LEAVE YOUR EGO AT THE DOOR
Can you remember a time in your life when you had to run to protect yourself? It may not have been physically running away from something, maybe more of a conversation or an argument, but none-the-less you felt the need to protect and defend yourself at the deepest level to avoid being hurt, harmed or injured. Maybe you have even been running away from money worries your entire life…
Since primal times it was our ego that kicked in whenever we entered a moment in our life where we were threatened and had to run. Ego calls in your fight or flight response as adrenaline floods your veins and you begin defending yourself from a life-threatening attack.
“Your fight or flight response, or stress response, is triggered by a release of hormones either prompting us to stay and fight or run away and flee.”
In the events of serious personal harm, injury or perceptive death the ego’s “fight or flight” response is there to protect you from all forms of harm. In a life-or-death type scenario this is an amazing advantage for humanity to have this defense mechanism build in, but what happens when you need to work on personal challenges where your stress level is high, you feel vulnerable and overwhelmed? There is a chance that your ego will appear to protect you, potentially activate your “fight or flight” response allowing you the opportunity to choose to stay and fight or run away and flee. When breaking through personal barriers and challenges the ego can be the biggest roadblock in your path preventing you from achieving great levels of personal success.
So how do we shift it?
First identify; Am I safe?
Are you safe? Are you in the company of loved ones and in a relaxed and rested mindset? If so, and you are having conversations which are difficult to muster you may recognise the feeling of your shoulders rising, you might start to feel defensive whilst holding back your thoughts and opinions, or you might just blow up and erupt out of anger and frustration.
Go back to the start. Are you safe? Are you rested and relaxed with a clear mindset? If you answered yes and still felt the fight or flight response kick in then congratulations – even if you erupted in rage, or overwhelm, or cried – you have just witnessed in real time, your ego, your fight or flight response and this awareness allows you to move onto the next step to understand your triggers.
Understanding your triggers:
Once you have the awareness of what fight or flight feels like for you and have experienced this in a calm, safe environment, you understand that the mind is an absolute master of your emotions and ruler of your ego. What the mind presents to you that triggers you simply provides evidence in your experience of the internal work you must do in order to grow from your current mindset to a higher level of thinking and consciousness.
When you have a clear understanding of your triggers you can start to develop tools necessary for your success in these areas. It might be a combination of mantras, breathing techniques, meditation, or even a nice cup of tea. Whatever works for you, work with it and develop a strength within your triggers so as they arise in your life in future, they do not trigger you to 100% every single time.
Working through your challenges:
Many people come to us feeling unsafe, scared, vulnerable, overwhelmed around their cashflow and unaware of their triggers which put them in the position they are today. It’s like a big melting pot of emotions that when faced with a mirror of their own set of personal circumstances some people blow up, some close down, and some work closely, consistently on their triggers, their environment and from their placement of vulnerability, but only when they feel safe and comfortable to do so.
Remember, your ego is within you to protect you but it can also be detrimental to your growth, and close your mindset to all future opportunities. It is extremely important that if you know that you are safe, that you are with loved ones, and have a mindset that is relaxed and open to help and you choose to reach out and ask for help that you remain open to receiving the help. Yes, you may feel frustrated along the way, but you must choose to remain open and honest about how you are feeling so that you can move forward and through your trigger barriers so that your ego does not dominate you in the moment or any future success.
We have discovered over the years that financial stress and money worries are never ever about money, or the lack-of, or the mis-management of money; financial stress is about how we react to our emotional triggers, how the ego dominates our mindset, and your current position reflects this.
When ego dominates your mindset, you may find yourself living a life within scarcity, in constant fight or flight (which is extremely overwhelming mind you), where you and/or your partner feel unsafe, overwhelmed and afraid.
Your challenge; should you choose to accept it; is to leave your ego at the door. Thank your ego for protecting you up until this point, allow yourself in a calm and careful manner to identify your triggers and allow yourself the with permission to move forward to all of your successes.
