Ego

Ego takes everything personally but the power of awareness is the first step in acceptance of ourselves. I've been listening to a great podcast from the spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle who's forcing me to really examine how I see myself in this world. My ego has me convinced that I am doing everything possible to live my best life for someone with MS to the point where I can become immediately defensive when well-meaning friends and family kindly suggest an alternative treatment option I have yet to try. Whenever this happens, my instinct is to internalize the comment because, of course, I feel like they couldn't possibly understand the pain I'm in. Tolle suggests that when this happens, we are in our "pain body" meaning the voice in our heads is informing our reality. This is in no way a suggestion that having MS is in our heads but instead that it's natural to believe the story we have always told ourselves to the point where we can close  ourselves off to  to new ideas. I am human but am always striving to be better so will make a commitment going forward to keep my ego in check by being more conscious, present and open to all this life has to offer.