Imagine you have an internal guide – what we might call your True Self – always there to help you feel good about yourself, make wise decisions and steer you into a more loving relationship with yourself. It’s your inner compass, helping you stay grounded and positive. If you missed it, we explored this divine part of ourselves in Episode 4: Meet your True Self. A journey to authenticity.

There’s also our Ego; a different kind of guide. It’s there to reveal the outdated beliefs and self-doubt that’s holding us back. But because of the running commentary it gives us – based on all the programming we took on a child – it can make us question our worth and abilities, leading to a fractured relationship with ourself.

The question then, is… How do you distinguish between the uplifting voice of your True Self, and the critical chatter of the Ego? And more importantly… How can you bounce back faster when you’re feeling down?

On today’s episode of I Love Me The Podcast, we explore how to boost your bounce-back rate so you can enjoy a calmer, more on purpose, way of moving through life.

 

Let me begin today’s episode by sharing this…

There is no such thing as a grey sky.

The sky is always blue.

Sometimes, however, grey clouds come and cover the blue sky.

And this can make us ‘think’ the sky is grey.

Well…

It’s the same with our minds.

The blue sky can be likened to our True Self; the part of us that is free from the conditioning of our mind.

The part of us that sees our brilliance.

The part of us that was always designed to be our wise guide.

That is our blue sky.

And just as the blue sky is always there, so too is our True Self, always there.

It’s just that sometimes grey clouds – we can liken the grey clouds to our Ego…

Sometimes those clouds come in from time-to-time, and block out the blue sky.

The blue sky is still there.

It’s just that we can’t see it.

And for some people it may feel like they’re constantly living under a cover of grey clouds.

Their Ego ALWAYS the one in charge, of their thoughts, their emotions and their decisions.

What we need to understand, is that we are NOT the grey clouds.

We are so much more than that.

And we get to choose whether our sky is blue, or covered in grey.

We get to choose whether we’re being guided through life by our True Self or our Ego.

That is a choice.

And in last week’s episode – Don’t let your Ego get behind the wheel – I shared how I ‘love away’ the grey clouds of my Ego.

So if you haven’t listened to that episode yet, I recommend listening to that one now, then coming back to this one.

Because in this episode, we’re going to build upon what we learnt there.

As a quick summary…

We learnt that the purpose of our Ego is to keep us physically safe AND to let us know – via negative thinking patterns – what things we believe about ourself.

In this way, our Ego serves a very important role, in helping to show us the limiting beliefs and ideas we hold about ourself.

Once we know what’s blocking us, then we can clear the beliefs that no longer serve us, so we can move forward in a way that feels more aligned to our truth.

What I highlighted last week, was that we NEVER want to let the EGO steer us through life, as our Ego isn’t equipped with the skills to do that.

That job is saved purely for our True Self.

Yes, we want our True Self guiding us through life.

And our Ego is there to keep us our of harm’s way AND to let us know if there are some mental blocks that need our loving attention.

When both our Ego and our True Self are doing what they’re made for, then our life is sweet.

Problems only arise when our Ego sneaks behind the wheel.

And I say ‘sneaks’…

Because, if you’ve spent much of your life with your Ego at the wheel – which is most of us – then it can almost feel comfortable to have our Ego guiding us through life.

So this is where we want to start to practise noticing how we feel, in any given moment.

For how we feel, is a really good indicator of whether it’s our True Self that’s guiding us, or whether our Ego is in charge.

Put simply:

If you feel good, calm, happy, relaxed, unattached to any outcome, at ease…

These are pretty good signs you’re nice and connected to your True Self.

On the flip-side, we know our Ego is in the diver’s seat, when we don’t feel good in some way.

If we feel bad about ourself for any reason, if we feel inferior, not good enough…

If we feel superior that’s a sign of our Ego being in charge, because feelings of superiority are all tied up in judging or comparing ourselves with others…

And both judgment of self or others, and going into comparison mode, are all sure signs of being in Ego.

If we feel stuck, or bogged down in some emotion, if we feel fear or anxiety, if we feel depressed…

If we stress about ‘time’, or go into overwhelm..

These feelings are all letting us know that our Ego is currently in the driver’s seat of our life.

Each of us will have different tactics our Ego uses to bring us unstuck.

And that’s ok.

Because it happens.

And chances are if will happen quite regularly.

For some people, they’ll spend most of their time with their Ego driving them through life.

What matters, is not how many times we let our Ego sneak in, but how quickly we can hand the steering wheel back over to our True Self.

How quickly we can bounce back.

And one of the ways to help us with this, is identifying what common tactics our Ego uses.

