new ways. But it can, it can be, you know, can keep going and then you exactly the separation of, separation. That’s the key word here is like, I have had this experience, you haven’t, I’m a bit better than you. And so you need to listen to me in some ways. 

And so that’s what I’ll say is, is my, my experience of that. I don’t think I was too, too much of a like pushy in that way, but I identified it in myself. I could feel how my ego had really taken on that and was like, you know, I could see myself looking at people who you know, we’re struggling in their lives. And I think of one particular person who was in our lives at that time.

And like I’ve said, in Japan, we had a really wild time. There were some people in our life that were really challenging people to have in our lives. And I could see this person and I knew, I knew you’re a soul and a human, but I was really looking at them, particularly this is where I think I caught myself from this spiritual place of like, I know what’s right for you. You know, I know how you can fix yourself, you know? So I was like, didn’t actually feel that good when I really, really recognize that in myself. So what is your experience of spiritual ego?

 

Amanda (07:02)

Well, I just want to say that, like, I think just comment on a couple things from what you shared, because that was a really good share. And I think that we definitely have to go through those experiences to then kind of come out the other side and in that experience. 

A couple of things that came to mind as you were speaking, which is the concept of the savior complex, which I very much had. And I can talk more about that. And then also the Dunning -Kruger effect, which is the effect of where it’s like we learn something and we think that we are way more, like when we start, we think we’re way more advanced than we actually are. We don’t know how much we actually don’t know. And so it’s like, we might have this awakening experience and we might think, oh, I’m spiritually evolved, not knowing what a spiritual path actually means. It’s like this unfolding and it’s going through, it’s like now living from a, life from a different place where we’re gonna be having challenges come our way and it’s choosing to live from a different vantage point, from a different

And so I think like those two things I heard you say, and I very much can relate to them both where it’s like, oh, I have something that can help another person and I’m gonna, I’m gonna, I can help them not really realizing that like we’re doing it as I don’t know if you were doing it, but a lot of times with the savior complex, we’re not necessarily, we’re doing it to take the, our eyes off of looking at ourselves in order to like help another person, right? Or it’s like, oh, it worked for me, it has to work for you. And it’s like, you know, trying to fix other people who aren’t necessarily asking to be fixed, right? And also like, where is sovereignty in that? Like, and that’s part of the journey with sovereignty too, right? It’s learning that we are all on our own journeys and you know, someone needs to ask, right? Someone needs to ask for help, like, and I’ve been there, I’ve done it, I relate.

 

Amanda (09:18)

I think it’s a kind of common experience that many people go through. And so that’s why we’re talking about it. And we can kind of talk about it and look back at ourselves and feel like, oh, maybe there can be shame associated with both the spiritual ego, the spiritual ego, and also spiritual bypassing, which we’re going to talk about when we realize that we’ve done that because we think, oh, like you said, I wouldn’t do that. Right. 

So and then I think that’s part of the humbling experience of the spiritual journey, which I mean, this is all too familiar for me because my, going back to the gene keys, my evolution sphere, which is like this sphere within our chart where it might be a bit of a challenge. And once we like learn to, once we like have a breakthrough or an energetic shift in this sphere, a lot can unlock for us, but it can be a challenging place in our lives. And that one for me is the shadow is arrogance, the gift is leadership and the siddhi is humility. And so like recognizing where I’ve been humbled in my life, like there’s been times where I’ve definitely been humbled. One of them becoming a mom, like I imagine a lot of people can maybe relate to this where it’s like you have opinions about how, what you’re gonna do when you’re a mom and then you become that and you’re like, you just get kicked to the floor, like, you know, on your knees because it’s not realizing how terribly hard, like that was my first like big humbling moment as an adult, I would say, where like it showed me where my arrogance, like, was judging other people because I thought I could do something better. This is not necessarily about the spiritual awakening but it is related because, you know, that was a big growth moment for myself. 

So as far as like, yeah, there’s judgments, right? Like when we are, our inner ego of like how one should be or how we should be. And then so we can, learning that we all have our own path. I have my own path. Another person has their own path. And so another person is going to have a spiritual journey that they are meant to have in their own time. And we don’t necessarily need to like push our experience on them per se. Yeah, so that’s kind of what I could relate to from what you were saying about my own journey.

I’ll share something that I heard. It was, I think, Aaron Abke. He has a YouTube channel. I heard him as a guest on another person’s podcast. And he mentioned about, they were talking about esoteric knowledge and how for a long time this was kept to, it was almost protected and people had to go through different levels of initiation in order to receive different levels of this esoteric knowledge because what they were saying is that if we receive this knowledge and it’s only in our head, it’s only in our minds and we haven’t gone through the process to purify and to open our hearts, that’s where we get into the spiritual ego. When we are only operating from the mind. 

So going back to that definition of what a spiritual ego is, it’s the idea that we’re spiritual and we haven’t fully embodied what that means to be spiritual yet. That really kind of, I think, instilled what that was for me. And that’s been my journey as far as going from very head -based to then like continuing to like open my heart, open my heart. 

