01/09/2025
Sometimes people ask me how to tell the difference between your higher self and your ego.
Here’s your clue…. your ego is loud.
It wants control. It reacts fast, wants to be right, and is usually fueled by fear or the need for validation. The ego is tied into the Default Mode Network (DMN) of the brain. It’s the part of our brains that runs on autopilot, narrates our life stories, and keeps looping the same old patterns if you don’t step outside of it. Loops feel tight, urgent, repetitive. Spirals feel open, patient, forward-moving.
Ego wants the loop. It keeps you circling in old patterns, because loops feel familiar, safe, predictable. That’s the ego’s job…. survival, not expansion. Neuroscience agrees the DMN is wired to repeat, narrate, and keep you stuck in story.
Another very important aspect comes from a purely evolutionary standpoint, the “ego” (DMN) is a survival tool. It clicks on to conserve energy and nutrients when we aren’t actively “thinking”.
Our “higher self” invites the spiral. It nudges you toward gradual evolution. Each turn builds on the last, leading to growth, new perspective, and expansion beyond what the ego thinks it knows.
When we come from our higher selves, we do not feel rushed. It feels quieter, more grounded, more expansive. It doesn’t panic or scramble. It’s the voice that says “wait” when your ego is screaming “do it now.”
To simplify, it feels like clarity rather than noise.
The higher self doesn’t fight the ego, it sits above the noise with a wider perspective. The more we recognize the DMN at work (those looping, ego-driven thought patterns), the easier it gets to step out of the story and into higher alignment. (This is why practices like journaling and meditation are so impactful).
Your ego will always have something to say. But your higher self? That’s where truth and freedom live.
And here’s the key, “doing the work” isn’t about killing or overcoming the ego. The ego is part of your biology.
It will always exist.
The work is about integrating the ego, then noticing when you’re stuck in a loop… and choosing the spiral