“The biggest ego trip going is trying to get rid of your ego. And the joke of it all is that your ego doesn’t exist.” ~ Alan Watts

I don’t think anyone can truly prepare you for what it’s really going to be like to experience the un-gripping of the ego. While some people experience radical transformations that take place in an instant where they feel a palpable shift in their conscious awareness, almost knee-deep in the awakening process will experience it little by little over a longer span of time.

In this process, we may find ourselves on nothing short of a turbulent roller coaster of emotions. We can go from feeling deep compassion and gratitude for life, to completely submerged in fear or pain that seems to come from nowhere, and then straight into complete and utter confusion of who we are, what we are, what life is for and what our true purpose is… and all these may happen on the same day.

From my own experience, I can say my initial entry into awakening had me bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in regards to learning more about self-awareness and the laws of the universe, however, I had no idea what was in store for me.

I think if the universe was to lead with the fact that the path to enlightenment is one that forces us straight into actually feeling into the nucleus of pain that lies inside of our core wound, or that we would have to face the very fears that have been repressed in our cellular bodies for lifetimes, many of us would probably say, “ehhh maybe I’ll pass this lifetime, let’s give it a go the next time around.”

So it very much speaks to the intelligence of the universe that it rarely leads with the bad news, instead it often will first show us a glimpse of what life is going to be like after facing our wounds and integrating our ego– which is nothing short of bliss, inner peace and a deep knowing that we are loved beyond measure, that we ARE love beyond measure.

For most of us, these moments of bliss are sprinkled randomly among the initiations that take place that cause our ego to unravel itself. These initiations come in many forms from external circumstances to emotional states such as boredom, confusion, frustration, embarrassment, etc…

Whatever it takes to get the job done, to get the ego to dissolve, is exactly what the universe has in store for you and your life. At the tail end of each stage of this integration process are signs that the job was done to completion.

These sometimes subtle and sometimes very noticeable differences in our energy, in our reactions, in our emotional states are the gifts that lie on the other side of a dissolved aspect of ego. So what are some of the things we begin to notice as ego disappears?

Signs and Stages of a Dissolving Ego

(In no particular order…)

“Instead of trying to let things go, just love the one who still holds on.” ~ Matt Kahn

Mind gets quiet

This stage is one that is felt universally among those who are experiencing an awakening in consciousness. In order to actually touch into who we really are (the awareness behind thoughts) we must experience what it is like to be in the moment without thoughts arising, which is why a quiet mind goes hand in hand with a dissolving ego.

At first, it may only happen for a few seconds, and as we awaken further we may notice longer periods of time where no thoughts arise and we are able to simply exist in silence without it feeling uncomfortable. Silence is such a profound force that carries within it, ironically, deep and powerful wisdom, for those that are able to sit in it.

Strong moral judgments are replaced by acceptance

There is a reason why those still existing in ego have very strong opinions on what is “right” and what is “wrong.” The ego IS the judger, it is the one that asserts it’s identity through each one of its core opinions. It can only know who it wants to be by knowing also what it does NOT want to be.

So it should be no surprise, that as ego dissolves there is less of a tendency to judge how others live their lives as unequivocally right or wrong. There becomes an inner knowing that tells us that each person is only doing the best they can from the level of consciousness they reside in, which is precisely why they do the things that they do— they quite literally can do no different based on where they are.

The “person” disappears

“There is nothing more important to true growth than realizing you are not the voice of the mind, you are the one who hears it.” ~ Michael Singer

Ironically, when rooted in ego, we truly believe we are our thoughts, that we are the ones formulating the analytical dialogue that goes through our mind in each moment. Yet, as the dissolution of ego gets underway, we find that this very “person”– the one giving a play by play of how we view each day or situation, is actually the one that begins to disappear.

This becomes a huge step in our process because it gives us a more accurate representation of what a spiritual awakening TRULY is vs. what our ego wants it to be.

The ego fantasizes about awakening and how it will “solve all my problems,” or “make my life go exactly how I want it to go,” when in fact what actually happens is the one who is judging anything as a “problem” or “not a problem,” is in fact what disappears.

What this means for our life is that things are no longer questioned, fought against, worried about, or analyzed to death… they are simply trusted with unwavering faith that all that is happening is perfectly guided into our life through a higher intelligence and that higher intelligence knows what it is doing.

The strive to be a “somebody” falls away

Suddenly it hits that we have wasted so much time trying to prove our worth to the world, attempting to receive validation for an image based on nothing. This stage is where true freedom really lies, it’s where we come to realize many of the things we wanted or wanted to be seen as we're based in the ego’s need for competition and comparison.

As the tendency to compare ourselves with another unravels right along with the dissolving ego, we begin to taste what it really feels like to be liberated. The concept of time, of an evolving “person” in a linear timeline of reality, starts to become a little blurred. We begin to see ourselves through the eyes of an ever-changing point of perspective, reacting to each moment as it arises.

There is less and less need to create a storyline of ownership where the ego says, “look at MY life, this is what I have made of MY life, this is the somebody I have created over the years,” and instead become a point of presence, where we create and re-create ourselves over and over in each breath.