And the experience that I wanna share specifically was with my journey working with ayahuasca. So I think it was November of 2020 when I first sat with ayahuasca. And then I did 11 ceremonies and ended in June of the following year. And so when I, I had done some other plant medicines before I had done my meditation. And I think I had gone through that idea of like, oh, I’m, you know, I had this psychedelic experience before and I had that experience of, of the, like, that’s one of the ways I think people can feel this level of superiority of like having these experiences other people haven’t had. And, and so, anyways, the first time I went into a ceremony, it was an amazing experience. 

But through those seven months, working with the medicine and also doing other modalities as well, some inner child healing, breathwork, and doing work on a regular basis, when I went into the final retreat seven or eight months later, I, the first, when I dropped in with the medicine, I had this realization that I went back to where I was when I first, in the November prior, when I first sat with the medicine. And I recognized how then I was all in my head, like everything that was happening was in my head. And then how I was in this, in that moment in time, I was in my body and it was like a night and day contrast from those two experiences. And I recognized how much in the ego I was prior. And through that work, I was able to be in my body and embody it more. And then that retreat was four ceremonies and so every other night for four nights, we’d sit with the medicine. And on the last, I think I’ve mentioned that I had an experience where I experienced Christ consciousness. It was this experience in my heart and I had felt connections with Jesus prior to that. But in that moment, I felt it within me.

And I couldn’t tell anyone about it because that felt like it was, that felt egoic. It felt, and so it was like, I couldn’t even speak about it because I mean, I shared it with the healer that I sat with afterwards because I felt that was a, I wasn’t sharing it from an egoic place, but I did, it didn’t feel…, having that experience, I no longer felt the need. It’s like wanting to have these spiritual experiences to then go back and tell someone about it. And then once I did have that experience, I no longer felt the need to tell anyone about it. So that was like this huge shift that helped dissolve that need to identify with spirituality. If that makes sense, yeah.

 

Kate (16:43)

Yes.

Yeah, I think that’s such a powerful example of exactly what we’re trying to explain here too, is that you mentioned even through your evolution sphere and I have the, I don’t know if it’s my evolution sphere, but I have that same number, the arrogance to leadership to humility, right? Yeah. I don’t know where it is in my chart, but I have that one. But, but exactly the soul is humble, right? Like when we are being and the word here is being our soul, there is no need for anyone else to have any understanding of what we’re experiencing and feeling, right? Like you’re such a beautiful example of that night and day, the ego expression and then the soul expression. Like when we, when we are just, we just allow, right? Like, Oh, I felt that like we don’t need to make an Instagram post about it and share it with the world, you know, and, and no judgment if anyone’s done that, like we’re just sort of trying to give examples here, but it is, it becomes such a more of a just like, this is just my experience. You know, if someone asks you, okay, then you’ll tell them, but exactly. And I love the way you even felt in that moment that if I was to share that with the group, it feels egoic, because it is in a sense, right? Like it’s like, Oh, I just had this experience. I, I’ve met Jesus.

 

Amanda (18:03)

Yes. I just met Jesus. Yeah.

 

Kate (18:26)

Uh, hand up anyone else? Anyone else? Oh, I did. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You know, and so, so as anyone’s listening to this, like, this is such a great example where we can like start to kind of contemplate as a practice for ourselves of like, you know, am I in any moments of my life using my, you know, experiences and what I have been through as a way that I’ve like, you know, wanna like share it from with the world because I want people to think something about me, right? Because that’s what the ego wants. Our egos are, that cares about other people’s opinions. It wants to be seen in certain ways. And yet our spiritual journey is such an internal one, right? It’s this coming to internally feel just closer to the truth of who we are. And then just expressing that, you know, and it’s not necessarily coming from, when I say expressing it saying, I am enlightened, I’ve had an awakening or, you know, it’s, it’s how we then share the truth in our hearts, you know, it’s how we share who is who we really are. So I think that’s just a such a powerful example. And knowing too, that if you find yourself, you start identifying like, Oh, I am being that don’t be hard on yourself, because that’s your ego. 

Again, your ego is someone that’s going to say you shouldn’t be like that. And yet it’s ego being like that. So, ego is such a funny thing to work with. And you know, it’s, this is part of this phase of the awakening is cultivating that awareness of what your ego even is, right? It can hide in the spiritual parts. It can, and it can also be out there and just all of your limiting beliefs, right? Like that was a big thing for me, as I said, to, to realize, okay, yes, I understood it through the lens of all the stories and limiting beliefs you know, ways I limited myself. And yet now that I am spiritual, it wanted to claim that as well. So it’s normal. Please don’t be hard on yourself. The soul part of you compassionately holds the ego part of you. And I think I said this in my story, like the way we work with our ego, the way that we can be more of the soul self is, is to hold ourselves compassionately whenever we are being outside of that part of ourselves and we are acting from ego. That is how we can bring ourselves back to center and then choose again as the soul part. You know, do I want to continue that behavior? Does that feel, you know, is that really what I want to do? You know, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a practice. It’s a process. Um, yeah. Anything else you want to share on that? What came up for you?

