If the bus represents you as you navigate your way through life, which part of you is driving?

For most of us the ego takes over during that part of life where we are developing a career and/or raising a family. And we need a strong ego to travel along our spiritual path.

However, the ego is not equipped to hear inspiration, to connect deeply with spirit, or to enhance a knowing about the steps we need to take to heal our wounding. Perhaps, the ego and the Divine Inner Self need a partnership. The ego is well equipped to follow directions, (Turn right in half a mile) or to ignore the directions. The ego is good at judging, prioritizing, debugging, making lists and many, many daily tasks. The ideas, however, must come from a different place, from that place inside where new ideas formulate.

Have you ever watched an inventor or a scientist or a mathematician solve a problem?

I recently watched the movie “Hidden Figures” about the black women mathematicians at NASA solving problems. The main character would stand there and look at the problem for a while and then suddenly she knew what to do. Now I know Hollywood souped up and speeded up the whole process, but I remember being in college and working on a mathematics problem. (Yes, I was a math major) It would rattle around in me for hours and sometimes for days. I would do something else while that inner place would continue to work. Then later, out would pop the solution.

Looking back now I can see my ego getting up from the driver’s seat and allowing my inner being into the drivers seat for a while. That inner part of me wasn’t that good at driving, so the ego had to stay around in case the deep inner knowing place’s attention would wander off.

Later in life I learned to connect with my inner self so that new guidance could come in. Was it me; was it from the spirit world, does it even matter? No matter where the guidance is coming from, I trust it as a positive force after being shown the positive result of following that guidance over and over.

I didn’t always allow the ego to take new directions. I fought and argued and even flat out said NO. Yet, there continued to be a gentle, kind, loving urge. It has never let me down.

Not even once.

After I surrender to it, let go of fighting it, my ego gets a new set of directions, perhaps even a new destination and can take over the details of the driving. That’s what the ego is good at.

Who is driving your bus? Where are the different parts of you sitting? What do you see when you look out the window? Even what kind of bus are you driving?

The Pathwork process would ask you to look at a few additional questions: 

What’s behind any part of you that doesn’t want the ego to let go of control? I could be fear that showing your emotions would be a great risk, even great peril. Or perhaps you believe that there isn’t that deep spiritual place that can give you guidance, or maybe your ego is mad about having to give up control — does it like being top dog? 

The second question to ask yourself is — how long has this been going on in me? Is it relatively new? More likely you have been doing this behavior for years, perhaps since you were young. Can you trace it back to the beginning? Maybe you don’t even have a memory to go with the certainty that this age was where it began. You were probably very young, perhaps even preverbal. In that case it’s no surprise that you don’t have strong memories. But ask yourself what was going on in your life at this time.

The last question ponder is — are there any consequences to continuing to be in control? Are others drawn to you as you withhold your feelings? And is that ok with you? Or are you lonely and isolated without enough interaction with others. 

If you want to change, it requires you to do something different, to find out who could be safe for you to share how you are really feeling — and not just reporting about your feelings but sharing them. That is one avenue that you can make to allow spirit to give directions so that your life makes a positive change.

I’d love to work with you in making this change.