Your Impact Part 5
April 22, 2025
Your Impact Part 5
Regardless of what impacts us, we have an anchor that keeps us steady. As we know, the anchor is a relatively small thing, but it makes all the difference in a storm. Likewise, a spiritual anchor makes all the difference in a difficult conversation, confusion, conflict, or in any situation that throws us off base.
TRUTH is the most profound spiritual anchor undergirding all religions and walks of faith. Being anchored to the truth may seem vague or general, but truth steadies us during doubt, fear, conflict, self-rejection, rejection from others, loss, anger, or anything that separates us from the Divine. Seeing the truth may not change the circumstance or the other persons, but knowing the truth can change how we perceive and deal with the circumstance. How does that work?
To embrace the truth is to risk letting go of our ego’s ways of understanding and its defense structure. The truth includes the quest to understand our ego mind’s distortions or obscurations of reality. We do this by inspecting our ego’s assumptions and realizing that many are inaccurate. And then we realize that the behaviors based on these inaccurate assumptions are in error. But the ego can be so powerful that it convinces us that it is always accurate. For example, if our ego believes that people will sooner or later abandon us, it may convince us not to get too close to others. Or the ego may create a narrative they like to repeat, called, “Those who always disappoint me.” On the other hand, the ego can derive masochistic pleasure from its abandonments.
Some examples of distorted assumptions in each unhealthy ego type are: 1. There is always something wrong, and it’s my job to find it. 2. People will do what I want and regard me highly if I make them beholden to me. 3. People always love a winner, and as a winner, I am loved. 4. People find me more interesting and valuable because of my struggles. 5. If I remain aloof, nobody will interrupt me, ask of me or take my time. 6. I must be wary of the many people with questionable motives. 7. My best choice remains available if I keep all my options open. 8. It’s better to make a preemptive strike than to be vulnerable. 9. The more I put myself down, the more people will accept me.
We can live by these ego assumptions but the truth can free us from these self-fulfilling prophecies. The truth makes us more sensitive to our false assumptions. But it can be difficult to question our ego’s assumptions, especially because they have worked so often for us. That’s why self-inquiry is an essential step to pulling away from the ego’s distortions of reality that have caused so much suffering. Self-inquiry enables us to penetrate our ego’s defenses, and to dig down into the truth of our own being.
The quest for truth helps us shift from the ego’s perceptions and opens the way for divine guidance.
Spiritual practice: Can you identify a likely misconception of your ego that has caused you suffering? What is your spiritual plan to stop the suffering?
Self-inquiry: What is our ego’s reason for distorting reality?
Dear God,
Please show me the hidden things. Take me down to the spring of my life and show me the truth. Amen
