The Ego!!! Ugh!!! Ah, There it goes again.

The best definition that I have ever experienced for the Ego is "The dysfunctional relationship with the present moment." Eckhart Tolle penned that and how true is that? And really that is what this Blog is all about......not that the Ego is bad, it's not.......it's that we are either having a dysfunctional relationship with the present moment or we are not........and the good news is that when we realize that we might be having that dysfunctional relationship with the present moment, we can change our relationship. We can change our interpretation, our perspective, and yes, our belief about the present moment to what serves us better..........oh, and what might be more accurate.

Some time ago, I wrote about the fact that of all the billions of stimuli that we are exposed to in any given moment, in other words all of the information that our senses can pick up on, touch, smell, hear, taste, see and yes, sense (the proverbial sixth sense), we process one/one billionth. And how we determine which one/one billionth of the billions available to us that we actually process every moment. Well, its what supports what we already believe to be true.

So, what if what we already believe to be true is in fact not accurate?

Well, from a pragmatic standpoint, if you believe it to be true, then for you it is true, regardless of how things work out for you. On the other hand, if you open your mind to the possibility that what you believe is in fact not true, then infinite possibilities arise.......and who is it that has the determination of these infinite possibilities? YOU!!! I'm talking about the true YOU, not the personality you or the Ego you.......I'm talking about the ineffable, eternal you that is tapped in, tuned in and turned on with the Universe!!!

Befriend the Ego (the dysfunctional relationship with the present moment) and utilize it for what it was designed. If you let it, it will prod, poke, stimulate and as I like to think about it, slap you upside the head and say "hey Dumb Ass, I'm talking to you". The next time you are in any emotion or feeling that is not empowering or positive, ask yourself "How can I look at this situation differently? How can this situation actually Serve me? How can I interact with this situation in a functional way that is beneficial for all involved?"

What does that mean? Well, I was once told a story long ago about misperceptions. There was a husband and wife, pretty normal in every way, including the wife being very insecure (it could just as easily be the husband that was insecure) and not very connected with the Love of herself let alone her partner. How she felt in the relationship had everything to do with her perception of how well her husband met her expectations of what she needed in order to feel loved. As you can guess he did not meet her perceived expectations of what a husband in love with her would do. As time went by she began letting her Ego (dysfunctional relationship with Now) begin perceiving what supported her belief that she was not loved.

If he received a phone call at night, she would question him on who it was, why they were calling, etc. If he had to work late for whatever reason, she would wonder if he was meeting someone else which worked its way to her actually driving to his work to see if he was actually there. This escalated to her beginning to accuse him of unfounded behavior, which as you might imagine began causing him to change his behavior towards her, which fed into her delusions of him not loving her. That was her truth as unfounded as it was, it was her truth and she perceived from moment to moment all that supported that belief.

So to cut to the chase, one night the husband had an unexpected late meeting called at work. He called his wife and tried to explain and could not tell her what time he would be home as he was not sure due to the nature of the meeting. In frustration, she hung up on him. This caused the husband frustration as you might imagine, and sensing that his marriage was spiraling out of control, he told his boss that he had an emergency and could not stay for the meeting. His boss understood and said he would brief him the next day.

In the husband's desire to get home and try to resolve his wife's irrational behavior, he was driving faster than he should have for the conditions of the road, came around a corner, lost control of his car and hit an oncoming car from the opposite direction. Both drivers were in critical condition and rushed to the hospital. The husband was unconscious for several days, however upon coming out of a near coma, he was told by doctors that he had been in a car accident and that the other driver was in critical condition in the room next to his and was his wife.

In the Wife's, distrust of the husband's story about a meeting, she wanted to confirm that in fact he was lying and jumped in her car to justify her distrust of him by confirming that he was not at work as he told her he was. Now, the story as it was told to me was that both made full recoveries, and the incident was enough that they were able to work through their issues and rebuilt a stronger relationship than they had ever had before.

I can't verify that the story is actually true, however, it does make it easy to see how truth, our own (personal truth being what we believe as opposed to actual fact) is not always factual and can very easily not serve us.

So, the next time you find yourself in a dysfunctional relationship with the present moment, ask yourself, "How else might I look at this situation or person that serves me better?"