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Ego Death

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I originally wrote this in 2006. It has been the most popular page on my old website and I get more email about ego death than anything else.This is the revised version from 2012. The Matrix Teachings describes three types of ego death. This article has helped so many people that I am leaving it on my website, in the original version.  

 

What is an Ego Death?

Ego death is simply the transition between one version of ourselves and another. Around each one of us is an individual energy field that I call the ego matrix. This ego matrix gives us our identity. Many of the belief systems that we use to define ourselves will change as we grow and spiritually expand. This is neither good nor bad, it is simply the way this reality is formed to allow us to have an individual experience on this beautiful planet.

 

It is impossible to exist in this reality and function without an ego. The ego is not bad. We are creating with every thought. These thoughts begin to build energetic matrixes and sometimes we have a conflict between what we are wanting and what we are living. We want a new job, but we are scared to lose our current income. We aren't happy in our marriage, but we don't know what to do about it. We think we want to travel, but we like the security of home. Sometimes we are creating a large vibrational chasm between our current life and our vision for our life. That eventually will hit the physical and cause an ego death. The more vibrational tension between these two versions of ourselves, the more dramatic the ego death will be.Today more than ever, people are experiencing ego deaths just because the planet is expanding so fast. There is a stage in between the old, as the new is coming in, before the new is firmly planted in the physical. 

 

During an ego death, the ego is literally integrating with the new version of reality that is waiting. If life did not transition this way, it would be too harsh. So we have these wonderful down times of integration. Several times during my awakening, I experienced the complete dissolution of my ego matrix. I was in bliss, Nirvana and at complete peace. During this stage, I was not functioning in the world. I literally watched my ego matrix being rebuilt several years later so I could reenter the world as a functioning human being.

 

The ego death that many are going through today is just as real, just as valid as what I went through.It doesn't matter whether or not you have had full OBE's. The most painful stages of ego death are the ones happen when we are still trying to function in the world. During the most intense part of my awakening I was bed ridden with a triple fractured ankle. It was the only way that I could slow down enough to allow the awakening to happen. I had been praying for weeks that my personal resistance would give way and I just didn't know how to make it happen. I knew instantly that the "horse accident" that caused the fractured leg was an answer to my prayer.

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An Ego Death Often Accompanies these Events:

  • Birthing a Major Dream

  • An Accident

  • Health Crisis

  • End of a Relationship

  • Experiencing a Huge Betrayal

  • Sudden Loss of a Job

  • Sudden large increase in cash flow

  • Use of Drugs

  • Kundalini Explosions

  • Witnessing trauma such as war

  • Retiring

  • Something traumatic happening to someone we love

  • Powerful sexual experiences

 

Typical Signs and Symptoms of an Ego Death

  • Strong sense that something is wrong

  • Sense of panic that cannot be attached to a particular thought

  • Uncontrollable anxiety

  • Sense of urgency in combination with the sense of panic.

  • Feeling that something needs to be fixed right now - NOW!

  • Feeling Lost

  • Feeling a complete loss of control

  • Overwhelming urge to run

  • Lack of comfort - chicken noodle soup, a warm blanket and a cup of hot chocolate will do nothing

  • More panic at the realization that old comforts don't work

  • Constant, relentless stirring of the mind

  • Inability to identify the problem - sense that something is wrong

  • Constant mind searching that leads no where

  • Complete inability to identify the source of feelings

  • Feeling icky, tired, slow or lethargic

  • Feels like one day you woke up in a different world

  • Feels like everything is pointless

  • A sense of death often accompanied with thoughts of death

  • Changes in response to food

  • Loss of identity

  • Emotional rawness with a need to isolate

 

Ego death is a temporary, transitional stage. I am not talking about mental illness here. I am talking about a stage in spiritual growth. During an ego death, a portion of a person's identity is being eroded. It is like a rewiring of the brain. It is an electrical change. During this shift, a person will often have to find something wrong to attach to. It can be money or death. This change can feel so frightening that a person will attach to a death thought rather than have no thought to hang on to. It is not uncommon for people in an ego death to plan their funeral, imagine they have a terminal illness or even go to the emergency room to seek a diagnosis only to be told that there is nothing wrong with them. Ego death passes. It is an energetic adjustment - that is all. These are not mentally ill people who keep doing the same thing year after year. They are people who are in some form of expansion.

 

Watching ego death is similar to breaking horses. A horse that goes totally into flight can kill itself. It doesn't matter if there is real danger or not. A horse can get so spooked that it will kill itself in an attempt to get away from a danger that may or may not be real.That is exactly what ego death can look like - the mind goes so crazy that it runs out of control. Directly on the other side of this transition there is no fear. It's panic - a process - then some new level of understanding with more peace and more freedom

 

How do we manage during an Ego Death?

