Ego to Essence
Ego to Essence: How This Practice Works
Start by choosing a topic that brings up stress or some kind of inner swirl.
Pick something where your mind definitely has opinions—something that reliably triggers negative thoughts or tension.
Step One: Let Ego Speak
Write on whatever feels more flowy. Paper. Laptop. Speak into a voicenote.
Give the mic to the ego.
Let it rant.
Just bullet out the raw, messy commentary your mind throws at this topic.
Not to believe it. Just to hear it.
It’ll probably feel convincing but leave you kind of contracted or in turmoil.
That’s the ego’s style - it strips away context, zooms in on a narrow slice of reality, and forgets everything else that’s also true.
You can send this to me in writing, or in a voice note.
Step Two: Feel the Feeling
Now, drop into the body.
This is where the 3-minute guided meditation comes in.
You’re not analyzing anymore—you're just noticing:
What does all that chatter feel like in your body?
Where’s the tension? The weight? The charge?
What sensations do these thoughts create in your body?
Get to know them. Feel them. Acknowledge them.
Step Three: Let Self Answer
Now we invite in something deeper.
What does Wisdom have to say about the same topic? That which holds the big huge picture, all of the spacious reality.
Not spiritual bypass or silver linings
Wisdom, Truth, reminds you that you’re growing. That there’s something to learn here. It is helping you come into a place of recognition.
It tells the truth about your humanity, your conditioning, your effort.
It shows you how what looks like a problem might actually be a doorway. An invitation to understand something deeper, to heal something.
It’s the knowing that reminds us of our humanness, the messy middle, that it makes sense to feel how we are feeling, because we have been conditioned, we are overwhelmed, we have unresolved stuff like everyone else.
Let’s heal and shift some of it.
I’ll help guide this part, because the voice of wisdom is often subtle at first, and buried under all the noise.
But once you feel it, you’ll know. It’s calm. It’s kind. And it makes sense underneath all the chatter and noise of the mind.
Send me a voice note describing how WisdomSelf is speaking back. I will respond when I can with any insights that arise from WisdomSelf
Step Four: Embody It
Last part: feel how that wisdom feels in your body.
Let it settle in. Let it shift something.
Marinate in that felt sense of isness. It’s you.
Soak in the more grounded, calm, spacious feeling that comes when you connect to what’s actually true.
Take 10 to 15 breaths (or more) here.
Let your system get familiar with the feeling of clarity.
This is how we rewire the nervous system - one breath, one insight at a time.
***With deep thanks to my friend and colleague, Michael Vladeck, for inspiring a deeper and more layered version of this practice***