I am often asked, “How do I know whether it is my ego or my higher spirit beckoning me at any given moment in life?” At any given moment, you are choosing between two pictures or evaluations of yourself. Your choices include the one offered by your soul, or higher self, which I think of as the voice of God, and the one offered by the ego, or your false idea of yourself. The answer to the question above is, “If it brings you a sense of peace, then it is your higher self at work.” Your higher self is always nudging you toward a resolution of the conflicts that you experience in your life, so that you will have room for serenity and harmony. If you are living with inner turmoil, continually quarreling with yourself and feeling anxious and fearful, then you are allowing ego to dominate your life.
In every moment, you have the option to choose peace for yourself. Your false self thrives on inner anxiety because that is what it thinks it needs to stay alive. Ego promotes thoughts like these: I cannot be happy or content; I must be a bad person; If I am feeling peaceful then I will simply vegetate; I must constantly look at how others are living and performing in order to assess my value. The ego wants you in a constant state of turmoil. It convinces you that if you are not always on edge, you can’t grow. Keep in mind, though, that experiencing this inner turmoil is a choice you’ve made to allow your false self to dominate your life. When you make the choice for peace, you are literally allowing the Divine into your life. And rather than vegetate, you will discover that you can be busy, purposeful, blissful and still have peace. Just knowing that peace is always an alternative is a significant awakening. Replacing the turmoil you feel is then a simple matter of allowing your higher self to take over in any situation where you are about to allow turmoil to enter. Your ego will push you in the direction of the fight. You must be ready to see it as it is about to happen and invite your higher self to send your ego a not-wanted-right-now message. Know within that you always have the choice. When you opt for turmoil and anxiety, you allow your ego to take over. You can instead be a home for peace.