Is Your True Self Beneath the Ego, or Part of It?

Is Your True Self Beneath the Ego, or Part of It?

It’s a question I have considered for many years. Usually in those still moments before sleep, when the noise of the day finally settles, and something deeper wants to be heard. Is who I really am hidden beneath the ego… or is the ego somehow part of me, too?

Let me share what I’ve come to feel about this. Not that I have the answer. Just as someone walking alongside you, remembering what was never really lost. 🌸

First, a word about the ego - The ego gets such a bad reputation, doesn’t it? We’re told to silence it, transcend it, dissolve it as if it were an enemy. Here’s what I’ve come to believe, after thirty years of practice and a fair bit of living…The ego isn’t your enemy; it’s the part of you that learned to keep you safe. The little one who decided, long ago, that you had to be useful to be loved. That you had to achieve, to please, to perform, to hold it all together. That part isn’t bad. It’s tired. It’s been carrying you for a very long time.

So where is the true self?

Here’s the thing I keep coming home to. Your true self was never created by anything. It didn’t arrive when you got the job, or the relationship or the praise. It was here first, beneath the noise, beneath the patterns, beneath everything you’ve ever been told you should be.

I remember sitting in my wonderful corporate career at 29, with the title, the salary, and the life that was supposed to feel like enough… and feeling completely empty.

That emptiness wasn’t a problem to be solved; looking back, it was an invitation. A whisper saying, come back to you. The true self was never gone. It was simply waiting, patiently, beneath all the noise I’d built up around it. 💫

Beneath, or part of? Maybe it’s both

So let me answer the question, as best I can. I don’t think your true self lives underneath the ego the way treasure sits buried under the soil, waiting to be dug out by force. I don’t think the ego is something separate from you that you need to wage war against.

Here’s the picture that feels truest to me…

Imagine the sky. Vast. Open. Always there. That’s your true self. And the ego? The ego is the weather. The clouds, the storms, the bright clear afternoons. Always changing. Always passing through. The weather happens in the sky. It’s part of the experience. But it is not the sky.

You are not the storm. You are the space the storm moves through. So the ego isn’t beneath you and you aren’t beneath the ego. You are the awareness in which all of it is happening.

Coming home to yourself

This is why I always say… It’s not out there. It’s within. The peace you’ve been searching for, the sense of yes, this is who I am — it isn’t waiting for you at the end of more doing.

It’s already here. Beneath the noise.

The loveliest part, you don’t have to destroy the ego to find it. You simply notice it. You watch the weather with kindness. You place a gentle hand on that tired, protective part of you and whisper, thank you for keeping me safe… you can rest now. And in that moment, something opens. You remember. You are not broken. You are awakening. You were never going to be perfected into wholeness. You were always already whole.

The ego is part of your humanness; the true self is the ground beneath it, around it, holding it all. So the next time the storm rolls in, the worry, the comparison, the old familiar voice telling you you’re not enough- see if you can loosen. Breathe.

And remember the sky. It’s still there. It’s always been there. It’s you. 🩷

With love and light,

Carolina x