For me, my Ego loves to stress me out about ‘time’.

But because I have that awareness, as soon as I start to stress about time, I can fill myself up with love – like I teach in Episode 3 – and know all is well.

Think of a plane.

Often it’s flying on autopilot.

As it does, it will drift to the left or the right.

And so the autopilot brings it back the other way to help it come back onto to its path.

This can happen hundreds of times a minute!

In other words, the plane is only ever on its exact flight path for small moments in time.

But there is a built-in system designed to get it back on track.

We need to be like the plane.

We notice when we’ve drifted off our path, and we correct it, by bringing ourselves back into alignment.

By getting our True Self back in the driver’s seat.

I’ll say that again…

We notice when we’ve lost our loving centre; we’ll know cause we won’t feel so good emotionally…

Then you use a tool like the Love Wrap, which I teach in Episode 3, to welcome you back home into the loving arms of your True Self.

This is the tool I use, and the tool I teach all my clients to use, to help them reconnect with the loving voice of their True Self.

Every time we notice that we are in an Ego state, we do the Love Wrap, restore our connection to our True Self, and continue on.

Then the next time we notice we lose our centre, we do the Love Wrap again.

And it doesn’t matter how many times we drift from our centred space, what matters is how good we get at bringing ourselves back to our loving space.

How quickly we can notice we’re off course and bounce back.

Which takes practise.

But know that, just like a plane always gets to its destination by correcting itself multiple times a minute, so too, can we get to our desired destination, if we’re willing to commit to noticing when we’ve left our love zone, and steer ourselves back onto our path.

We all experience ‘stuff’.

Emotions can knock us off kilter.

People can trigger us into fearful states.

Bad news or accidents or unfortunate, unloving situations can take us off path.

Our job is to simply steer ourselves back on path.

Know that we’re not aiming to stay in a loving space 100% of the time.

That is never the aim.

For life is always blowing us in different directions, causing us to experience a myriad of different feelings…

Unless you’re a monk meditating in a cave all day, you’ll be thrown off balance.

That is to be expected.

And that monk would most likely be thrown off kilter too, if his ex-wife showed up at his cave unannounced!

Our job in life is to learn how to come back to ourselves, and to practise getting quicker at noticing and then redirecting.

That’s all.

When we know this, we can stop giving ourselves a hard time for coming unstuck, and simply embrace it.

Embrace our humanness in all it’s beautiful glory.

Knowing that losing our loving centre, and choosing to re-centre, is all part of the human experience.

To begin with, it may be tricky to self-correct…

For the more limiting beliefs and suppressed emotions we harbour, the more ammo our Ego has.

If we’re holding onto a whole lot of unresolved stuff, then our Ego will trigger more in situations that do not endanger our lives in any way.

But simply endanger how we feel about ourself.

Here’s the thing though…

If we love ourself….

If we’re confident in ourself, and trust ourself, and know our intrinsic worth…

If we have a healthy belief system…

When our Ego tries to take us out, it doesn’t have much to throws at us, because we have a solid, robust sense of self.

We’ll find it far easier to live from a loving place… most of the time…

And I say most of the time, because our Ego will always try and find ways in, but when you get used to identifying it for what it is, it’s much easier to simply love it away, so you can return to your awesome life, where you’re free to fly.

So when you’re starting out on this journey of noticing when your Ego’s running the show…

It’s important to show yourself love and compassion, and know that in being willing to objectively look at what you’re Ego’s showing you, and practise coming back to a centred space – using the Love Wrap, or another technique you might have – you will get better and quicker at it.

Like anything we learn in life…

Learning to get ourself back to a loving space simply takes practice, and the willingness to commit to that practice, especially on those days that feel more difficult.

But if you do practise this, and then continue to practise it some more, you will notice how you start to see more of the blue skies, more regularly.

More of the blue skies that were always there.

Ok, so we know that we will ping pong between Ego and True Self – fear and love – many times a day.

That’s a given.

What changes when you start to practise loving yourself back into balance, is that your bounce back time is quicker.

Your ability to notice you’re in a fear-state, and get back into a loving state, becomes not only quicker, but easier.

Just like a person who needs to go into hospital for a surgery.

If they’re fit and healthy before the operation, then they generally recover faster, than someone who was unfit and unhealthy.

They were practising physical wellbeing, and so they physically bounce back quicker.

When we practise self-love, we get much better at firstly, noticing when we’ve lost our loving centre.

And secondly, being able to come back to it.

Let’s look at an example…

Maybe losing your job or going through a divorce in the past would have sent you so onto a negative path you would have had a hard time relocating your positive path.

