Is That My Intuition or My Ego Talking?

Kathryn Harwig

I know that a lot of people struggle with the question, How can I distinguish the voice of my intuition from the voice of my ego? I like the way that Kathryn Harwig, a friend of mine who’s an author and psychic, provides an excellent analysis of that issue in this essay from her website. With Kathryn’s permission, I’m sharing it here.

INTUITION VERSUS SELF TALK

Recently someone asked me, “How do I know if the information I am getting is coming from my intuition or from my own self talk?” This is a very good question, and one that everyone who is serious about being intuitive needs to ask on occasion. It is a challenge to be intuitive about yourself and most of us find that it is far easier to give someone else a psychic reading than to give ourselves good intuitive advice.

Why? Because our own hopes, dreams, worries and fears tend to get in the way of our hearing our inner psychic, at least when we are asking for information for ourselves. Many people solve this dilemma, at least in part, by consulting with other psychics. But, we also want and need to use our intuition to make our own lives better. So, it is necessary, I think, to be able to distinguish the voice of our inner self talk and the quiet voice of our intuitive wisdom.

I attended a talk once where the speaker said that our unconscious mind was unable to hear the word

Only By Loving Do We Wake to Love

Hugh Prather

I find it interesting that those who profess to be spiritually awake are often just as asleep at the wheel as people who don’t have a clue that they don’t have a clue about life. Spirituality encourages direct contact with God; yet, without a disciplined commitment to self-awareness, seekers on the road to truth may miss the turn for humility and veer off toward arrogance.

I came across a thought-provoking essay by Hugh Prather about this phenomenon. Hugh discusses the role of the ego as it relates to the spiritual path in the context of the A Course in Miracles teachings. But his observations apply to spirituality in general. Here are some excerpts:

The day you started your spiritual path, your ego started it also, and for every spiritual motive you have, there is an ego motive as well. This is not reason to be afraid, but it is reason to be more aware.

Those individuals we know intimately who we believe are close to being awake, seem to have no interest in

Like Two Golden Birds

Detachment is a natural consequence of spiritual advancement; it cannot be hurried along or forced.

The sages call that man wise whose pursuits are all without selfish plan or longings for results, and whose activities are purified by the fire of wisdom.
Bhagavad Gita 4:19

Allow your ego to rule your mind and detachment will remain a mystery. Allow your

You Are the Dance

Your capacity to be fully present expands dramatically when you stop identifying yourself as a time-bound human being separate from others, and start experiencing life as a timeless spiritual being at one with all creation.

There are three words that convey the secret of the art of living, the secret of all success and happiness: One With Life. Being one with life is being one with Now. You then realize that you don’t live your life, but life lives you. Life is the dancer, and you are the dance.
Eckhart Tolle

It is your intuition that is your lifeline to Spirit, to the ever-alert, ever-present observer within you. Deepak Chopra describes this “observer in the

Blame Yourself

Are you miserable and discouraged with life? Did it ever occur to you that the problem might not be with life but with you? Or that you might be able to turn things completely around just by reframing whatever it is you’re dealing with?

If your everyday life seems poor, don’t blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches.
Rainer Maria Rilke

For example, if people are treating you poorly, this could be your opportunity to experience the transcendent power of

A Rich and Wonderful Reward!

In an earlier post about trying to resist yielding to my ego in social situations, I wrote:

It’s helpful to remind myself that the person I’m talking to is as much a child of God as I am. Focusing on their inner divinity snaps me out of my self-absorbed mindset and naturally produces feelings of empathy, compassion, and love.

While waiting for a routine blood draw today in a medical office, I decided to swat my ego away, take the initiative and transform the way I interact with people. Here was my two-part plan:

1) Go to my heart, so I could come from a loving place instead of from an intellectual point of view.
2) Silently say to the person in front of me, “Look how

When Peace Becomes Your Dearest Friend

You know you have made a quantum leap in consciousness when you look back at the life you had so recently led, and feel like you are watching somebody else’s life.

Only in growth, reform, and change, paradoxically enough, is true security to be found.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh

As self-awareness grows, your mind and heart are purified. As your heart opens and your mind clears, you

Chaotic Inner Life = Chaotic Outer Life

How you relate to the outer world is a reflection of your inner world. A chaotic inner life manifests as a chaotic outer life. Tragically, many people get so absorbed in the demands of daily life that they lose touch with themselves. They focus exclusively on what they can do instead of who they can be. They hitch their wagon to ego, unaware that Spirit walks patiently beside them.

