600 days of sober

Hello Friends, today is 600 days of sober. I just got back from a three-week vacation in Palm Springs Ca. Palm springs is my hometown so I was surrounded by supportive family and friends. Seeing the ones I love with sober eyes and a clean mind is a great gift. Being in the moment around them and feeling noting but gratitude. The New Year will bring upon some amazing moments like my first novel being published, plus my job ending this month so I can start writing full time. All I have to do is stay sober and believe in the universe and god guiding my feet

After healing old wounds, I started working on finding my true self. What helped me in finding my true self was finding what I wasn’t.

I was born without any knowledge, or awareness of my own self. Right away I became aware of my false self. It has to be this way because my eyes open outward, so does the body senses. Ears listening to others, tongue tasting outside foods. First drinking breast milk from my mother. All these senses open outward, learning from what others “tell me” or “show me” about myself.

Birth means coming into this world. My mother is the first thing I came into contact with than I became aware of my own body. My body becomes part of the outside world. My body getting hungry for outside food. I become dependent on surviving from what is given to me from the outside.

Once I am done eating and fulfilled from the outside than I look down, becoming aware of toes. My mother pulls on my toes and calling them toes, so I am learning early on who I am and what I am from others.

A small ego is created , at that point I am looking to my parents on finding out who I am. A false awareness is reflected by how others think of me and feel of me. I am too fresh, too green and not aware of who I am. My bones are still forming and can be broken easily, just like my mind, heart and soul.

The ego is born, through love and care, if I felt good and valuable, if I had some significance. Most of my life I knew what others thought me but not really who I was. “Living a life as a reflection of what others think” . My early memories I felt unappreciated so my ego was born ill, sad, and worthless.

My parents built the foundation of my being and ego, others joined them in later years. My world grew as it did my ego became more developed.

If I grew up living in the jungle isolated, I may not have an ego but would grow up like an animal even than I would never know true self.

As a child I tried to make my parents proud and happy but they were addicts showing me rejection. I started seeking validation in others taking that into adulthood. Trying to please everyone in sight. As a child I acted out and tried hard to achieve attention that I lacked.

I was born with two cores completely unaware that one core is true self and the second core is created through life called ego. Others early on shaped my ego core. This core is false, because nobody can shape the real core or true self.

My Ego core is shaken when I do not receive what it needs, validation, respect, admiration, likes on Facebook. If I did great in school I was rewarded with a toy that toy became an extension of myself and when I lost that toy I cried and felt I lost part of myself.

The more the ego receives the more the ego wants. The bigger the ego core gets. Early on we are taught subconsciously that the outside is an extension of who we are but that is false. Trying to fit into society, feeling inadequate or ugly if I gained a few pounds. My ego was growing bigger and bolder by society.

Finding true self can be known only through false self. The ego is a passageway to my true self. The real can be known only through life illusions.

My core was a mirror of the world opinions of myself throughout life. The moment I started separating false self was day one sober, I didn’t know it at the time but I knew drinking was no longer part of me. I wanted to change and knew if I wanted to find a better life or a whole me I would have to put down the bottle.

First I have to know what are not my true self, my home, other opinions, and my past addiction. When I can see the false than I can see and understand my truth. My ego is always in search to become bigger, wanting to survive. Somebody should appreciate it.

My ego core is designed to control me, pull me away from my true self. I have to behave in a certain way, because only then society appreciates me. I have to walk a certain way; laugh not so loud, follow a certain code of manners, a morality. If society doesn’t appreciate me than my ego core will be shaken and when my ego core is shaken, I don’t know where I am going or who I am.

I have to get rid of all parts of the ego to attain my True core.

There comes a period when the ego core shatters. When I know nothing of who I am, or where to go. All the boundaries start to melt away. A feeling comes over of not caring what others think me. I start doing stuff that I naturally enjoy doing. I’m somewhat confused, feeling empty inside and chaos seems to be around. This will cause fear because my ego was the source I look to, to guide me in life. I had to pass through the chaos before I found my true-self core.

Once I became sober I was able to take the ego core apart little by little by understanding that is the cause of all my misery and false. Everything started to settle. I started to just exist; everything suddenly became beautiful but a different kind of beauty. This beauty is louder and easy to see, it’s in everything.

Whenever I was feeling suffering or great sadness or anger, I had to watch and analyze, somewhere in that misery I will find the ego. The ego goes on finding reasons to feel those things. This ego comes continuously in conflict with others because every ego is not confident about itself. Is has to be, it is a false thing.

For Example if I had my hand closed with nothing in it but I started believing there was something in it, a problem is born. I would fight with others who . made me aware that I am carrying nothing. Anyone calling me something that I don’t identify with is like hammering a nail in a wound. The ego is false.

A person who finds their core of true self is never in fights with others, others may come and fight but a person who is their true self will never fight back with anyone. You may hit, argue or try and fight with an enlightened man, but that is your problem, not his. And if you are hurt in that clash, that too is your own problem. He cannot hurt you.

The ego lives for attention, any attention even if somebody is fighting and angry with you, even if somebody loves you or not loving you. The Ego has attention. If nobody is paying any attention, nobody thinks that you are somebody important, significant, then the ego will come out.

Others attention is needed with an ego. There are a million ways I can attract attention from others. In the past I would dress a certain way trying to look beautiful, get skinny or behave in certain way. Become very polite, or depending on the situation changing so others immediately notice the change so others pay attention.