 

Amanda (21:05)

Yeah, I’ll just say that it took me almost three years to begin to be able to share this because I’m not being overly attached to it or not being overly identified with it and feeling like it’s an experience I had and recognizing that it’s an experience that many of us can have and are going to have as this, as more of us continue to awaken, as the planet continues to ascend, it’s going to be an experience that it’s, it’s, it’s an experience. It’s not who I, it is, it’s not who I am and it is who I am at the same time.

 

Amanda (21:47)

It’s like, as you go on the spiritual journey, you recognize that there are so many paradoxes and it can make your mind explode, like trying to like wrap your head around. And that’s why part of the journey is getting out of our heads and into our hearts. It’s learning, this last year for me has been connecting the two hemispheres of my brain, like living in both the feminine and the masculine. And knowing that there can be two, what feels like opposing truths at the same time. And I think the more you go along the way, like it is easier to hold those seemingly conflicting realities at the same time. And it’s still a process and it’s still challenging.

 

Amanda (22:39)

I think that the shame that we feel, right? It’s almost kind of an ingrained thing of like, oh, I got this wrong. And it’s, I’m not doing it right, yeah. Yeah, but there’s recognizing that it’s all part of the path and we can’t get to what… where we’re going without being with it. And maybe that might lead us into the topic of spiritual bypassing because the process of learning to be with what’s uncomfortable, right? That’s part of the journey as well. And at the beginning of a spiritual path, when we have a spiritual awakening, we might start to believe that we, have to all of a sudden be positive, not low vibration, quote unquote, because that’s what we’re seeing on the internet or on Instagram. And so learning to recognize what most of us do, spiritual bypass at some point in time, and learning that to go further along weneed to recognize that we are doing that, whether it’s to others or it’s to ourselves in our own process or experience.

So let me just read. Let me get it open. There’s a definition of spiritual bypassing. And so it’s to use spiritual terms, to bypass challenges, real life occurrences, or how someone feels. And so this was coined by a psychologist named John Wellwood in 1984. And this is what he said, spiritual bypassing is a term I coined to describe a process I saw happening in the Buddhist community I was in and also in myself. Although most of us were sincerely trying to work on ourselves, I noticed a widespread tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks. 

So what does that, what comes up for you when we start talking about spiritual bypassing?

 

Kate (25:07)

Yeah, so a couple things come up, is that I think some of, this is what I did. I thought that because I was being spiritual, that I could handle every situation. And it would just be oh yeah, no problem. All the hard stuff like yet know you’d like that I meant to just like breeze through it, you know, and that I shouldn’t get upset by things I shouldn’t get angry. I shouldn’t feel down.

And then I gave myself a real hard time when I couldn’t do that. You know, I can remember walking around, you know, my little village here, being so frustrated at myself for feeling the things I felt. And then someone pointed out to me, you’re meant to feel them. And I was like, you know, here I am again, like, you know, and then of course that’s my ego, like beating me, beating me up for like, trying to skip over it. Like you’re allowed to feel your feelings.

And I think that sometimes we can think that if we’ve awakened or even the word enlightenment, that that means that life’s just perfect, you know, like the birds are always singing, the sun is always shining and that I’m always happy. I have had that experience. I often come back to that thinking that no, why is this hard? Like it’s not meant to be like this. Well, actually, yes, it is. 

So even now, all this, you know, how many years later, four years later, five years later, I still have this part of my mind that says, no, it’s not meant to be hard. You’re not meant to feel challenged by this, but actually, yes, I am. And I want to say perfection is never the goal, right? Like that’s an egoic pursuit. That’s an egoic idea that it’s got to be perfect. The only perfection we’re ever seeking is a sense of wholeness again.

A sense of true self love, you know, that inner work of actually liking who we are, feeling connected to ourselves, healing the parts and the things and the stories that healing the egoic identity structures and thought patterns, doing the inner child work, loving those parts of ourselves. That’s the only sense of perfection we’re really looking for. And, and then I think when we, when we’re able to hold more of a sense of wholeness within us, then when we get on the stormy seas of life, we feel just a little bit more like, I want to say like, we have, feel like we’ve got our life vest on, you know, I’m fully here. I’ll get myself through this. I can trust myself. I will work with what emotions come up. I will, I will, you know, let, I’ll be have the awareness that, you know, if my, my mind starts to loop, I can go, okay. Do I need to keep, keep thinking about this? Or can I just say, okay, yes, this is hard. Where’s my sense of control? What do I need in this moment? Is it to ground? Is it to rest? Is it to say something? You know what I mean? Like that, that perfection that we’re really looking for really is just being to beginning to have more tools to manage the challenging times because exactly that the spiritual pursuit is the spiritual journey is being with it all.

And, and that is what is like the sandpaper, you know, the ups and the downs, you know, it gets the, from the thick grade of sandpaper to the thin grade of sandpaper, right? Like it’s shaping us, it’s changing us. It’s, it is, that is how we become a different version of ourselves, you know? So I really, I’ve really had to accept over and over and over and over and over and over again. And especially when I get to those moments where all of a sudden I come up against myself again.