 

Honor what your body needs.During my awakening I took up to 4 baths a day and I lived in a one piece sweat suit. I frequented hot springs and spent alot of time just sitting in nature. My body became so sensitive that my diet was comprised of rice, eggs and vegetables.Processed foods would throw me into a vomiting migraine for about a day. Be Easy on Yourself. You are birthing a new version of yourself. Treat yourself like a mother in labor. 

 

Relief Prayers and intentions such as:  I surrender this awakening to my Higher Self. I release all resistance. I am open to allowing this to be an easy and flowing process.I may not know what lies ahead but I trust that there is a place for me in the Universe. Warning! These types of phrases can backfire if you are in Kundalini. In Kundalini there can be such a strong change in electrical current that any attempt to think at all will short circuit the brain and it can feel like your brain is being electrocuted. No thought at all is usually best, but if you absolutely can't stop thinking, pick a mantra.Pick one sentence that is comforting that can be repeated over and over again to breath. The Lord's Prayer is one of my favorites.Another one I use often is Sat Nam - Sat on the in breath - Nam on the out breath.It means truth is in the sound if it's name. Water and  Nature are the greatest comforts that I have found to sooth myself during a shift. I can watch the trees sway in the wind, listen to the sound of the wind in the needles of the pine trees, watch birds or the clouds for hours and it is quite comforting. I mentioned earlier taking baths and soaking in hot springs.

 

Know that it is temporary and it is normal not to believe. The two questions that everyone in an ego death asks are: 1) What do I do to make this get over with and 2) How do I know that I am really in an ego death? I cannot tell anyone how fast a shift will happen, but I can say that forcing it to happen faster is going to slow it down. Allowing the energy to move by doing nothing is going to accelerate the shift and make it less painful. Even people who can feel their own Kundalini moving don't believe they are in an awakening. It is pretty universal that most people think they are going crazy during an ego death. 

 

Have you ever known someone who was mentally ill and everyone knew they were mentally ill but them?  In other words mentally ill people don't usually know that they are mentally ill. This is the opposite. Everyone can explain to a person in a spiritual awakening that they are not crazy and they think they are.  Again - this website is about spiritual awakenings - not mental illness.  If you think that you need to be treated for mental illness, then by all means do.  Ego death is temporary.  It will pass.  Every single person that I have met in this kind of a transition doesn't believe that they are in this transition.  This was true for me also.  We think it is going to last forever and we have gone crazy. It is temporary and you are not crazy.

 

Set Your Sacred Space.There is a very fine line between assisting an awakening and "healing" someone in an awakening. A birthing mother might need assistance, but she doesn't need someone to heal her because she is giving birth. During an ego death, a person is integrating to a new version of themselves. They are literally birthing themselves. So I say - set your sacred space. Only people who can honor and respect what you are going through need be allowed in. I think our whole life should be lived this way, but during the time of a great shift we can feel really vulnerable and sacred space matters more than ever.

 

 

What Happens After An Ego Death?

 

After an ego death, we are functioning again but with a higher sense of awareness and freedom. On the other side of an ego death is more joy and more freedom. 

 

Qualities of a Dense, Rigid Ego Matrix (Before any real ego transformation) 

Is Protective

  • Cannot be in Reality but thinks it is

  • Views everything based on the past

  • Projects into the future constantly (can't stay in present time)

  • Chooses random thoughts and decides they are real

  • Tends to be greedy

  • Views the world from the perspective of self

  • Tends to take everything personally

  • Sees through a filter of fear

  • Has a hard time seeing the big picture

  • Can get stuck in fight or flight

  • Has a hard time staying neutralHas little or no patience

  • Has trouble having true compassion for others

  • Sees things in black and whiteSees us verses them

  • Has no real power on its own

  • Likes to argue

  • Finds security in groups

  • Has a need to understand things

  • Cannot see itself

  • Tends to repeat things over and over

 

Qualities of A Healthy Ego in an Awakened State

  • Loves itself and loves all beings as one with itself

  • Is really not capable of hating

  • Enjoys the physical world and all aspects of physical life

  • Takes each day as it comes but plans when necessary

  • Rolls with the punches or goes with the flow

  • Free to experience full range of emotions

  • Identifies with clear purpose

  • Lives pretty much free from guilt, shame and unworthiness

  • Has a sense of ease about life

  • Knows that there is perfection in all of the no perfection

  • Sees the blessing in every life experience

  • Can freely use the mind and body for pleasure and good deeds

  • Accepts others and their individual paths

  • Has no need to argue or be right

  • Has a true humbleness to its nature

  • Longs for nothing

  • Easily stays in the present moment

  • Has access to infinite intelligence and embraces the mystery

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