“When your ego dislikes, it can imagine and feel that it has been wronged, especially when someone behaves differently from how you usually view them. This can trigger the trauma response of fear in you.
Even when you’re around a stranger who acts out in ways that you may not expect or enjoy witnessing, it is natural for your ego to shut down as a primal form of protection against the fear threat of the unknown.
Perhaps knowing that feeling fear is the ego’s way of protecting itself may help you see the ego from a more compassionate standpoint.
The fearful need to shut down or defend the ego is the way human beings behave when run by the survival mode of fear. It is the ego’s protection against the threat of the unknown.
Whether in how you relate to yourself or in how you are treated by others, if you feel like a commodity that rises and falls in popularity within the ego’s volatile stock market, the attribute of appreciation (awareness of how the ego is trying to protect you) liberates you from this exhausting cycle of judgment.
Best of all, you no longer take so personally how often anyone shifts from like to dislike.
Even when the judgments keep coming your way, it only reveals the existence of fear in those who do the judging.
Especially when holding space for yourself, you see how your most hurtful parts are attempting to ego-protect themselves from the threat of loss or the return of pain. By holding space for yourself, you meet yourself in a heart-centered way. You become able to listen deeply, honor authentically, and value how much more of your divinity shines through when you are being appreciative of yourself.
The more you interact from a space-holding perspective, the easier it will become for you to relate to others who still operate out of judgment and fear.
Ultimately, you teach your ego how to receive by giving from a consistently safe and loving space.”
All For Love – The Transformative Power Of Holding Space, Matt Kahn