And I find myself like having to go through the mental, ugh, like why am I here? The fears, the doubts, the feeling like I’ve contracted and I hate it, hate it every time. And I fight it. And then I just have to keep reminding myself like this is part of it too. Just cause you had a fun week last week doesn’t mean every week’s going to be awesome. And so what I’ve done when that happens is like, let myself fully be pissed. Here I am again. I don’t like this and I don’t want to feel this way. Right. Valid. Cause I don’t, right. Allow myself that. But I don’t, don’t sit there. Right. I’ll give myself some time to feel that. And then I’m like, well, you know, what’s here for me, you know, that curiosity I’m always talking about like, well, what, what is, what is here for me? You know, is there anything that I need to do or do I just really need to ride this out? Like I’m learning that I don’t always have to do something about how I feel, I just got to feel it, you know, and, and, and it, even in the feeling of it, you’re, you’re working with it and unraveling it, but that, you know, in the early stages, I think we do need to work with it a little bit more. Like it helps us unpack, helps us understand this tendency of why, why we fight this, you know, it’s a, it’s a healing portal. I would say.

 

Amanda (30:07)

I think spiritual bypassing can be tricky because when we’re in those places that you just spoke about, and if someone comes at us with what I might consider a spiritual truth, for example, you create your reality. That can be viewed as spiritually bypassed. Like, you know, I’m just bypassing your feelings, well, you created your reality and so it’s quite interesting that, it’s that paradox again, it’s like that that’s true. And like also is that helpful for the person in that low place, right? I think I’ve been guilty, I will say in my, I guess I find it tricky, right? I’ll say that like, there is, we can be in a victim state, we can be in a loop where we’re not able from our current place to see a way out, right? And so when someone, like when we’re in a victim state and someone says something like that to us, it can feel like they might be negating our experience. And at the same time, it’s also true that we are like, like we need to recognize that we are creating that loop that we’re in and like, and and so it’s tricky, right? It’s tricky because when we’re in those loops, a lot of times we don’t want to hear the things that are going to help us get out of those loops, those stuck places, those ruts that we’re in.

 

Amanda (31:59)

And so it can also be dismissed as you’re spiritually bypassing me because you don’t want to come down to where I am in this place of hopelessness, helplessness. And so do you have any thoughts about that? Because it’s a tricky one to me because sometimes I’m just like, I don’t know how to help you there. And like maybe, it’s not my job to help you there. And so I’m just not gonna, or I’m gonna point out that like, yeah, you keep coming to me with this, this challenge that you face and you’re, you’re still here. And it’s, it’s not helpful for me to tell you that you’ve created this reality for yourself. And so it’s, I don’t know, it’s a difficult dance, I would say. Do you have any ideas or thoughts on that?

 

Kate (32:29)

I mean, I think the most important thing that we have to remember is, is something we’ve spoken about before is our sense of self responsibility. You know, yes, we do create our own reality, right? And, and I think even in that, in, when we’re in those places where we’re struggling with our spiritual ego and spiritual bypassing, I can remember for me that particular line, every time I thought of it, I was like, I’m creating my reality. I’m like, I’m fucking it up by feeling this way. Do you know what I mean? So like, right. So then my ego is like, you’re ruining it. You’re, you’re screwing up your reality. Like stop being unhappy, you know, so it can get deep and it can get really hard and then you just feel like your head wants to explode. So I would say, you know, when you’re doing it to yourself, like you’ve really got to take some breaths and like, this is where having a, creating a, learning to really create an awareness of your ego.

 

Kate (33:52)

You know, and I, I work with people, you know, through my coaching of like personifying it, it takes some work because sometimes it’s so feels like just us, but beginning to be able to parse out that feels like ego. This feels like myself, you know, like there is a difference in the tone of voice, the way it speaks to you, all those sort of things so that we can create a more awareness of that’s ego. So it can be like, I can call it out. And when I call it out I literally can like see it outside of myself and then I can come back to center and like, okay, that’s what’s happening. You know, take a few breaths. Okay. And then I’m in a choice point when I can identify it and then call it out. I was like, okay, that was ego. You know, that was ego. You know, if I come back to center, how do I feel about my experience or what would I like to do here? Do I just want to allow myself to cry? Whatever. 

When it comes to, you know, others, you know, in your example of like, well, you’ve come to me several times with the same thing. There’s a challenge there because this, there’s a sense here that this person isn’t really taking that responsibility and it’s hard. And it comes back to something you said earlier of like, you know, at some point too, in this journey, when it comes to other people, even though we know we do know and not from the egoic place, but we’ve been there, we’ve experienced it. It’s our truth. It’s our wisdom. It’s our lived, lived experience.

We do have to accept that people have to go through their own path, you know? And so I think if we’re talking about someone where we’re dealing with it on a spectrum here of like, at this point, we’re just holding space for them to be in it. And we’re allowing them to feel that and then being supportive. And then, you know, it happens again. And we’re like, okay, we’ll hold a little bit more space for you.

