I've been reminded recently that healing the ego is more about compassion, patience, and self-love than it is about finding rough edges that are undesirable and buffing them out. I’ve been using tenacity rather than patience and compassion.
A funny example involves my little dog Claire, our tiny poodle. Recently, instead of using the bathroom in the pet toilet area, she started going on the carpet nearby. We tried the usual carrot-and-stick methods, like giving her food if she used the bathroom correctly and telling her no when she used the carpet. But nothing was working. It didn’t seem to solve the problem, and I noticed that Claire was getting a little tense, which is rare for her. She’s usually unaffected by “no” or “don’t do that,” as if she has Teflon skin. The only thing that seems to motivate her is food.
I suddenly noticed her tension and thought, “Okay, what I’m doing to try to help is actually making things worse.” Instead of getting frustrated or wanting to correct her behavior, I started thinking from her perspective. Maybe she was having a difficult time getting to the place we wanted her to use the restroom. Did anything change recently? Oh, the carpet in that area got a little smaller than it was before. So, I decided to try putting a larger piece of carpet there to make it easier for her to walk over.
And what do you know? Just changing the carpet solved the problem. She hasn’t had a single accident since, and it turns out she wasn’t avoiding the proper spot out of defiance. She was actually trying to go where we wanted but was having a hard time for reasons I didn’t understand—maybe the smell, maybe the width of the carpet. That small change, which took two minutes, solved everything.
I mention this because I’ve noticed the same thing with myself regarding behaviors I want to change. My ego and material mind—the same skills that made me a great software engineer, like attention to detail, obsessive tenacity, and the ability to look at many different options—also make me a bit difficult in relationships and personal growth. Sometimes too much attention to detail gets in the way of being present and enjoying the moment.
Being a self-help junkie, I always feel it when I create disharmony around me or when my buttons get pushed and I get frustrated about something I can’t immediately resolve. These are the parts of me that I tend to categorize into buckets: helpful and not helpful, kind and unkind, or even profitable and not profitable. That’s how the material mind tends to divide things into good and bad.
What I’ve found recently is that instead of focusing on self-improvement, I benefit more from leaning into self-acceptance. Just like with my dog, instead of trying to fix behavior I arbitrarily decided was wrong, I step back, look at myself, and think, “There’s probably a reason I don’t understand yet—something hidden or unconscious.” It’s not that I want to create trouble or be difficult; it’s happening because of something inside me.
If I just listen, step back, take away judgment, and wonder what’s going on, eventually, the reason becomes clear. I can use techniques like the breath of love to bring myself back into spirit mind, and from that space of patience, love, and kindness, a unique solution often emerges. Sometimes it’s a step toward the behavior I want—so a bit of self-improvement—but often it’s more about self-acceptance and love.
I see that we’re all human beings with different triggers, preferences, and behaviors, and not everything we do is conscious. And that’s okay. In fact, being conscious all the time would probably be tedious. But for the unconscious behaviors I’m not enjoying or want to change, I find a lot of value in aiming for 60% or 80% acceptance and 20% change.
Sometimes, I look at the long arc of change and think, “A year ago, two years ago, ten years ago, I was more prone to these frustrating behaviors than I am now.” Just looking at that long arc of growth is beautiful. We’re all moving through this process, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously, depending on our situation, the year, and everything else.
When I come from love and that perspective, suddenly, there’s nothing more that needs to be done. That love for myself often results in the little change I was seeking—or sometimes it doesn’t, and instead, I just learn to love the behavior or see it in a different light. Either way, the problem goes away because the problem was mostly just something I was holding in my mind. It was an idea, rather than the behavior itself, that was the problem.
