I’ll tell you. Meet the Ego Imp. He sits on your shoulder and whispers disempowering things in your ear. And you know what? You don’t have to listen to him. That’s right, you are under no contract, legal or otherwise, to sit there and listen to him ramble on incessantly about how horrible you are and how you’re just going to keep failing. You can shut him down.

“But, Erin, my Ego Imp has a megaphone. For a little guy he sure packs quite a wallop! How am I supposed to shut the little guy up?” Fear not! There are two steps to putting a muzzle on the Ego Imp.

First, you must become aware of when he’s talking to you. Should be obvious right? But it isn’t. The Ego Imp attacks you when your vibration is low, when you feel disconnected from love, when you’ve suffered a setback or emotional blow. And he’s insidious. He sounds like your own mind. He sounds like he’s making perfect sense. He appears to mirror exactly what you think your own self would say.

This is why it’s vital that you become aware of when the Ego Imp is whispering sweet nothings in your ear. You’ll recognize the thoughts because they are always disempowering, and they are not based in fact. The thoughts are based on conjecture alone. Are you REALLY never going to find love? Are you REALLY never going to make it in your chosen profession? No! That’s just speculation. These thoughts are just a conclusion drawn in a disempowering way designed to make you give up, feel bad, and take your ball and go home.

So the first step to stifling that Ego Imp is to become aware of when he’s talking to you. When you realize you’re having the disempowering thoughts, say, “Oh, I see you there, you little bugger. I know you’re whispering at me.” Seriously, that’s half the battle. The Ego Imp thrives on you not noticing when he’s talking to you. So shine a light on his impy ways and let him know that you know he’s there.

Now you’re ready to take him down. Get into position, bend your knees, find your center of gravity, and get ready to rumble! You’re about to do battle with your Ego Imp.

When he says, “You’re never going to find love,” you fire back with a more empowering thought; one that is just as accurate, if not more so. For example, “Oh yeah? I’m willing to wait for the right person and I’m not going to settle.” Score one for you.

Then the Ego Imp might say, “You’re nobody special.” So you counter with, “I’m unique, there’s no one else in the world like me. That right there means I’m special.” Burn! You: 2 Ego Imp: 0

Ego Imp is getting nervous, so he fires with, “You’re worthless. You can’t do anything right. You’re never going to succeed!” He’s sly, but you respond with, “I can think of at least 10 things that I CAN do right, and I will figure out how to put something together that is of value to others and run with it. I can’t be stopped unless I stop myself.”

Ego Imp is sweating now. His bullets are hitting Kevlar. He takes one final stab, “You’re not worthy of love!” Oh, ouch! Right below the belt. Ego Imp has hit a nerve, but you’re still standing and reply triumphantly with, “I was BORN worthy of love and that will never change no matter what happens!”

Game, set and match. Ego Imp slumps to the floor in defeat, waving his white flag in surrender. You’ve just shut down the Ego Imp. He’s completely depleted. He knows that no matter what he says to you, you can ALWAYS find a more empowering thought.

If you want, you can flick Ego Imp off your shoulder. Heck, stomp on him a couple of times if you’re in the mood. Then delete him and go on about your day.

The fact of the matter is that no one, not even yourself, can make you feel bad without your permission. You’re the one that lets the Ego Imp in, and you can escort him out just as easily. Once you do, you make way for more resourceful thoughts. You allow your mind to open to new possibilities. You can make new plans. It’s a good time to listen to your higher self, the one that knows your greatness already, the one that knows what you planned for yourself in this life, and wants to help you get it.

So there you have it… how to shut down the Ego Imp. Next time he clears his throat and gets ready to barrage you with disempowering thoughts you’re going to say, “Pfft, off with you, you little monster. You are not welcome on THIS shoulder!”

Winner and still champion: YOU!

He was highly social, a life-of-the-party kind of guy. He was moderately good looking but not drop dead gorgeous. He carried a little extra weight around his mid-section but was also muscular. He sort of reminded me of a young Captain Kirk.

We often ended up at the same parties, and I continued to watch him move around and interact with people. I wasn’t sure if he ever felt rejected, but if he did, he didn’t show it. So one day some friends and I were over at his house just hanging out and I decided to find out if his confidence was all an act. At the time, I was suffering from social anxiety and really low self-esteem, and I wanted to improve in this area so I figured I would learn from someone who had seemingly mastered it.

Here is roughly how our conversation went:

Erin: Adam, you seem to have really good self-esteem.

Adam: What do you mean?

Erin: Well, I’ve seen you at parties and you just walk up to girls and ask them to dance or ask them out on dates, and even when they say “no” you just keep right on going to the next girl.

Adam: (shrugging) Yeah. Why would I stop just because someone said “no?”

Erin: But don’t you feel rejected? Don’t you wonder why they didn’t want to dance with you or go out with you? Don’t you worry that there’s something wrong with you?

Adam: Ah, I see your problem. Let me explain my philosophy. I approach girls I’m interested in spending time with. If they don’t want to dance or date me, I assume there’s a situation or circumstance on their end that makes my offer unwelcome. I don’t take it personally.