We have to, at some point, hold them to their highest potential. And so, you know what you do? Yeah. You are creating your reality. I love you. And you’re creating your thought, you know, you create your own reality here. What do you want to do with that? You know, so I think what’s important is where it’s coming from. And it’s that intention of it coming from that love rather than, as we said before, from that spiritual place of like, you create your reality and you are, you know, doing a bad job of it right now. You need to be more spiritual. Do you know what I mean? So like, where has it come from when you are sharing that with someone? So yeah, I think that’s what I’d like to say to that there.

 

Amanda (36:14)

Something adding onto like, that came up as you were talking that has been helpful for me that I’ve heard others say is asking if I would like help. And that’s like putting the ball back in my court, like in a way, taking responsibility for whatever they, they have to give and, and rather than just giving it without being asked, without the permission. And so I think that’s a way that maybe feedback that might feel not nice to the ego, right? If we’re in that egoic place already and we’re defensive, like it might be defensive if we ask for it, if we, and then it’s given in that way versus given from, oh, I see what you’re doing wrong here. And I’m just going to tell you without you really letting me know if you want it or not. I think that’s a helpful way that we can help others is by asking if they would like what we are seeing, what we are observing from our vantage points because a lot of times when we’re in relationships, we are mirrors for each other. And a lot of my self -growth has come from the reflections of other people, specifically my husband being a big one. 

And so if, we have to be willing to want to look in the mirror and want to receive what the mirror has for us, right? And we receive it better when it comes from that place of love that you stated versus a place of, let me tell you what you’re doing wrong here. And then you put our, our ego puts up a defense. It like, it softens the ego to receive what’s going to help it, I think.

 

Kate (37:58)

Yeah. And I think that’s an important part exactly is if we are in that position where we can see for someone else is, is asking because sometimes people actually don’t want to be helped. They just want to, they don’t want it. So, you know, exactly when they complain and they, they kind of like where they are and they’re brought into the story. And, you know, and again, it comes back to it’s their journey. We can’t, we can’t, you know, force anyone to change. We can’t, you know, it’s like, you can lead the horse to water, but you can’t make the horse drink, right? 

If that person isn’t really ready for really getting out of that loop, then we have to accept that, you know, and we’ve just got to allow everyone their own journey because we’re, we are on our own and that’s a very soul part of us, you know, that takes the ego out of it. Like truly accepting everyone’s path is different. And it’s really beautiful how you say about mirroring to that you know, our relationships, be that romantic or even friendships or, you know, people we met out in the world, like they are this incredible reflection for us of, you know, not only the things about ourselves that are qualities that, you know, we hold that are great qualities because we can see it in someone else and we admire it, but, you know, it’s that reverse two of it can bring up in a reflection of our unhealed parts and where our work is.

Something else that you said, what was I going to say? Let me try and remember. I was going to say that, you know, you mentioned, you mentioned something. I can’t remember what you mentioned, but it made me think about how we can work with, you know, what we can do when we’re, you know, in these situations. And I mentioned before, uh, beginning to really cultivate an awareness of our ego.

You know, that’s an ongoing job and it can be a hard job because it’s, it’s quite tricky. Sometimes the ego and how I just, I always view it as like it’s at the front door and it’s at the back door and it’s at all the windows as well. Right. So it’s like, it’ll tell you to go this way and then give you a hard time for doing it. And like, it’s just, it comes at you from every angle and every choice that you make. So really getting a great handle on when that part of you is active in your mind. Right.

This is why meditation can be such a beautiful practice is when we can learn to come back into our bodies to that quieter place, right? The soul speaks, you know, through different ways compared to the incessant mind and thoughts, right? That gives us a greater access to those parts of ourselves. But when we find ourselves spiritually bypassing, you know, avoiding feeling things, thinking we shouldn’t feel that way, you know, it’s really just about beginning to take that self responsibility and get into a right relationship with ourselves. Like, you know, what do I need to heal within me? What are, what am I trying to avoid here? You know, often we don’t want to feel the feelings because, you know, there’s actually something else we really need to feel and go through. 

But, you know, I think I’ve mentioned it once before, maybe we’re talking about the ego, like really anything we’re avoiding is, it’s an invitation, emotional, emotions or invitations. And when we allow ourselves to go in to fully feel what we’re feeling, one, it’s just energy we need to move through our bodies. Two, it’s okay to feel those things, like allow yourself this human experience. And three, where did that come from? Why do I feel this in this moment? Like what part of me is really feeling this right now? Yes, there might be this story going on in my head about why I’m feeling it.

But you’re feeling it and it’s been triggered because of some deeper thing in you that’s really hurting. How can I get to that part of me to understand it, nurture it, love it so that we can be with these feelings and not have to have the stories about it or have to skip over it. What do I need to know? And then, you know, that’s sort of where the inner child healing work can come in and breath work and things like that. That shifts this, this energy, energy we have stuck in our system. That then just sort of is the healing, the healing so that means we don’t have to avoid our feelings. We can allow them to come and go and they do come and go with more ease and we don’t get stuck in things. What else would you say are like ways we can work with ourselves or things that you’ve done that help you, you know, move past, you know, and grow through this stage of getting trapped in the ego, bypassing all of that.

