Dear Negative Ego [frustration]

My recording software decided to do a runner.....I recorded an entire channeled session for a client, saved it but when I opened the file again, it was just silence. It was gone. Nothing was there anymore. I've been spending days trying to resolve this problem but to no avail. Now my schedule is being pushed back once again....

You negative ego, want me to feel frustrated, you say that it is normal to be frustrated with this. And that it is justifiable to vent frustration and irritation. But I say, no I'm not going to lose my cool over this. All I need to do is to explain the delay to my clients and I am sure they will understand.

You negative ego, also wanted to me to think that I will be judged for this. But negative ego, I know this is not something I am doing purposely to sabotage my own work, these technical problems do happen. We use computers as tools to assist us in our work, but computer are not our gods. So negative ego, you are being silly here. I am not listening to your advice! Be gone!

Dear Negative Ego [victim consciousness]

Well, this letter is long overdue but I just got to say this to you. You are silly to think that you can make me think I am a victim when I was on vacation. With my daughter falling ill and me lacking sleep as well as jet lag and having to take time to recover from exhaustion, you kept on trying to make me think that I am a victim in this whole situation. And that having spent time and money for a vacation that did not reward me with the rest I was looking forward to, you told me -- what's the point? For I am even more tired than before vacation, and you kept on wanting to me make me feel like a victim.

The truth is, yes, I am even more tired than before vacation but I am not a victim. I have chosen to see this as an opportunity to refine how I am using my time. In fact, because of this, I have come up with a more efficient and productive plan to have good and restful off days, and to take mini-vacations during my working week. I am so happy and excited about my new plan because not only am I getting the support from my family to do this, I will also become more productive!

So negative ego, you can try but you will never have the upper hand in this!

Dear Negative Ego

I received inspiration from something i read to make things easier for me to 'laugh you off stage' -- everytime you speak, I am going to adjust your tone and pitch to make you sound like a cartoon character, perhaps like Minnie Mouse or Donald Duck.

So I can literally hear you sounding hilariously funny and I am laughing you off the stage now! Byeeee....

Dear Negative Ego

I attended a 2-day seminar over the weekend and the participants were compiling a name list of all participants in order to network and keep in touch. A lady volunteered to type out the email addresses and she came up to a few of us and mentioned that she will be compiling the list. And we thanked her for her kindness.

The following day, I saw in the washroom and she reminded me to put my name down and that she was person who was going to type and compile the list. I overheard her saying the same thing to other people. An hour later, an announcement was made to participants to be reminded to write down our names by the facilitators. And the same lady stood up and said, And I will be the person who will be typing it.

You negative ego wanted me to laugh at her. You said that she was hungry for validation and that she is using this as a way to boost her self esteem and get attention, I said I know what I have observed but you wanted me to take one step towards your direction to judge her by attempting to introduce feelings of contempt towards her. But I simply smiled to myself and said to my friend next to me, "this lady has repeated many times that she will be typing the list". I made the statement matter of factly and as an observation without any negative feelings attached to deflect your attempts negative ego to move me into judgment and contempt.

Negative ego subtle as you may get at times, I will not let you get to me!

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: [judgments]

I went to a 3-day conference during the week and enjoyed myself tremendously. I enjoyed listening to all the high achiever speakers and learned a lot. I was feeling so inspired that I posted on my Twitter & Facebook about how I felt inspired by a particular speaker. Immediately after, someone posted a negative comment about this speaker. And then another person did the same. You, negative ego wanted me to feel bad and responsible for their actions. But I was glad to ask you to stay out of this, for I am not responsible for other people's negative actions.

But then, more negative ego comments were posted after that. Of course you found an opportunity to jump in again and you negative ego, wanted me to do several things: 1. feel insulted and taking what they said about the speaker as a personal attack against me, for you wanted me to feel like they have insulted my intelligence and my experience at the conference 2. and you negative ego also wanted me to judge these people for what they said.

Well, you know what negative ego, i was prepared that you would attempt all of the above. I told you immediately, thank you but not now, sorry! I placed you and your negative influences on my palm and violet flamed you as one would on a BBQ! I was glad :)

Negative ego, you can try but you won't get very far.

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: {Patience}

Last week I was tested on how much patience I had when dealing with the administration staff of a Children's Gymnastics school.

I was merely trying to book for a trial class for my daughter for Sat. And so the Monday before that I called the number given. The man who picked up said he would call me back in the afternoon when he had access to the computer. I was fine with that.

No phone call. Wednesday comes, I decided to call again. This time a lady picked up the phone and she tells me that she is not an admin staff and so cannot access the system but said she will leave a message for someone to call me back the next day.

Thursday comes. No phone call. So I called them in the afternoon and spoke to the same man who had no memory of us speaking on Monday and he said he would call me back when he had access to the system. Immediately I stopped him from hanging up by saying, "I will call you tomorrow if you give me a time". He hesitated and said "maybe it is better if I will call you", but I insisted and said, "no it is better I call you, give me a time". So he said to call him at 11am the next day and he was very polite about it.

[Reader, are you running out of patience yet reading this? lol!]

So Friday 11am comes. I call him. No answer. I try again in a few minutes, I got an engaged tone.

By this time, you negative ego was soooo ready to jump into the party! In that split second, you ran a judgmental thought through my mind, "What kind of a business are they running? This is Singapore, and not some third world country!" (no offense to people living in these countries, negative ego was really going for it!)

Immediately, I seized your negative ego thought as if I could literally grasp it by its neck and threw it out! And said to you, "Oh no, you don't. Not now! I've been practicing enough patience so far and I am not going to let you stop me from remaining even minded. Out you go!"

So I made that phone call again at 11.30am, the man answered, got the information I needed and got my daughter registered for Saturday.

[Sasha has since attended the trail class and loved it and will continue to do the class for the entire term. Thank you God for the lesson on patience!]

Bye negative ego.....

Dear Negative Ego [re: accident]

While waiting for the bus this morning, a lady stood next to me and she dropped her umbrella on my toes (I was wearing sandals). The metallic part of the umbrella hit directly on the most sensitive part of my 2nd last small toe. I went ouch! and lifted my leg up not being able to put it down due to the pain.

The lady as if oblivious to what has happened, slowly picked up the umbrella and without looking at me, muttered sorry as though it was my fault for being there! You, negative ego really wanted my inner child to react towards her oblivion, wanting to send her negative vibes. So I said to you, negative ego, come on! this is not what I want to do. And proceeded to tell my body that this is a good reminder to ground my energies through my foot.

I almost chuckled out loud at the comedy of it all. So negative ego, here's another one for laughing you off stage!

Dear Negative Ego re: [dream]

I had a strange dream yesterday where I was conducting a meditation class. Three unusual looking people came to class dressed in oversized black clothes. They were a father, son and daughter. They told me that the mother who was not there introduced them to love and light, which I thought was an odd statement. Just as I was starting the meditation, the sister started to talk on her phone which I chose to ignore. And then the brother started to talk to the person next to him about a guru he has. I told him to keep quiet as we were doing a meditation. Then he spoke even louder about his guru. I raised my voice and told him and his sister firmly that I will not have anyone disrupt the class and if they are not interested they must leave now.

I woke up from the dream, feeling a little dis-oriented, you negative ego tried to instill guilt in me, saying I was not being nice by saying what I said. I did not engage with you emotionally but I took a deep breath, spent some time grounding my energies and cleared my head and realised that it was indeed your voice niggling at me to feel guilt or bad for being firm to the people in the dream. Negative ego I will not have you sabotaging me and my best efforts, not even in my dream state. Be gone!