LETTERS FROM LOVE — With Special Guest Nadia Bolz-Weber!
My ego is a squirrel in a shoebox pretending it knows how to read
Oh hello, Lovelies!
How’s everyone doing?
Today we are talking about our egos!
DON’T RUN AWAY!
Don’t be frightened! It’s okay, you’re safe here! Even your egos are safe here! Because those young and crazy and wild and deeply egoic parts of our brains need somewhere quiet to go where they can be loved as well. And that’s what we are doing here today. We are loving ourselves gently and kindly, for all that we are. Even the unpleasant egoic bits.
Our special guest this week is
, who is a magnificent human being, a great teacher, a beautiful writer, a rebel pastor, a recovering addict, a recovering fundamentalist, a recovering self-abuser, a six-foot-tall, tattooed titan of love, and someone who I am proud to call a friend.As with so many of our special guests, Nadia felt weird and uncomfortable writing herself a letter from unconditional love, and sharing it with our community. And listen, Nadia — WE GET IT! This stuff is weird and uncomfortable. But you did it anyway! You showed up for the call of Love, and allowed yourself to be seen, pouring Love into your own tired heart — and in so doing, you have offered us a priceless gift. Thank you.
Have a beautiful week, my Lovelets! And don’t let your egos convince you that you are, as Nadia wrote, either better than everyone else or worse than everyone else. None of us are any better or any worse than the rest of us. We are, in fact, just one and the same — innocents on a journey through Earth School, worthy of the highest love.
Onward,
LG
Dear Love, what would you have me know today about my ego?
Ohhhhhh, my darling little baby monkey — WOULDN’T YOUR EGO LIKE TO KNOW?
LOL.
Sweetheart, you know that the ego loves nothing more than to think about itself, and to talk about itself — and then to punish you and shame you for thinking about yourself so much, and talking about yourself so much . . . and then to set up new morality rules about how you’re not allowed to think about yourself and talk about yourself anymore . . . and then to judge you for failing at those rules — and while it's at it, your ego loves to judge and measure how much time others are spending talking and thinking about themselves.
Oh, what a house of mirrors. What a tangle of fake news, drama, misunderstanding.
But do you think I will scorn your ego? Do you think I will tell you to get rid of your ego? My child, have you met me? Does that even sound like me? Scorn, rules, expulsion, shame? Does that not, in fact, sound like your ego?
Child, I am love. That is what I am, and that is what I do. I love. And I love you. And that means that I love even your ego.
But since you have asked, here is what I would have you know today about it: your ego is innocent. Innocent and profoundly lovable. At the bottom of it all, at the end of every messy story, when your ego has exhausted itself once more fighting for its life and trying to keep itself relevant, and shadowboxing against itself, and taking punches at everyone else, here is what remains true: your ego is innocent.
It is young. It is lovable. It doesn’t know better — not even when it tells you that you should have known better, or turns against itself in violence, or seethes in indignation at things (everything) which it cannot even understand. It is young and it is a wild thing — a squirrel trapped in a shoebox, pretending it knows how to read.
Sweetheart, I will answer your question with a question of my own: Can you surrender to your own innocence?
Feel how that question melts anxiety the way a nice cup of tea dissolves a sugar cube.
This is what I do, dear little squirmy one, who wants to understand all things. I dissolve all the young and confused and self-centered and outraged parts of you like sugar – into me.
Into me you come, every time you call my name.
What is your ego? Something that love disrupts, interrupts, dissolves, and absorbs. Something I love into silence and serenity because I am love. Because I am silence and serenity.
Now close this notebook for a moment and sit with me. Let’s have some tea.
Prompt
As always, you can ask Unconditional Love this one simple question, which always works: “Dear Love, What would you have me know today?” Or, if you wish to go a little bit deeper this week, you may want to ask the question I asked: “Dear Love, What would you have me know today about my ego?”
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