 

Amanda (42:38)

Well, I don’t know if this is going to answer your question exactly, but as you were talking, I was and I think we alluded to it already is recognizing that and we’ve talked about it in different contexts already. It’s really like the the awakening is just the beginning, right? And then and then we’re really can be in our, excuse me, spiritual ego because we, if we’ve been existing in our minds almost exclusively, we haven’t been within our body, we are likely going to be dealing with our spiritual ego. 

And then it’s like the work, as you’re speaking of, is doing practices like breath work, like inner child healing, and just recognizing, like it’s almost like recognizing this as a natural arc of the journey to then start to cultivate these experiences. And so I think anything like the breath, I think is key, like to develop and cultivate a relationship with the breath. And it can come in many forms to, I mean, that relationship with the breath, if you don’t already have it, it’s one that it’s gonna come up in so many different other healing modalities, right? It’s gonna get you through really hard times like learning to breathe and connecting with your nervous system, learning to recognize like what your nervous system is doing. And that can come through different practices like breath work and also inner child healing work, TRE, which I mentioned last week, the tremoring that I did. I just did a Temescal on Saturday and that experience was, it’s like a death, rebirth experience that you really have to meet your edge. 

And I think a lot of these practices are doing is getting you into a place of discomfort to then almost recognize your own power that you have to get through them, having the tools that you can breathe. And so it can bring up, can remove from your tissues store traumas of wounds that we’ve had from childhood that are basically have created patterns within us, right? They unconsciously have been running the show. What we took on as a child or could be ancestrally, right? It can be from previous lifetimes or from our ancestral patterns as well. But things that we have deep within us that we’re not consciously aware of, these things bring them up and we are able to clear them, right? And so, I think going to those places, whether it’s plant medicines as well, like the story I mentioned, doing these things gets us also to confront, I would say, that voice that you’re speaking of, that ego that’s like telling us what we can or can’t do, what we should or we shouldn’t do.

Like it allows us to confront it in a way that we might avoid in our everyday habituation that we are living, right? That’s what’s comfortable. It takes us out of that default and allows us to see it in different ways. So I would say, you know, what are you drawn to? What feels right? And just like, you know, choosing, for me, the experience has been, it’s like when I,  a modality that I’ve pursued or an experience that I’ve had. It’s like, it’ll a lot of times come to mind and then I will find like that something will just pop up or I will see something and like it triggers that there’s some strong feeling that I should try that. Sound healing is another powerful thing that we can bring up a lot of stuff for us. 

So I think, and just like taking that next step, right? For example, I found myself with this Temescal on Saturday. I hadn’t done anything like that in a little bit of time. And I’ve been in puppy world, right? Where I haven’t like been giving to me. And I just, I just saw a, an ad for this Temescal some people that I know’s, um, property and like, you know what? I need to make this happen, just felt this push and it was like this really potent magical experience of what I needed right in this moment in time. So it’s like we can be led to like the next thing that’s going to help us on our journey. If we are receptive and we are open to it, I don’t know if I went off on a tangent and actually answered your question there, but there’s so many modalities in like cacao, working with cacao, that is a heart opener. Anything that’s getting us into our bodies and allowing us to connect with our breath. 

And there’s so many modalities. Ecstatic dance is another one that I would love to do more of, but I haven’t done a lot of. But that’s a really primal one that can get us to move in ways where we inhibit it from, maybe we’re self -conscious, being seen by others. And like, I know that I would like to do more of that. I haven’t done a lot of that, but I know that’s been a very healing modality for people to be more in their bodies, which I think this wholeness, this integration, like I think that the spiritual ego, the ego in general, it like comes into more healthy balance when we are in a more balanced place within our nervous system, within our mind, in our heart, within our masculine and feminine, like anything that’s like really supporting these aspects of us, I think are going to help bring our ego in check. And it’s not that the ego is ever going to go away. We’re still going to have these moments of like, maybe feeling like, oh, like I’m the shit. And that’s okay. It’s such a paradox too, because it’s like, we’re learning self -love through this whole journey too. But it’s also, I think, learning that we can love ourselves and not at the expense of putting another down, right? And so there’s this tricky balance, right? And it’s a true love if we’re needing to prop ourselves up over another.

 

Amanda (49:52)

Right? Like there’s that imbalance, like it also, self-love allows us to love others more. Right? So it’s this whole dance with, you know, it’s really the heart, right? It’s really connecting with our heart. And like, that’s what it comes down to, like all of this.