Erin: You mean, you don’t assume it’s because there’s something wrong with you?

Adam: No, there could be a lot of reasons a girl says “no” to me. Maybe she’s tired, she has a boyfriend, she’s busy chatting with her girlfriends and doesn’t want to be bothered, her feet hurt, she doesn’t want to drink, etc. I never assume it’s because there’s anything wrong with ME. In the absence of direct evidence, why would I assume there’s something wrong with ME? The way I look at it, she’s not saying no to ME, she’s saying no to my question. There’s a difference.

Erin: What if she tells you she thinks you’re a troll or ugly or disgusting?

Adam: Then I assume she has a distorted view of reality and I probably wouldn’t want to date her anyway. If she’s that critical and harsh, then I’m glad to have weeded her out before dating her.

Erin: So you never get rejected?

Adam: I get rejected all the time, it just doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I never take it personally. I take it as a sign of incompatibility and move on until I find something I can connect with. I don’t invest my entire sense of self-worth in getting one single girl to go out with me. That would be silly. There’s no way that every girl on the planet will be a match for me. So I’ll keep going until I find someone I connect with who wants to connect with me.

I remember having a huge shift in my thinking after our conversation, and I realized that rejection is about beliefs. You can adopt the belief that if someone rejects you then it means there’s something wrong with you. Or you can adopt the more empowering belief that if someone rejects you then it means they’re rejecting the situation, not you.

In the absence of direct evidence to the contrary, why not assume the rejection was based on circumstance, instead of on you?

What if you adopted the belief that rejection is a blessing? After all, rejection helps you quickly weed out people or circumstances that are not a vibrational match for you. It’s easier to move on when you are not stuck wondering what you need to change in order to get approval from someone with whom you’re not really a match. Check them off your list and move on to the next person or circumstance.

Don’t chase approval. Be who you are, be confident in yourself, and go out and find the people and circumstances that are a match for you!

Answer:  I think everyone goes through periods in their lives when they feel stepped on and emotionally crushed.  Sometimes the emotional pain is worse than any physical pain you can imagine.  I know, I’ve been there myself.  Trying to find happiness, trying to find even a smidgeon of joy, can be difficult, especially if you have low self esteem or otherwise feel powerless.

Find positive thoughts.  What has always worked for me is grasping at the positive, no matter how faint or how far off it may seem.  Find one thought that makes you feel a little tiny bit better.  “Well, at least I have a roof over my head.”  Or, “Well, at least I still have my family.”  Try not to let yourself become overwhelmed with negative feelings or they will bury you in an avalanche of despair from which it’s hard to dig yourself out.  Keep grasping at thoughts that put you in a better position than you initially saw yourself.  Make a list of what you still have that’s important to you or that makes you feel good, safe, or secure.

Connect with loved ones.  Another way to raise your energy is to talk to someone who loves you and cares about you.  Friends and family are excellent at helping you see that you are not alone, and helping you find positive thoughts.  Let them know you need help, and ask them if they will listen to your problem. 

Keep your perspective.  It’s also important to put things into perspective.  Maybe it’s not as bad as you’re imagining.  Compartmentalize your problem so you don’t let it permeate your whole life.  Maybe you lost your job but you have an awesome and supportive wife and 3 great kids who are the light of your life.  Maybe your husband asked you for a divorce but you’ve got great friends and a fantastic career.

Help others.  One of the best ways to raise your energy is to help someone else who is down, troubled, or depressed.  By offering a blessing to another you will feel blessed in return to be able to help someone.  It’s a win-win because the other person gets something that will help them and you begin to feel better and more powerful yourself.

Feel gratitude.  Nothing raises your energy higher than offering prayers of thanks for what you have. 

Learn from the situation.  Your situation may really be quite horrible but what’s worse is to fall into the same trap again.  If you just left an abusive relationship, learn from it and don’t get into another one.  If you just got fired figure out what you really want to be doing and see it as an opportunity to find something better.  If you think low self esteem got you into the situation, work on improving your self esteem.

Don’t beat yourself up.  What you don’t want to do is beat yourself up after someone else has already beaten you up.  That serves no purpose.  If you start hearing thoughts in your head like, “I’m just a stupid-head,” or “I’m a no good rotten person who isn’t worthy of love,” or “Who is going to hire me now?” you just stop those thoughts right out of the gate!  That’s fear talking.  You can’t allow yourself the luxury of a negative thought.  That will anchor your feet under the water and you’ll drown.  Keep your chin up.  If you can’t find a positive thought at least don’t let the negative ones creep in.

Take care of yourself.  Take some time to do something joyful.  See a movie, take a walk, call a good friend, get a spa treatment, dine at your favorite restaurant.  Indulge yourself a little.  Don’t do something destructive like eat 10 bowls of ice cream, but do something to show yourself that you still care.

Sometimes bad things happen.  How you handle it determines the course of your life.  Will you pull through or allow it to bury you?  Find strength in what you still have going for you.  Sometimes life throws us into the raging river.  Whether we sink or swim is up to us.  Keep your chin up and your head above water so you can find your way back to the shore.  Look for help along the way.  It can come from many places.