December 22

LOVE MONTH: DAY 22: “That’s what real love amounts to – letting a person be what he really is. Most people love you for who you pretend to be. To keep their love, you keep pretending – performing. You get to love your pretense. It’s true, we’re locked in an image, an act – and the sad thing is, people get so used to their image, they grow attached to their masks. They love their chains. They forget all about who they really are. And if you try to remind them, they hate you for it, they feel like you’re trying to steal their most precious possession.”― Jim Morrison

We all have masks. We all have our delusions. We think we are many things that we really are not, and do things that are inconsistent with who we want to be.

That is the human condition. None of us is inherently evil. I am one of those people who do not believe there is such a thing. We are misguided and deluded. There are so many reasons for this. Most of the time, it boils down to this: we are either living in Ego or Spirit.

Ego gives us a lie that we begin to buy into. We are operating out of Ego’s story line, which is always that there is a problem…a problem with life, a problem with you, a problem with everything. Why does Ego do that? Because it is only around for one purpose…to solve problems. So, if that is the only purpose something exists, it is vital to its very existence to see EVERYTHING as a problem. Therefore, Ego has only one story to tell us…that life, and everything in it has to be solved by Ego. And, there is only one tool that Ego uses for everything….fear and control. Yikes!

Well, we see all around us what that brings.

This journey of recovery is such a blessing, because we are given these 12 fabulous and amazing steps to guide us through our ideas about life, our beliefs about ourselves, life and other people. All coming from Ego…none of them are of any use to life or to Spirit.

Therefore, to be fully on this spiritual path, we must SMASH Ego…yay! Sounds simple, but it truly takes a daily devotion to being in Spirit only in a world that functions nearly all the time on pure Ego. Social and religious structures are formed, armies are created, worlds are run on pure Ego. We have our work cut out for us…and it can feel lonely and absurd a lot of the time. But Spirit is relentless and will always win in the end. It is the only truth we can cling to…Spirit wins. Always, and its only tool is love. That makes me so happy, because my heart wants to win…and so it is…and so it is…