 

Kate (50:03)

Yeah. That’s a really beautiful, it’s a really beautiful share. And I think you’ve really, I don’t know. I just loved that, that answer. So thank you for going where you went with it. You’re welcome. There’s a couple of things that come up for me when you say that in one of our other episodes, we talked about, Paul Selig’s work, the channel and you know, I see in you that you are a soul and a human, I am a soul and a human. So if I’m holding that just true for me, it’s true for you. So it’s like, that is some of that we’re trying to get to, I guess is, you know, a real acceptance and actually a belief in that and a felt sense of that. And that is, you know, kind of the journey that we’re going on as we, we awaken is, you know, we have to work through the ego. That’s the, that’s the first part, right? It’s, the reason we were asleep before the reason that we, you know, we’re in, you know, under any illusion before it was because we were fully kind of in the world of ego and mind. And so we have this awakening experience, we see something else, we feel something else. And then our journey is unpacking that, you know, and as you said, the ego, we will always have one, but it just becomes something that is, I want to say a smaller part of who we are, it’s not necessarily smaller. It just is, it’s, it’s, it integrates with us as a soul. So you know, our soul expresses through our ego, you know, we be us, and the ego is the vehicle that helps us be ourselves.

So there’s that piece. And then I wrote something down and I can’t find it. The body. Yes, you know, because again, ego is the mind and our world is very much a mental place. You know, we, we watch a phone, we watch TV, if we were, we listened to podcasts. So we thinking we’re creating so much activity here in the mind, you know, we are never taught to be in the body. So, you know, big thing for me was yoga. Um, and again, breath is a part of that because you’re moving with your breath and just taking those breaths in and like, you never,

never regret a yoga class, even if you don’t feel flexible, you know, it’s not about flexibility. It’s like you, you open up these parts of yourself and you’re moving energy, you know, it’s also a much more sort of, you know, slower in depending on what class you take, but you know, a beautiful way also to come into your body because you’re, you know, it is a good yoga teacher will walk you through, you know, the way that they’re guiding the class is bringing you back into the body to pay attention to your movements, you know, so it can be such a grounding force. And so many people talk about them being in Shavasana that that final pose, but they lay down in silence and then they have these like epiphany moments and they have these realizations because they’ve finally got into their body. They’ve had all these deep breaths and moved their physical body to move energy and they lay down to just rest. And then like, you know, it can be an awakening in and of itself because we finally came into the body to feel things. And how many times I’ve cried in Shavasana.

 

Kate (53:19)

You know, I can’t tell you how many times because that’s, it’s a, it’s a vehicle of like moving ourselves into the body to feel and release, you know, you don’t even have to know what you’re crying about, but you’re releasing and you’re purging. So I think the body’s a really powerful place for us to exactly connect with more and more because for, I think a large percentage of the population for a lot of our life, unless we really care about our health, we’re not exercising. We’re not, you know, we’re not eating well, or, you know, it’s not a primary focus. We don’t even really think too much about how precious the physical body is for this experience and that it is what’s holding us here to even have an awakening and have a life and have all the learning but that it holds, you know, when we’re more connected to that that’s when we’re more connected to that soul part of us and can feel through the body, the impulse, the intuition and what is driving us forward. 

So, you know, beautiful to remember that again, and then I want to say one last thing is that, you know, for you, as I’ve heard you say through your awakening journey, you’ve had this amazing opportunity to have access to all of these modalities like plant medicine, sound healings, breath work. I didn’t have any of that. I left my little Japanese village and came back to my little Japanese village where I don’t speak enough Japanese to go to any kind of like, you know, held class and plus it’s probably in Tokyo or some other beautiful rural area where there’s spiritual people don’t know, can’t find them, can’t type Japanese in Google search. So I had to do it all myself. You know what I mean? So if you, and I like, you know, I can’t wait to do half those things that you mentioned, like, cause I know that when I do, I want to meet myself in those ways. For me, I really had to do that self -inquiry. I had to work with myself. I had to, I had to just like, go out in nature, sit, sit with my thoughts, journal a ton, just to kind of move things, create that awareness.

And so, you know, use what you have as well. And like nature, we’ve said this before is an incredible teacher and healer that, you know, I think when I, we talked about humility before and, you know, moving even from like arrogance to leadership, but to humility, like go out in nature, just go and sit in nature and like, bring the problem, the challenge, the thing that you’re sitting on and to nature, look at nature and I tell you, you will find an answer to your question. You’re like something to help you hold your experience differently that you can like then put as a little seed in your heart and be like, I’m going to plant that right there. Do you know what I mean? Like it doesn’t matter what season it is. Every season of the year, whatever problem you have, whatever challenge you’re going through. Nature will have wisdom for you. Like just go out there and look at it and tell them, tell the trees and the grass, the animals and whatever the ocean, the mountains, your challenge and what asked for, what advice they have for you. And just sit there and just observe and like, you know, wait to receive cause you will. Perspective shifts.

 

Amanda (56:18)

Yeah, yeah, I shared all the spiritual like mumbo jumbo stuff, but I mean, it’s it’s a good stuff. But but really, like, that’s getting down to basics. It’s really like, it’s really the breath. It’s nature. It’s like, and also not just going out in nature. And like, I found that when I stopped listening to podcasts when I was out on a walk, and just observing and being present with what’s in front of me, that is very powerful. So things that can allow us to get out of our heads, right? 

