This is a creative writing piece. It is an exploration of how powerful the illusion of the ego is and how painful it is to get caught up in it.
The tight wire act of goodness is lifting further off the ground, and the wire is not getting any thicker or less precarious. My tentative walk across the gaping chasm of judgment and banishment feels even harder when my capricious mind flits to my desire to be liked and accepted.
My weakness is a source of shame for my ego, the iron lady. My ego is a warrior queen, Amazonian in stature and brutal in her lack of need to be liked by others. She is larger than life and able to dominate.
I cower in her shadow unable to muster the slightest fragments of courage to stand up to her herculean force of will. I am shamefully weak in my surrender and unashamedly grovel to please and mollify her. My meager survival is so painfully dependent on my success.
She viciously cuts the heads of her enemies and proudly carries them on a stake through town for all to see and to admire her indomitable power. I cautiously melt into the shadows with the plaster of a smile across my face portraying a willingness to please that is a betrayal to my own tender heart.
My outer loyalty is willingly made at the expense of my own meager slice of joy and happiness. The price is unbelievably exorbitant, but I have no choice but to pay it because I don’t have within me the practical gumption to say no.
It is my own failing, mine alone, that has me desperately shrinking into the background and slowly breathing as little air as possible so as not to create even the most subtle of ripples in the atmosphere that might awaken the sleeping tiger of her wrath. This taught tightrope of perfection is not about me looking good it is about self-preservation.
When I am pristine I raise no ire, but one small wobble, one slight hesitation, one minor slip is enough for me to be noticed and sliced by the sharp sword of her criticism. That is how she demonstrates her love. Losing approval is annihilation; I will be consumed by darkness. Losing my status as the apple of her eye only has one other option and that is death.
I am watchful and wary of the creature of my ego that has the supernatural ability to shapeshift into a myriad of forms all designed to maintain power and control in the wiliest of ways while I silently conform and obey, wearing the mask of happiness as my vicious skill of self-betrayal gets refined and honed with each step along the seering wire of discontent that stretches into the vast distance of my life yet to be lived with no visible sight of where the wire is attached so there might be some slight hope of an end in sight. From my limited vantage point, there is only one way forward, but a small, quiet voice whispers in my ear, “Let go. Let go. Let go.”
Rohini Ross is passionate about helping people wake up to their full potential. She is a transformative coach, leadership consultant, a regular blogger for Thrive Global, and author of the short-read Marriage (The Soul-Centered Series Book 1) available on Amazon. Rohini has an international coaching and consulting practice based in Los Angeles helping individuals, couples, and professionals embrace all of who they are so they can experience greater levels of well-being, resiliency, and success. Rohini is the author of the free ebook Relationships and the co-founder of The 29-Day Rewilding Experience and The Rewilding Community. You can also follow Rohini on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and watch her Vlogs with her husband. To learn more about her work go to her website, www.rewilders.org.