When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Single-mindedly focusing on what you can do, achieve, and acquire, all the while ignoring your soul’s yearning for deeper connection with the Source of all that is, is a

What Is Good, What Is Right, What Is Helpful

The more grounded and peaceful you become, the easier it will be to distinguish your intuition from your ego.

Spiritual truth, then, is universally true and without variation through time or place. It always brings peace, harmony, accord, love, compassion, and mercy. Truth can be identified by these qualities. All else is the invention of the ego.
Dr. David R. Hawkins

Let your guard down and your ego will

Leaving the City of Your Comfort

The purity of your conscience is compromised to the extent that it is influenced by your ego. A pure conscience asks, What is the right thing to do? A conscience ruled by ego asks, Will doing the right thing prevent me from getting what I want?

You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. . . . What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover

Seven Steps to Better Relationships

Are you getting along with people as well as you’d like to? Or do you often find yourself at odds with friends, family and even strangers? Well, if you find it difficult to get on the same page with people, the problem is probably you, not them. Look at all your relationships; you’re the common denominator. Here are seven steps for bringing more peace and harmony to your relationships.

LIVE MORE CONSCIOUSLY
Start watching your thoughts as if they were someone else’s. Doing this allows you to “step out from behind your eyes” and serve as a conscious witness to your own life. You may find that your view of objective reality was neither objective nor real.

ESCAPE FROM “PLANET ME”
Recognize that your perceptions are uniquely yours, that the world you live in has a population of one. Unfortunately, the people

Touching a Moment of Pure Love

Our attempts to love unconditionally are often sabotaged by our ego. Why? The ego’s dominance depends on the belief that we are separate from God. And what is God? Unconditional love. The nearer we get to God, the more desperate our ego becomes.

The reason that ego and love are not compatible comes down to this: you cannot take your ego into the unknown, where love wants to lead. If you follow love, your life will become uncertain, and the ego craves certainty.
Deepak Chopra

Human love is limited, divine love is limitless. When you draw solely on your own reservoir of love, you risk

Dying at the Right Moment

As you progress on your spiritual path and the ego’s power diminishes, so too does the fear of death, both consciously and unconsciously.

Everyone is so afraid of death, but the real sufis just laugh: nothing tyrannizes their hearts. What strikes the oyster shell does not damage the pearl.
Rumi

At the body’s final breath, the God-illumined soul discards its

Walking With God and Wrestling With the Devil

The more you empty yourself of ego and your own self-importance, the more room there is for spirit. But beware: Your ego is programmed for self-preservation. Back your ego into a corner and it can slither out like a seductive snake, shrewdly tempting you back toward the sense pleasures of the material world and away from the soul pleasures of the spiritual path.

A whole person is one who both has walked with God and wrestled with the devil.
Carl Jung

The wise spiritual aspirant discerns the difference between self-destructive pleasures and those earthly delights that inspire our spirit to soar to greater heights of exaltation.

I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure.
Eric Liddell
Olympic Gold medalist portrayed in the film Chariots of Fire

The ego is the devil on

When Ego Becomes a Servant of the Soul

One challenge in walking a spiritual path is maintaining the right balance of ego and spirit so that spirit is firmly in command, like a parent lovingly guiding a child. Like a child, your ego is motivated by the need for attention, validation, and independence.

There is a point where destiny and chaos walk hand in hand, when ego and soul force become one, when your ego becomes a servant of the soul.
Caroline Myss

Train your ego to cooperate, rather than compete, with spirit, and your ego will feel less of a need to judge, control, and dominate. As long as your ego

Doorway to the Divine

When you identify with ego, with individuality, separateness, and scarcity, you see yourself as naked and vulnerable in an unfriendly world. Transcend your ego, and you discover that behind every perceived separation from spirit is a doorway to the divine.

Two prisoners whose cells adjoin communicate with each other by knocking on the wall. The wall is the thing which separates them but is also their means of communication. It is the same with us and God. Every separation is a link.
Simone Weil

Lose yourself in ego and you unconsciously act selfishly. Lose yourself in spirit and you consciously act selflessly.

Once you get hold of selflessness, you’ll be dragged