Flight lesson 3: My ego tells stupid stories

This is post 4 in a 4 part series that I’ve dubbed Flight Lessons. I will be sharing important life lessons I learned while traveling abroad this last month. Enjoy!

Freaking ego. 

It drives me crazy. 

The ego is so slippery. 

It's like trying to squeeze one of those water wiggler toy thingies that jump out of your hand when you tighten your grip. 

In my last post “Flight lesson 2: Don’t mind me, I just leaked a little” I shared an experience where I lost my cool. In the process I allowed my subtle energy to attack another person’s biofield resulting in bringing us both down. What I want to explore now is the role my ego played in the situation. It managed to make a mountain out of a molehill. 

To set the stage I want to share the short story that Eckhart Tolle shares in his book The Power of Now.

Two traveling monks reached a river with a strong current where they met a young woman. The woman asked them if they could help her cross the river, and even though the monks had vowed to avoid contact with women, the older monk picked her up and carried her across the river.

The younger monk couldn’t believe what happened as they continued on their way.

Hours had passed and the younger monk, still wondering about the event, was unable to hold his silence and said, “Brother, our spiritual training teaches us to avoid any contact with women, but you picked that one up and carried her!”

“Brother,” the older monk replied, “I set her down hours ago, why are you still carrying her?”

Why wasn’t the younger monk able to figuratively “put down the woman” like the elder monk had? 

Here’s what I imagine was going on in the young monk’s mind. I bet he was stewing the entire journey, from the time the elder monk picked-up the woman and until the young monk couldn’t stand it and had to confront him. I can imagine the young monk telling himself “righteous” stories like I can’t believe he broke a vow. I would never do that. Does he think he is better than me? Does he think he is better than our spiritual training? What makes him think he can do this? How can he say he values his vows? 

When we spiral into noise or stories like these I believe it’s our ego rearing its ugly head. 

Let’s go back to the experience I had while deboarding the plane. I was angry at a fellow passenger for not letting me move ahead to deboard the plane faster. He said, “We were all in the same situation.” Instead of going with the flow, I let this get under my skin. Then in a moment of clarity (after I consciously told myself to breathe and be present) I physically noticed that energy was leaking from my energy body and attacking the other person’s. While this awareness helped me to stop energetically attacking this man, the experience wasn’t over.  That’s when the internal wrestling match with my own ego began. 

I started making small talk and chit chatting with the other passengers and the flight attendant. They would be in the middle of telling me about their career or their family and bam! I’d become aware that I wasn’t paying attention. For the next 30-minutes or so I found myself telling story after story and basically racking up points about how I was right and he was wrong. 

I had 2 semi mobile parents to help navigate. Point for me. United Airlines didn’t print up our  boarding passes and now that’s going to take more time. Another point for me. Our initial layover was extended from 4 hours to nearly 10 hours, his was only 8 hours. Point again.  

In the short moments of presence between stories I managed to ask myself a question. What was the purpose of these stories? That’s when it came to me. My ego was trying to make me think I was superior to this other passenger. This was the “aha” moment I needed. No one is superior to anyone, we are all equals.  

This was an incredible experience for me. I haven’t observed my own inner dialogue like this before. This was the clearest that I’ve seen my ego, ever. It also demonstrated to me the power of being in the present, even if you aren’t good at staying in it. It was in these short moments of being still that grace was able to enter and I was able to see.