Problems

March 6, 2024

Once we solve, to a reasonable extent, the problems of how to love, we turn to the next level of challenges: building our self-esteem, sense of purpose, and identity. It is difficult to attend to the problems of reaching healthy self-respect unless we are reasonably stable physiologically, out of danger, and have viable ways to give and receive love.

We begin to know ourselves by exploring and building our ego and personality. In childhood, adolescence, as well as in adulthood, we continually search for and develop our self-worth. And the more we search, the more we find. Some of us discontinue our search, and our identity is no longer organic but static. Many are satisfied with knowing themselves only on a fixed ego identity level. But those who choose to go deeper in self-awareness and penetrate the exterior layer of ego venture into their depths where exploration is never-ending.

Our acknowledged identity can be based on our ego’s purpose, or we can become conscious of our soul’s purpose and live from it. Frequently, the ego's and soul's purposes are not mutually exclusive, but the intentions behind them differ. Our ego purpose becomes a real problem when we still feel empty after accomplishing it. Many of us live in the frustration of never finding our true purpose. However, for many of us, the frustration pushes us to find our soul’s purpose.

People may not know how to solve the problem of finding their soul's purpose, yet even in the search for it, we find deep satisfaction. If we knock, it will eventually open to us. We become conscious of our soul's purpose not only by searching for it but by limiting our ego’s script and instead by living from the soul. To help us live in soul and our true purpose, we practice the spiritual exercises that suit our mind, body, and heart. This is our spiritual practice.

Inquiry: Tell me three reasons you would be satisfied living only in your ego identity.

Dear God,

I am thankful to you that when my soul's purpose overruled my ego's purpose, I found my true purpose.

Amen

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