Ripping off your ego masks
Your ego will soothe all of your pain with pleasure. Your ego is very very good at masking your pain. When you strip off those masks, it’s like taking away the false layers that are covering up your soul. As you strip away those layers, it’s painful.
Every layer you take off, you realize, “Oh my gosh that’s not who I really am, there’s more underneath.” Every time you strip away another layer, you think, “Was I lying to myself? What was going on in my life that I believed that this is who I really am?”
Then lo and behold, there’s more underneath. After a few layers, you’re really lost and you don’t know who you are anymore. Who you really are is probably five or six more layers down there. You just have to keep going.
Every time you take off a layer, your ego is going to scream because it’s dying. It’s saying, “Don’t do this you! You know we are bikini girls.” But then you take off the bikini girl mask and underneath there is somebody who is actually very driven and ambitious. Then you take off the career mask, and you realize that there is someone underneath there who is actually scared and unsure. And then even underneath that, you’re not scared, you’re actually excited about this next phase of your life.
The point is this— you’re not going to know that.
I didn’t know that at that time. I was just freaking out. Because every time I tried to lift off another layer covering up my soul— I could hear my ego screaming at me— all these stories from my past about who I used to be. You used to be this, you used to be that. You used to be skinny. You used to be fun.
I could not hear the voice of truth underneath that was reminding me of who I really am.
The truth is: You didn’t “use to be” anything. You are still becoming.
Please write this in your journal:
I didn’t “use to” be anything. I am still becoming.
I had just forgotten the dream of my soul— after all those years I spent in Time Out.
When you’re in Time Out, you do a lot of things to pass the time. And if enough time goes by, you start to think that— that’s who you are. You forget that you were just doing those things to pass the time. That’s not who your soul really is.
Feeling better
I did not know it then, but I eventually came to realize that every single problem I’ve ever had in my life stemmed back to having a broken dream. Every single problem I’ve had in my life— stemmed back to what was underneath all those band-aides…
When I started our church, Hale Hoonani, it was a lot of work and there was no free time and it was really really, really hard at first. That hard work reminded me of— what was underneath those band-aides— who I really am, inside. Month after month, I was pulling off the layers of my masks— and the better I felt. My focus became less on the hard work— and more on— how my masks were falling off.
And I realized that I was finding out… exactly… who I really am.
Sensory deprivation Time Out
There is no way I could have known this at that time. Because I had to regain all my senses. Time Out is like a sensory deprivation chamber.
I had no clear vision of the future. I had to regain my eyesight when I got to the wilderness. I couldn’t hear the voice of my truth. I could only hear what Nurse Ego was telling me to make me feel better about myself. And I was numb. That’s why you go to Time Out, to get all warm, fuzzy and numbed out.
I had to regain my feelings and my emotions back.
And my willpower was really weak in Time Out. So I had to regain my iron will, my ambition, my drive, again.
YOU
When you do something new or you start a new phase in life—yes, you feel blind and deaf at first.
I know that Cher is really scared about moving out of state. Just like Samantha is starting over at age 79. You feel like you messed up.
You feel like if I had just started saving 1,000 bucks every month for the past 20 years right now, I’d have a nest egg, but instead I have nothing.
Or I shouldn’t have married that guy.
Or I should’ve taken that other job.
Or I should have created some sort of security for myself.
I want you to forgive yourself because none of those things are possible in Time Out. You can’t create any sort of stability in Time Out. You’re trying to grieve over something that wasn’t even possible.
If you had saved a nest egg during time out, when you leave time out— you have to give that money back. Or you will get scammed out of it or you will lose the money in a house fire or through a divorce.
Adam and Eve were not allowed to take any organic produce from the Garden of Eden into the wilderness. They left with the leather clothes that God made them. But essentially nothing— no souvenirs, no mementos, no savings, nothing. Because it’s too fragile. None of your blessings that you created in Time Out survive in the actual wilderness. They disintegrate as soon as they hit the real world.
In Time Out, everyone was nice to you. In the real world, is anyone nice to you?
In Time Out, you got paid for doing nothing. In the real world, do people pay you for doing nothing?
In Time Out, you were in love. In the real world, as soon as you ask your lover to take the trash out— 70 thousand times, are you still in love with them?
Being real
I understand that it’s really scary to leave time out, to leave the garden of Eden, and enter the wilderness. But actually, the wilderness is the only place where everything is real.
If someone is nice to you in the wilderness, it’s not because you’re both stoned out and high in the garden of love, at this 5 star resort called Eden where no one has any worries— No. If someone is nice to you in the wilderness, it’s cuz they actually really like you.
If someone pays you in the wilderness, it’s because you’re worth it.
In the wilderness…
There are no masks, no layers, no band-aides covering up the truth.
If you are in love with this person— it’s cuz you love them— even after asking them to take out the trash 70K times.
Stuff is real in the wilderness. Your relationships are REAL in the wilderness.
When you were in Time Out, that wasn’t the real you. I can pamper anyone into being the nicest marshmallow on the planet. But in the wilderness, who you really are— finally… after all these years… emerges.
Your ego might be content not knowing your truth. But your soul has been waiting your whole life… to finally… after all these tears… to emerge and be free.
Every time you venture out of your comfort zone and into the wilderness… you are setting your soul free.
