Five Ways Your Ego Tries to Keep You From Awakening

As we walk down the spiritual path, it is important to keep the personal goal of awakening to our divine nature foremost in our minds. 

One thing I have noticed, both in my own spiritual path and among many I am privileged to observe on theirs, are the many "ego traps" that can arise and slow this process down. 

Early in my own journey, it felt like both my soul and ego were aligned with the medicine path. My soul wanted to awaken, and my ego was frustrated/depressed/anxious and wanted to feel better. 

So for my first 10 ceremonies or so, the pace of healing was amazing. Although the ceremony work was challenging, I was feeling better than I had felt in years. After each ceremony I had more energy, space, and motivation to continue to pursue all of my (egoic) goals! 

And then at some point, enough of my soul had come back that three things became clear:

1. My soul had a different motivation than my ego, and my soul wanted to start to move the levers of my life.

2. Many of the structures that I had built up to support my egoic motivation (career, relationships, values) would not support my emerging soul motivation. 

3. My ego recognized that continuing down this path of awakening was the way to its own demise - and it did not want to give up control to my soul. 

This is when my ego went into FULL STOP mode, and began to do everything it could to throw me off of my spiritual path and remain in control. I started to fall into what I have come to call "ego traps". 

The reason that I call them a "trap" is because in every case these can also be legitimate communication from your authentic soul self. So sneaky!

It is important to be aware of this phenomena, so that when one has gone far enough down the path and starts to experience it, it can be successfully navigated and not stop the pace of spiritual evolution. Only through the process of real soul discernment, good judgement, and authentic intuition can one differentiate real soul communication from an ego trap. 

Here are 5 of the most common ego traps that I have either personally experienced or seen in others walking this path: 

1. "I am all done!"

Once the ego smartens up to the game, it can use spiritual language or ideas as a way to hide its intentions. You may get a message during ceremony that you should stop because you have done the work and are already awakened, or that you are already an awakened being so don't need to continue with this work. 

In all my ceremony work, having seen thousands of people, I've only felt this was a genuine soul message with one person. So most likely, this is the ego trying to get you to stop. Psych! 

2. "I need to take a break for integration"

There are definitely times when one legitimately needs to take a break and spend a longer period of time integrating the healing and insights from ceremony. But in the case of the ego trap, it is not actually about advancing one's awakening through contemplation and energetic healing, but the ego wanting to slow or stop the process. 

3. "I don't have the time, or money"

I remember speaking to a person who had been to a number of ceremonies and I could tell the soul wanted to continue its awakening, but the ego was really putting its foot down and "there was just no money or time available for ceremony work". They explained that in the next six months they had planned several international vacations, were training for a marathon, and were renovating their backyard. Way too busy! 

Now of course life is complex and we are all subject to real time and money constraints and ceremony work has its costs, financially and energetically. But we also all chose where we spend our time and money, and in the above example, the ego was running the calendar and checkbook!  

4. "I need to get clear and do my own healing before I continue."

This is similar to the phenomenon of cleaning your house before the cleaning service comes over. :-)  The ego is trying to reassert control by healing in a way that does not threaten it. As the ego needs to give control over to the soul for awakening to happen, the contradiction in this approach is clear. Nonetheless, it can be a powerful ego trap as it seems like a prudent course of action, when it is in fact just a delay tactic. 

5. "I need to find a better circle / this is not my medicine"

As the ego begins to lose control, it can start to find fault with any part of the process, including things like how the ceremony is conducted, the physical environment of the ceremony, the personality of the leader, the type of medicine, the quality of medicine, the food that is served, etc... 

And yes, in some instances this is absolutely the case, and all of the above can be valid reasons to look for another group or path. There are unsafe spaces, there are unscrupulous spiritual leaders, and we all must find the medicine and community that works for us. 

But in many cases this "spiritual shopping" is another ego trap. As Ram Dass said, "The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences". If you are letting the preferences of the ego lead your spiritual path, you will never settle deep enough into a practice or community to move down that path. 

So what is to be done?

What makes all of the above particularly difficult, and the reason the ego likes to use the, is because sometimes these are the same message your authentic soul gives you! So be careful! You will need to use all of your soul discernment, good judgement, and authentic intuition to decide what is good soul advice, and what is an ego trap. 

The first step is to recognize if you are starting to fall into one of these traps. As with many things on the healing path, naming or recognizing what is happening puts you well on the path of navigating or metabolizing the energy. 

The next step is to evaluate the message and ensure it comes from your soul self. Focus on building a clear channel of connection with your authentic soul self that you can spot these ego traps and understand what they are and why they are coming up. 

This awakening process is very challenging for the ego. By being aware of the ego's many traps and achieving a clear connection with your authentic soul self, you can successfully navigate this part of your journey and continue toward the goal of personal awakening.