If I lost everything that surrounded me, if the whole world suddenly disappeared, or if the outside world is in chaos, it won’t make any difference because my true-self core is always still.

If my husband leaves me for somebody else. My ego core will be completely shattered because he is paying attention to some one that is not I. He is now caring and loving someone that is not I. He is no longer helping my ego core feel that I am somebody important. When I lost my ex of three years I felt as if my whole empire was lost. On top of Dealing with an addiction I started thinking about suicide. I can reflect back on why because I had no center of my own. Vince was my center; he was giving me a center.

This is how people exist. This is how people become dependent on others. It is a deep slavery. Ego has to be a slave. It depends on others. Only a person who has no ego is for the first time a master; he is no longer a slave.

I have to look for the ego not in others, that is none of my business, but in myself. Whenever I feel miserable, immediately I’ll close my eyes trying to find where the misery is coming. I will always find it’s the false ego core that has clashed with someone. I expected something and it didn’t happen or I expected something and the opposite happened. Whenever I am miserable, I have to find out why.

What causes misery isn’t outside us. It’s within us but we are program to always look outside. Asking ourselves

Who is making me miserable?
Who is the cause of my anger?
Who is the cause of my anguish?
And if we keep looking outside we will miss what it is that is causing misery.

Just close the eyes and look within. The source of all misery, anger, anguish, is hidden in you and I. The ego.

If I find the source, it will be easy to move beyond it. If I can’t see it’s my ego that gives me trouble, I will prefer to drop it because nobody can carry the source of misery if they understand it.

There is no need to delete the ego. I cannot delete it. If I try to delete it, I will attain to a certain clever ego again which says, “I have become humble.” I can’t try to be humble. That again is the ego hiding but it’s not dead. Nobody can try humility, and nobody can create humility through any effort of their own. When the ego is no more a humbleness just comes. It is not a creation. It’s more of a shadow of the real center.

A really humble man is neither humble nor egoistic. He is simply “simple.” He’s not even aware that he is humble. If you are aware that you are humble, the ego is there. Look at humble a person. There are millions who think that they are very humble. They bow down very low, but watch them they have the cleverest ego. Now humility is their source of food. They say, “I am humble,” and then they look at you and they wait for you to appreciate them.

“You are really humble,” they would like you to say. ” In fact, you are the most humble man in the world; nobody is as humble as you are.” Then see the smile that comes on their faces.

What is ego? Ego is a hierarchy that says, “No one is like me.” It can feed on humbleness – “Nobody is like me, I am the most humble man.”

This is how the ego goes. It is so cunning. We have to be very alert, only then we will be able to see it. Don’t try to be humble. Just try to see that all misery, all anguish comes through it.

No need to delete the ego. We cannot take it away or delete the ego. If we try to delete the ego than the person trying to delete the ego is the ego. It always comes back.

Stand outside the ego and watch it work, try to understand it. Nothing I do like becoming more humble, getting humility, or become simple nothing will help. Only one thing is possible, and that is just to watch and see that it is the source of all misery. Don’t say it. Don’t repeat it – WATCH. Because if I say it is the source of all misery and you repeat it, then it is useless. YOU have to come to that understanding. Whenever you are miserable, just close the eyes and don’t try to find some cause outside. Try to see from where this misery is coming.

If you continuously feel and understand that the ego is the cause of misery than the understanding becomes so deep-rooted, one day you will suddenly see that it has disappeared. Nobody deletes it – nobody can delete it. You simply see it has simply disappeared, because the very understanding that ego causes all misery becomes the deleting. The very understanding is the disappearance of the ego.

The whole path towards divine, has to pass through the ego core. The false has to be understood as false. The source of misery has to be understood as the source of misery – then it simply deletes.

When you know it is poison, it deletes. When you know it is fire, it deletes. When you know this is hell, it deletes. Then you simply laugh at the joke that you were the creator of all misery.

A child building a sand castle while he sits in the middle, laboring away as the walls go up. A moment will come when he is enclosed; all around he has made a wall. Then he cries, “Help, help!” He has done the whole thing! Now he is enclosed, imprisoned.

This is childish, but this is what I have done in my life. I made a painful house all around myself and cried, “Help, help!” The misery becomes stronger because there are helpers who are also in the same boat. It is difficult to see one’s own ego. It is very easy to see others ego but that is not the point, I cannot help others see their ego, each ego is different. I Just watch it my own ego.

I can’t be in a hurry to delete it, I have to just watch it. The more I watch, the more capable I will become. Suddenly one day, I simply see that it was deleted and when it deletes by itself, only then it is gone. There is no other way. Prematurely I cannot delete it. It will drop like a dead leaf.

The tree is not doing anything – just a breeze, a situation, and the dead leaf simply drops. The tree is not even aware that the dead leaf has dropped. It makes no noise, it makes no claim – nothing. The dead leaf simply drifts and lands on the ground, just like that.

When you are mature through understanding, awareness, and you have felt totally that ego is the cause of all your misery simply one day you see the dead leaf dropping. It settles on the ground, dies off on it’s own accord. You have not done anything so you cannot claim that you have deleted it.

You notice it has simply disappeared. That is when True Self arises and that real center is the soul, the self, the god, the truth, or whatever you want to call it. It is nameless so all names are good. You can give it any name of your own liking. Sober is the New Black