Dear Negative Ego [victim consciousness]

I found out that one of my friends did something that was not in integrity. I do not want to judge him however his actions indirectly affects me. And this gave you the negative ego the opportunity to jump in to make me feel like a victim of his actions and the situation.

I refused to give in to you to feel like a victim. But you negative ego kept on trying to make me feel uncomfortable to the point of wanting to avoid this person and not wanting to have anything to do with this person.

I am not going to give in to this desire to 'hide', if I plan not to have anything to do with this person anymore, I will do it from a position of power from a position of establishing clear boundaries and not victimization. Negative ego, you can go away. I do not need your help in this. It is not my desire to work with you and I will have compassion for my friend for I perceive that he is blind to his actions and consequences.

Dear Negative Ego re: Interruptions

I was invited to a give a one hour talk on Positive Psychology sometime during the week to a well known property company. The participants were late in showing up and by the time I started the talk it was 15 mins past, even then not everyone has turned up yet.

So throughout the talk, we had people streaming in, interrupting the talk every few minutes or so. I had to remain focus so as not to lose my concentration as they had to walk across from my side of the room to the seats. It was your chance negative ego to jump in to try to bring in energies of agitation and frustration and being judgmental towards their tardiness. You wanted me to comment on their lateness, but I stopped you and said, let it slide. You wanted me to stop talking, keep silent and look at the late comers in the hope of embarrassing them. You wanted me to do these things to focus on their faults. You wanted someone to blame. And I do not even understand what is it that you want others to be blamed for. For I know that you negative ego is just unreasonable. This is how you are.

I refused to give you the energy to move further and insisted on remaining still in the eye of the hurricane you were attempting to expand. I delivered the talk and at the end of it had an interesting discussion with some of the participants.

I had a nice time and was glad I didn't follow your tune in focusing on being a fault finder. Be gone negative ego!

Dear Negative Ego re: more busy-ness

And so the busy-ness has not stopped, in fact things have increased in tempo in the last 10 days. Because of the untimely move of the office together with the pre-planned (more than 6 months ago) vacation which we are about to take tomorrow, it is now a tsunami of things to do! LOL! And boy, do I see you sneaking in with every opportunity to introduce thoughts and feelings of stress. I am putting out the fires now, but since today is the day where everything it coming together before I go, I know you will be there trying to steer me away from course.

In adjusting budgets for the move and renovation of the new office, I know you will try to sneak in thoughts of lack and say we don't have enough even when we do. So don't even try.

In managing contractors while I am away on vacation, I know you will try to sneak in to say they will do things wrongly if I am not here to supervise them. Well, I am going to have a last meeting with the contractor today and have an easy plan to work with them and I trust the contractor, so negative ego your attempts will be futile.

In managing people who want their sessions yesterday, I just have to explain the situation and hope they will understand. Negative ego, I know you will try to pull me off centre with this one. But I am staying rooted here, I am not going to go buy into your game. I always do my best ad even if situations are beyond my control, I am leaving it in the hands of God.

Negative ego, I know you've been trying to stop me from going on this vacation by saying that when I come back there's going to be more work, so is it worth going? You also say I should bring my laptop to try to sneak in some work because my email inbox is going to be overloaded by the time I get back. But I am not going to give in to you. If it is overloaded, so be it. I will just deal with one thing at a time and prioritise my time, things that are not urgent can always wait because I am going on my vacation whether you like it or not! :)

Dear Negative Ego re: [parenting]

We went for a Parents-Teacher Meeting and we were discussing some of the little projects the children were doing at school. And one of them was a cooking project. The teacher told me that the kids made fried rice with salmon and they had a good time. And she said in a laughing manner, "And I'm sorry, I know Sasha is a vegetarian but I gave her some salmon to try...." laughter.

You wanted me to jump in and make a fuss about it, but I simply breathe it out and said, "Did she like it?"

When we left the meeting, I was thinking and weighing the options of what is best for our daughter. The method of education is what we like in this day care as it has an emphasis on self expression, creativity, life skills and so on.

However, you negative ego wanted me to feel that our vegetarian lifestyle was unsupported by the school. I made it clear to you negative ego, that this is to be expected in a world of largely meat eaters where there is still a lack of education of health, sustainable living and the practice of compassion towards other living creatures. I am just going to continue to educate our daughter in the best way I know how and at the same time acknowledge that I cannot shelter her from the world forever. I will do my best and trust in my own abilities to raise my child with our spiritual/moral/ethical values in this world we live in.

Dear Negative ego re: [illusion]

As things are getting busy as I am leaving for Hong Kong tomorrow, you have been trying to jump in to start your own party. I am not going to give in to you. You introduced energy sapping thoughts such as, there is too much to do, there's not enough time, or it is too tiring. These are sliding off my golden bubble of protection. I want you to know that I already have my schedule in place, so don't try to sway me into your patterns. I am not going to let you pull me off centre.

I am happy to say that I am full of energy and I am on target with what I want to achieve today and even have time to spend with my family and to complete my chores.

Dear Negative ego re: [little irritants]

You've been trying pull me off centre the past few mornings. I am happy to say by today, your voice has almost diminished with regards to the situation with my dog. I am not going to give you power in this, so you might as well stay away.

My 13 year old beagle, Trix who is deaf and almost blind has picked up this habit of barking now every morning at 5am. Beagles with sharp noses can smell anything a mile away. So Trix knows when I am awake even though she is confined at the back kitchen for her own safety (but she can smell me!) and she is insistent that taking her for her walk should be the first thing I do now instead of waiting for 6 or 6.30am, which means my morning routine is also now thrown off. So she barks to get my attention and she knows that I will go to her because I don't want to wake the entire neighourhood up with her incessant baying. Her barking tends to echo through the whole condo estate!

Anyway, negative ego, your efforts to introduce irritation and anxiety towards the dog is not working. I spotted it on the first day they surfaced. But I chose not to energise them, but made the conscious effort instead to remain even and calm. Changing my morning routine is no big deal, it is working out fine with me and Trix. So negative ego, stay away!

Dear Negative Ego re: [parenting]

I saw how you tried to get to my daughter yesterday...she was cranky for the first part of the day. Blaming everything and everyone for everything. So I said to her teasingly while smiling, "Oh you're such a victim, poor little you. Why did you then give your power away?"

Then she said innocently, "No, the power didn't flow out of my hands" So I said, "Good, keep it."

Later she was given a one minute time out for bad behaviour. You, negative ego didn't like it one bit. I saw how you tried to put her in a state of confusion and conflict. And I insisted that she apologised to everyone. And she willingly obliged, "Ok mummy" and was happier afterwards.

It is always good to get you out of the way, negative ego! I know my daughter has not fully grasp the concept of personal power but she is slowly understanding that she has a choice in creating how she feels. So negative ego, I won't let you stay long in our household, be gone!

Dear Negative Ego re: {personal power}

I was speaking to someone I know quite well on the phone and the connection was not very good and I misheard her. In her agitation, she shouted at me in a contemptuous way as though I was being daft. You tried to make me retaliate, but I held on to the breath of God and breathe it in me. And re-established my golden bubble. I continued on the conversation as if nothing has happened.

This has taught me once again to be extra vigilant when interacting with this person, because it teaches me how not to behave. And most certainly the contempt and agitation displayed is not about me, but her.

Thanks, but no thanks negative ego, I certainly do not need your help in this. Be gone!

{I've been having problems with blogger the last few days and just couldn't post anything on this blog and this is why there has been an absence. :-) }