Welcome to an absolute gem of an episode – lucky number 11 – on the Boldly Authentic podcast. Our awesome host, Cynthia Fontaine, is about to take you on a wild ride into the fascinating world of egos and those oh-so-familiar family patterns. But guess what? She's not playing by the rules; she's here to shake things up and get you thinking! So, imagine this: Cynthia's not telling you to tame that ego beast we all have; nope, she's suggesting something wilder. Picture yourself sitting down with your ego for a heart-to-heart chat. Yup, you read that right! Cynthia's all about understanding that ego of yours, both its dazzling bright side and its intriguing shadowy side. Hold onto your hats, because things are about to get intense! Ever thought about what happens when you hide parts of your life away? Cynthia's got the lowdown – those hidden bits? They gather power in the shadows, just waiting for the right moment to spring up. And wait till you hear about our brain's sneaky negativity bias! But fear not, Cynthia's got a trick up her sleeve to flip your perspective upside down. Okay, here's where it gets real. If you've been in an epic battle with your ego, Cynthia's here to pump you up. She's waving the flag, encouraging you to face that ego head-on. It's like a showdown in the Wild West, but with personal growth vibes. Cynthia's got a strategy: start that conversation with your ego, don't hold back. It's a journey toward embracing the good side of that ego of yours, and boy, is it gonna be a ride! Cynthia Fontaine isn't just talking the talk; she's walking the walk of self-discovery and personal development. Authenticity isn't just a word for her; it's a whole lifestyle. Get ready for a mind-blowing adventure where you'll uncover your true self and dive into a life that's as bold and authentic as it gets. The magic ingredients? Self-understanding, growth, and a pinch of Cynthia's unapologetic spirit. Buckle up, because you're about to charge into a future that's uniquely, brilliantly YOU!
This podcast is intended for educational and entertainment purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional, medical or any other type of advice. Have you found yourself asking, how did I get here in my life? And what happened to the magic and the life that I dreamed of? I have been there, and I was determined to figure out how I got there. I'm Cynthia Fontaine, and I searched in many areas of personal development, consciousness, personality profiles, healing, and more to find the secrets to getting my magic back and living my life on purpose, boldly and authentic. And now I am going to share those secrets with you. Welcome to boldly authentic the podcast. This is episode eleven of the first season, and in the previous episode, I talked a lot about family patterns, threads that run through our families, our birth families, as well as our families of upbringing. I shared with you some stories about my own family and how with my grandfather, girls weren't good enough in his eyes. So if you missed that, I would love for you to go back and check that out. We're going to talk about ego, how we take things personally. We're going to talk a little bit about boundaries and how to work through or overcome the patterns that you may have learned through your family. So over the years, and more recently especially, we've heard a lot of talk about ego taming the ego, getting above the ego, going beyond the ego, becoming enlightened where the ego needs to go, sit in the corner. I have a little different perspective than some of today's thought leaders on the ego. Most of those leaders teach that you have to transcend the ego. Well, that's one approach. It's not particularly the approach that I subscribe to. My approach is rather than transcending the ego, I like to go have a conversation with the ego. I like to work with the ego. I like to say, hey, what's up with you today? When my ego might happen to be on the shadow side of things? Because the ego, like everything else in the world, has a shadow side of it, and it has the light side of it. So when teachers say we have to transcend the ego, basically what they're saying is, you want to push that shadow side of the ego into the corner in the closet, close the door, don't let it see daylight again. That's not with every thought leader out there, but it is common in the new age, if you will. It's sort of a common pattern that you might see. I like a different approach. I like to open the closet door, turn the light on, say, hey ego, come on out of the closet. Let's have a conversation. When we go back to the last episode, talking about family patterns and how things repeat, there may be a lot of those family patterns stuck in that ego of yours, just like in mine. The definition of ego from dictionary is the eye or self of any person, a person, as thinking, feeling and willing and distinguishing itself from others and from the objects of its thought. Is ego good or bad? That is the question, the age old question. What are some of the shadow sides of ego? Well, some of the shadow sides is we may feel that we are victims and have a victim mentality. Being a victim of having a victim mentality is different than being victimized. So for example, in my own life I experienced trigger alert being held hostage at gunpoint. Now, was I a victim? Some people might think that, well, I was a person who was victimized by somebody else who had a maniac, addict, maniac ego who thought that that would be fun wasn't actually my idea of fun. I was with two of my other friends at the time and this person who we were sort of friends with, we weren't really that close, but it was somebody that we had known for a while that we would see out all