To the point that maybe you wallow in your depression for six months or more, before someone pulls you out of your woeful state and gets you back on board to some sort of mediocre living.

If, before this had happened, you’d been consistently practising self-love, building your love muscles and your ability to bounce back..

If you’d put in that time and practise…

Now you lose your job, and while it may come as a shock, you instantly think:

‘Well, I wasn’t really happy there anyway. This is my opportunity to get out and find something better.’

And so that’s what you do, use this opportunity to propel you forward.

I remember the first time a romantic relationship ended for me, and I was gutted.

It literally took me years to get over him.

But as I grew my self-love, entering into and leaving relationships became more easeful.

Yes, I’d be upset if a relationship ended.

That’s a natural reaction.

But instead of spending months wallowing in it, I’d spend a couple of hours doing some intensive exercise to boost my endorphins and lift my spirits, I’d clean my house – which kind of became this ritual, to symbolise clearing out the old – and then I’d sit down and reflect, journal and tune in on what that relationship had taught me.

Once I’d gathered all the lessons that the guy had come into my life to help me learn…

I was done.

I could move on, without feeling bogged down in negativity.

In this way, when you practise self-love, you’re far more emotionally resilient, so your bounce back is quicker and easier.

Essentially what you’re doing when you practise self-love, and have self-love practices like yoga, meditation, tuning in like what I do and teach, dancing, whatever it is…

When you have these practices, you’re preparing yourself to deal with life, no matter what comes flying your way.

You start to build this resiliency that has you knowing you can overcome whatever arrives into your life.

You’re essentially preparing yourself to be ok, regardless of what catastrophes or upsets you encounter.

Because life does happen.

And sometimes it happens full out.

When my family moved to France in 2019, we had no idea that one year later a pandemic would shut down the world and we’d get locked out of our home country for the next two years.

That the pandemic would mean that my husband, who had been a performing musician for the past 8 years, would no longer be able to work.

That all the festivals would be cancelled so I would no longer be able to share my work.

That the French school system that my son would have to start when he was 2, would be traumatic for him, for various different reasons.

We didn’t know any of this.

But we bounced back.

Firstly, we moved to the UK, to get to an English speaking country and a place where my son could enjoy preschool, in an environment that not only felt safe for him, but where he thrived.

He actually ended up at a Forest School where he would build cubbies, climb trees and light fires to cook meals on.

It was an AMAZING experience.

My husband decided to re-skill as a software engineer and being a UK citizen managed to get an intensive training course worth $14,000 for free.

And then when the borders reopened, we came back to Australia, and started life here anew.

But if we’d got all depressed about the state of our lives, having to sign paperwork to leave our apartment in France for an hour day, and so on…

Then we would have drowned emotionally.

But we’d built a strong self-love container.

And that held us through all the big changes we needed to make, and helped us jump on the opportunities that made our life, not only bearable in the circumstances, but inspiring.

I loved Forest School.

My son got so much out of it, and not something we could have experienced if we’d stayed in France or come back to Australia.

Not in the same way, anyway.

I also learnt how to dress properly for the cold.

You get up, put your thermals on, and then get dressed for your day.

While this may sound obvious to those of you living in the colder parts of the world, this was completely foreign to my Australian upbringing!

And my husband was able to re-skill, and move into a new, more lucrative career.

What I’m saying, is that when we are resilient because we’ve cultivated a deep love for ourself, we can handle, almost anything.

And not only handle it, but seize the opportunities that those difficulties can open up to us.

For in every situation we have the opportunity to react or respond.

When we can get ourselves into a state where we can lovingly respond, then we make much better decisions for ourself.

And let the life turbulence that’s come our way, propel us into clearer skies.

Now you know the role of the Ego, I invite you to start to notice throughout your day, when your Ego is in the controller’s seat.

Then practise using the Love Wrap, to bring you back into the loving, heart-centred space of your True Self.

But please know, if this is new for you, it does take practise, but with practise you’ll start to really notice a difference in how quickly you can bounce back, and enjoy the gorgeous life you are here to live.

Thanks for listening, and if you’re loving what I’m sharing here on I Love Me The Podcast, I have just released a brand new program called Heartfelt Manifesting.

This program is 4 weeks long and packed full of powerful teachings and techniques, designed to help you learn how to create a life of your choosing.

If this sounds like your next step, simply go to my website gettingnaked.com.au or take a peek at the link in the shownotes.

And know if you do enrol in this heart-opening program, that a percentage of profits go to planting trees, so together we can re-robe Mother Earth.