Passionate Awakenings is expanding, and I’m so excited to be able to share so much with so many more of you! The pacific northwest tour has been a big success in Vancouver BC and Seattle, with almost 20 workshops and trainings over the last few months! I’m loving it up here, and the big news is that I’ve moved to Seattle! I’m still available for sessions as always over video. Gearing up now for another round of events all through the summer. The big weekends are Passionate Awakenings Level 1: Erotic Devotion 7/28-30 and the opening intensive of the Erotic Healing Arts Practitioner Certificate Training 7/21-23. People can travel from anywhere for these, we have residential accommodations and discounts may be available for those with big travel expenses. More on these below.

So I’m very grateful to have this life, and very grateful to be able to support you in having more of the most fulfilling things you desire, and contribute to the dawning world we all feel arising right here in the space between our hearts…

The ego psychology speaks of is not the same concept as the ego spiritual traditions speak of. It’s unfortunate that many people confuse the two. In psychology the ego is the developmental hierarchy of needs and the personality structure. We need a healthy strong ego to be capable and create good relationships. In spirituality the ego is the separate self that is concerned only with itself, the reactive mind which is nothing but a contraction of fear. Actually, if the first kind is not strong enough, that’s what makes the second kind expand. It’s only when we have strong self-esteem, self-confidence, and functional capacity to handle life’s challenges that we even have access to a stable spiritual awakening. If not, we’re mired in the mud of our fears, reactions, and insecurities. Even if we pop through to clear states, we fall out over and over again, which can get us stuck in longing and striving. Ego death then, is an especially unfortunate and easily misunderstood phrase. The ego of psychology cannot and should not die until the body does. As the “ego functions” become more integrated, we naturally gain the capacity to let go and flow more and more free of reactions, and experience ourselves as connected to others and to life, expanding our sense of identity. Nothing “dies” ~ our sense of self expands to be more inclusive. Eventually it just stops making sense to see ourselves as separate, because we’re obviously not. 

The ego in the psychological sense is the core of our functional capacity. Where we were hurt or didn’t have support to succeed in developmental challenges, we will still feel this as parts of our inner child. We need to nurture, respect, and guide those parts like we would any child. As our wounded inner child heals and matures, only the numinous inner child of our heart remains, the healthy core of love, innocence, and play. It’s our wounded inner child that stops the flow of love in our lives, or really our judgement and rejection of it that stops the love – the love we can give to ourselves, as well as to others. That’s the ego that spiritual traditions speak of – the contracted sticking place that stops the love – first of all by stopping the flow of our love to ourselves. As the inner child heals, the “spiritual ego” relaxes and releases, and learns to trust life, to trust ourselves. We come home, to all of us. That’s the basis for an integral approach to “ego transcendence”, as opposed to the hyper-masculine approaches of the patriarchal past. Nurture the ego, don’t nuke it! Love it into dissolving away…

So for lasting transcendence that feels natural and personally connected, it’s back to Maslow’s pyramid, and not games of forcing our kundalini up our chakras and out the top, or “doing battle with the ego”. Yes, the answer very much includes finding unconditional love for ourselves. Not ourselves as an object or constructed personality, but the actual unmediated experience of ourself, as we can sense it. It’s the “superego” voices, of internalized parental and social judgements, which usually see our innocent authenticity as “childish”. We get scared that the world or significant others won’t accept or approve of what we’re feeling, and we shut it down by calling it that. The heart is child-like, with it’s raw feelings and unfiltered experience. The more we love ourselves, holding all our experiences with loving curiosity and care, the more safe we are to live in our hearts. That brings us a more resilient self-affirmation that heals the search for approval from others and all manner of rigidity.

This is the dissolving of the “spiritual” ego, and re-opens us to our authenticity of Being in all it’s natural expressions. This is living in the heart…