The dance between my ego and self has been a life long journey.
When I was fourteen, I fell into exploring the rhythm of the dance. I asked myself, “If I could live completely as myself, what would my life possibly be like?”
Then I wrote a novel about it.
Lila is the potential of the Self.
Levi is the Ego.
After collecting her own lost pieces, Lila created Levi, letting him form from the blue pearl within herself.
Being opposites, they didn’t get along at first but eventually they came together, the Ego mirroring back to the Self her own hidden power and the force of her intuition.
But even after coming together, the Ego was still immature and damaged, wearing a mask to make up for the shadows and often violating the boundaries of the Self. And the Self still lacked confidence.
The Self suffered greatly under the Ego’s desperate attempts at control until she let him go.
Ego release.
Now separated and differentiated once again, the Self worked on her own healing, without the pretenses of the Ego. Strange how much healing without the Ego feels like raw perpetual failure.
But when the Self surrenders, life returns to her.
So eventually, the Ego returned to the Self, testing to see if she was willing to accept him and remember. She was. And although he was more wise and experienced than before, the Ego was still damaged and carried shadow versions of himself.
The Self worked with the Ego until he had healed enough to regain his wings and wield a form of control that didn’t come from fear, but from love that’s not bound to fear. The Ego loved his shadows back into himself and then was finally enough to hold the Self and meet her where she stood.
Afterwards they recombined once more, now with the goal of creating together.
Instead of being overly controlling the Ego now sits in his rightful place, offering his energy to the Self and helping her to maintain boundaries and well-being. He gives her the energy to build her web and is a guardian of what matters.
And the creative Self sits between his steady, judicious, intuitively structured nature and the spontaneous joy of the Child, feeling deep love for them both as she brings their unique expressions into the material world.
This has been the work.