Ego and Your Monkey Mind
Your ego tells you that you are separate from others. It is determined to protect you, and your connection to others makes you vulnerable. Your higher self knows you need to be and feel connected to fulfill your purpose here, and so pushes you toward connections. There can be a constant struggle between the two. They both have purpose. Again, not right or wrong, balance. As incarnate, human physical, beings, we need to be both alone and connected. We all need differing degrees of each of those. When we feel out of balance, sick, tired, afraid, in pain, so we are suffering, that is the monkey mind. The Monkey Mind is the ego out of balance and sometimes out of control. It is trying to keep you safe and alone, as is the ego’s job, but the monkey mind goes way above and beyond a balanced sense of safety. Think about fear. You think, “Hey, that person seems nice. I’d like to find out more about them.” Your higher self says, “Yes, you would like them. Go talk to them.” Your ego says, “They might be nice. Maybe I’ll smile and see how it goes.” The monkey mind, says, “They look weird. They will think you are weird for talking to them. They probably aren’t nice. No one just goes up and talks to people. They will think you want to have sex with them, they are probably a serial killer etc. etc.” Whatever the monkey mind tells you it is all made up nonsense based on what it thinks will keep you safe from that person.
The ego has been collecting experiences over the course of your life. It stores them in your mind and uses them as it sees fit to protect you. Here is the hard part. Disconnected from your higher self, your ego’s interpretation of things gets skewed. It begins to think that events, traumas, people, relationships etc. are happening to you with the sole purpose of harming you. If enough happens that it thinks is hurtful it begins to think that everything is out to get you and compares all future possibilities against that thought and will very likely find that, “yes, that is going to hurt you, so fear it.” It’s very easy to do. Get stung by a bee. All bees are bad and run from them. See someone else get stung by a bee. All bees are bad and will hurt you. From the day you were born, your ego has been watching and experiencing things. When the ego’s interpretation of things begins to lose balance and goes down the all or nothing path, that is now an ego monkey mindset. The higher self does its best to balance that thinking, but in many adults, the monkey mind has taken over and the higher self’s voice is no longer being heard, let alone balanced with the ego. Again, the ego has a purpose, but when it becomes the monkey mind and takes over, shutting out your higher self, you will lose your balance, and your purpose.
Higher Self and the Monkey Mind
There is hope if your ego’s monkey mind has taken over, and you have lost your sense of balance. Your higher self is not gone, you have just stopped connecting to you, to your higher sense of you. The part of that knows who you are and why you are here. In order to regain your balance, you need only reconnect. I say that as if you can just flip a switch and make it happen, just turn off the monkey mind. As you know, and sorry to say, it is not that easy. It depends on how strong the monkey mind has gotten and how tenuous the connection to your HS has become. It can be done by every person though. It will take some longer than others, and the monkey mind might continually tell you that you can’t do it and to stop trying. They are wrong. In truth, the monkey mind is almost always lying to you. It will tell you anything to keep you protected, and protection is not your purpose, so it has to lie to you to do it. Not bad, mind you, the lies. They do protect you and protection can be useful. It is when you begin to believe the lies are real, not just what you want to believe to stay safe. That is when the controlling monkey mind will start to create suffering and keep you from your higher self and your higher purpose.