I often refer to the ego as “everybody’s got one”; now our bigger choice and decision in life is what we do with it and how we use it. The ego’s function helps us distinguish between right and wrong and make sense of our world. No human being escapes the challenges of life, as it is the lessons and learnings that make us become conscious and grow us emotionally and spiritually. Some lessons we see coming, others arrive on our doorstep as a complete surprise. All require us to sort through our grief, loss, disappointment, hurt, anger, shame, and jealousy into clarity. When we get too bogged down and stuck in our emotional pain and begin to identify with our negative beliefs without fully releasing them, we are at risk of becoming our story and staying a victim to it. Lightening our load helps free the ego into expansiveness!