And so like really, really being present and allowing ourselves maybe to go through the uncomfortable moments of boredness, like not having our phones, like disconnecting from our phones, because it’s those moments when we are,  I’m not everyone listening, but many of us who are using smartphones become habituated at looking at them. And it’s a lot of times out of boredom where we pick up our phones and, Oh, do I have a message? And it’s, and it’s in the moments we were away from our devices that insights and awareness and revelations come in. And so just sitting on the earth, disconnecting from our devices, maybe having a journal where we can write down what wants to come through. And also the physical act of touching earth, right? That’s a powerful modality in and of itself to discharge electrons and feel the energy, feel the energy of the earth that, that’s that’s powerful. So yeah, I, if you don’t have those things that I mentioned, like, like start with like something that’s something that’s free, right? That’s something that many of us, you know, can do every day. Most places have even if you live in a city, you have likely have a park that you can go sit on grass, which is actually very hard where I live to find grass.

 

Amanda (58:34)

Yeah, like that’s a powerful modality that I think can be downplayed, but the power that comes from cultivating that relationship can humble us, right? And what I wanted to say about humility is what popped in was, I don’t even know if, I think humility and humor, the words are connected in some way. And I think learning to laugh at myself when I recognize my ego coming in, like has been really helpful for me to just like laugh at myself. 

And I think when we take our, we can take ourselves really seriously when we’re in our heads and we can take ourselves too seriously when we’re in the spiritual ego, when we’re like, oh, like this path is important, and it’s not important at the same time, right? And so it’s like placing so much importance and so much seriousness on it, like learning to truly laugh at the good, the bad of our lives, quote unquote, the easy and the hard, like learning to be able to laugh through it all. I think that’s like, I don’t know, it’s kind of Buddha -like in a way, right? It’s like being able to like keep that smile on your face as you’re navigating what’s really hard. 

Something I realized, I’ll just say, when I was in the peyote ceremony last year, it was so hard to eat this cactus and it felt like I wanted to vomit. And it was so hard, I just had to laugh at the experience that I was in to like get through it and like I felt bad afterwards because I’m like, oh, I hope they don’t think I was laughing. Like I’m being disrespectful, but it was really my way of like getting through this like challenging experience of like consuming this cactus that was made me want to vomit. And it was no disrespect to the plant or the people holding this ceremony. And I didn’t recognize that in the time, but then I recognized afterwards that, oh, I have to like laugh through the hard moments to like get through it, right? And I don’t know, that’s just my way, I think.

 

Kate (1:01:01)

I love that. I think that’s a beautiful way to close too. It’s like through all of it this is, there’s no set of rules here. There’s nothing that you should be doing. You’re going to go through a absolute journey, you know, and sometimes it feels good. Sometimes it feels hard. Sometimes you’re in your ego. Sometimes you’re in your soul. You know, it’s all a practice of learning to observe more, become more aware and humor, bringing the lightness to it is such the like, you know, the icebreaker or the like, you know, to bring you back to a, you know, lightness exactly like to the soul self. Cause the ego is the serious part. 

So yeah, what a beautiful, another invitation, you know, bring the humor to it, laugh at yourself. Cause that is instantly going to, you know, one raise your vibration but let you hold things a little more lightly. This isn’t serious, right? Yeah, exactly. We don’t need to get it right. That’s the ego. You’re not doing it wrong. That’s the ego. You know, you just, just be with it. And curious. I’m like, Oh wow. What a freaking crazy thing this awakening is. 

Cause I think someone said to me, you know, um, I can’t remember the phrase, but basically like, you know, you’re awake now and like, it doesn’t actually make your life better. It’s like, now you’re going to look at all the things, you know, it’s a job becomes this, like you can never unsee it. And the more you see, the more you see, the more you see. And it’s just like, you know, you, sometimes you think you won’t, you wouldn’t want to wish this on yourself, but it is an amazing journey, but you have to learn to hold things in a completely new way because you can see them now. So just keep it light, laugh. You know, you’re not in any race to get anywhere. Just meet yourself day by day. You’re doing a good job. Get out in nature, come into your body. Learn to breathe. Yeah.

 

Amanda (1:02:46)

Yes, get out of nature. And I will just, yes, yes, breathe. I’ll just add that we didn’t even touch upon shadow, like shadow work and shadow, like and right, that’s like with bypassing. And so that probably will be another episode, like where we talk about the shadow and cause you know, if we’re not willing to see the shadow that is bypassing, right? But it’s learning to see, like part of the journey is learning to see the shadow. And so maybe that will be an episode in the near future. We can discuss that a little bit more and like what that looks like to go into the shadow. Because right, it’s not all love and light. It’s also, it’s both. And learning to see that those aspects of it is part of this process. So, and nature, breath, laughter, it’s all part of it. So thank you for this great conversation and I don’t feel so bad about my own spiritual bypassing and my spiritual ego because like we said, all of us, it’s all part of the journey. And like, I don’t think, I think if someone tells you that they don’t have a spiritual ego, they’re actually in their spiritual ego. So don’t believe them.

 

Kate (1:03:50)

Exactly. Perfect example of someone in it. 

 

Thanks everyone for listening