The Real You is Soul

Your Ego’s Task is to Protect It

The real you is soul.

Our physical bodies are but instruments to do the Spirit’s work.

This “Spirit work” can be a difficult thing to do in a world that is constantly trying to convince us that the only things that matter in life are those that can be measured.

This is not true.

Soul, love, compassion, empathy and kindness are real and powerful forces but they are difficult, if not impossible, to measure.

One “hack” I’ve stolen from Bill Plotkin, the author of Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche, to help successfully navigate the transition from self to soul is to thank your ego for its past work in assisting you successfully navigate the physical world and then instruct the ego that it now has a new task in life.

Its full-time job is now to protect your soul so that it can get on with the task that you–the real you–has come to perform in this realm.

Plotkin suggests it can be helpful to give your ego a name so that it can be quickly distinguished and separated from the real you–soul.

In my case, I chose the name “Jack Lambert.” Some of you may recall that Lambert was the star middle linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers during the team’s glory days in the mid-to-late 1970’s.

To my skinny 13 year-old self (which is when my ego first began to take shape), the muscular and ferocious-looking Lambert represented the epitome of manhood.

I now recognize these characteristics as being insufficient for the expression of my soul but, ironically, these same characteristics are helpful in telling the physical world to back away from my soul when the material world and its clamoring voices threatens to suck me back into its false hold.

If you too are finding it difficult to give full expression to your soul, I encourage you to find a way to put your ego to its real work–which is to protect your soul so that it can do what it came here to do.

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