The fear-based ego always wants more. Forever searching for more of this and that; quantity is its driving motivation.
We often feel that we need and want more of something, especially something “good”. I put the word good here in quotation marks because often what we deem to be good for us can also be harmful, and too much of anything can be harmful to us.
It all comes down to what we are pursuing and why. What are its origins: From our authentic self, or our false, fearful adapted self, based on societal expectations, beliefs instilled in us during our upbringing or anything else ego readily latches onto for security and certainty.
When we are forever seeking and trying to make the good times last we end up in a vicious cycle which is actually anti-life. We spend our lives on a constant treadmill, always chasing what we firmly believe we need. Or, what we see others have and think we need that too.
In Women Who Run With The Wolves, Dr. Estès talks about the ego as "a creature of appetite", which is "more concerned with fulfilling its own hungers."
Whereas soul seems to want the opposite. Here less is more, with quality and richness of experience taking priority. Something which will deeply quench our thirst for life, filled with meaning, purpose and love. Quality truly prevails over quantity as far as the soul is concerned.
And when we can get in touch with our own soul it’s as if we can turn off the tap of the ego at last and cease our endless cravings and false needs. It comes as a blissful relief when we finally do so as we realise that we were needlessly putting ourselves through pointless torturous seeking.
I wrote in my book The Horse Leads the Way that quality must prevail over quantity in terms of how we approach our scared work with horses and people. To help people pause and reflect on why they are doing what they do, what their motivations are and how they are practising. To encourage people to come more into horse time and the horse’s way; to slow down and focus on the quality of the process, rather than always on the end result, or purely business and financial goals.
I think this mantra applies to all areas of our lives if we stop and think about it. Whatever our ego is in pursuit of and which makes us forever hungry, dissatisfied and anxious is surely not what is truly in our best interests. But rather serves only the false God of pursuit for the sake of pursuit; the never ending need for more, more, more, and an empty fruitless longing which does nothing to really feed us in the deepest most meaningful way; at the soul level.
Yet when we start to listen to our soul and feed her, all aspects of our life naturally expand, and paradoxically, when we cease our endless searching we receive far more than we could have ever dreamed or imagined possible. Just as the horses teach us time and again.
© Angela Dunning
Image by Annabell Gsoedl, licensed via Shutterstock.
Reference:
1) Clarissa Pinkola Estès, Women Who Run With The Wolves, Ch 9: 'Homing: Returning to Oneself', p.270.
2) Angela Dunning, 'The Horse Leads the Way: Honoring the True Role of the Horse in Equine Facilitated Practice', Part II, p. 139.