The twinge of ego

There’s a moment just before ego rears it’s head.

In a conversation, it’s in those seconds that you switch from listening to coming up with what you’ll say in response and then regret it later.

In sports, it’s just before you realize you’ve hit your limit and think, I’m going to go for it anyway and then hobble off the field with a torn Achilles tendon.

It’s when somebody asks how you are but you blur over your true emotions and portray yourself like all is swell despite being 2 breathes away from bursting into tears.

It even occurs when things go well, but when asked, you still embellish.  Or when things go poorly, you down play the actual seriousness of it.

Ego is not reality but it is where you think your reality should be.  The problem is that it only exists in your head somewhere between imagination and the past and/or the future.   But the point is, it’s not right now.

I get signs when I’m acting from my ego: I stop listening, I push too hard, I don’t give totally honest answers when asked how I am or things in my life are going.

And in that moment when I read the signs (if I read the signs) I can make a choice of what I do.  I can expand that moment and blow it up to a much bigger space, almost slow it down,  where I can choose to let ego take over or respond from a place of genuine honesty with myself and others.

It’s about seeing that space, that moment before ego strikes, how you react to it’s twinge and then deciding what you want to do.

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