the time. Got together with two of his friends and they took each one of us in separate rooms and held each of us at gunpoint in separate rooms and thought it was going to be a fun thing to do, not fun. Was that ego? Yeah, definitely. Because they all got charge. They got a charge out of doing something that terrified the three of us. So that's a case of ego in the shadow. Now, I could have taken that experience and gone deep into victimization. I could have locked myself in the house and never come out again. I could have felt unsafe in the world and I could have even profiled people of a certain race or heritage because these particular three men were particular heritage or lineage. But I didn't do that. I didn't do that. I decided that no, my life was important. And so I went and reported these people. Unfortunately, by the time the police went to the apartment, the whole apartment was cleared out. Furniture, everything gone. Never to be seen or heard from those three men again, which was a good thing. But they weren't caught either, which was maybe not such a good thing. Hopefully in the last 30 years they haven't terrorized other women doing the same thing in the world. So that's a pretty extreme example of the shadow side of the ego. Of course, there's all different layers of shadow and there's all different layers of light. And when you have the color black, you have the color white and then they meet in the middle and you get gray and there's all different variations of the shade of gray going down to the shade of black and there's all different variations of the color gray as you move down to the color white. Just as with the ego of the shadow side and the light side of the ego. Anything in your life that you take and try to hide, try to stuff away, will gain more power, if you will, and eventually is going to bust out of that closet because we all have a shadow side and we all have a light side. Sadly, in the world at the moment, we're seeing a lot of shadow. We're seeing a lot of example of ego in the dark side of the ego. So how do we deal with that when that comes up within ourselves or comes up in those around us for ourselves? One technique that I like to use, I became certified in a process called the envision process. And one aspect or element of the envision process is doing goblin work. I really like to give a name and a face to that ego voice. That voice in my mind, that is often negative, right? Because the ego in the shadow side tends to have a negative connotation. It's that voice that's whispering in your ear and sometimes yelling in your ear, you're not good enough. You're not pretty enough. You're not this, you're not that. Why are you doing that? You're never going to succeed. So it can be that voice in your head. Another aspect of ego can also be that you're a proud peacock and you start your stuff and you're the best. Where we all know these people. We've seen them at the gym. They're there showing off. And of course, not everybody in the gym is there showing off. But that's a good example because if you've gone to the gym, you probably have experienced somebody there who's showing off a little bit. Now, are there people who are at the gym who are serious about having the best body they can be? Not egotistically? Sure, there are friends with a bodybuilder who's phenomenal. He's a phenomenal individual and totally not in his ego about it. But his mission is to help other people have the most healthiest life they can have through bodybuilding. He's also a vegan, a vegetarian, and he uses his platform to share that, to inspire people. That's a case where you take somebody who strives for being the best they can be in the light side of the ego, if you will, to help other people in the world. And then you have the people who are at the gym who are there to pump up their ego. And then you have all people that are there in between all the different colors and shades of gray, in between the very darkest shadow side of the ego and the very lightest side of the ego. So do you see how I am blending together the ego with the shadow side and the light side, where a lot of thought leaders out there separate the ego out and there. It's a bad thing. Bad, bad ego, bad. Down. Get in that corner. Shut that closet door. I like to open the closet door, bring that ego out and say, let's be friends. What is it that is triggering you? What's bothering you? Why are you doing things that way in the world at this particular time? Going back to my experience with my grandfather and always seeking his approval and never really getting it, that's the ego on the shadow side. Once I became strong enough and confident enough within myself, I didn't need that approval anymore. So I didn't work at getting that approval. There is a fine line between seeking approval there can be, and for doing things for all the right reasons and still seeking approval. And when you just take one step, I'm going to say to the right of the line of approval, seeking to the opposite side, where maybe you were seeking approval, but when you step onto that other side of the line, you are doing it because you wanted to really, truly bring joy to somebody in the world. And that's when the ego steps out of the shadow and steps into the light. Now, if I had painted that garage door solely because honestly, it looked like crap and I just wanted it to look better and I wanted to bring my grandfather happiness, having the garage door all nice and newly freshly painted, then I would have been on that light side of the ego. I would have stepped over that line. But I was seeking his approval, so I was still on the opposite side of that line of the ego. Now, was it a bad thing? Well, did it hurt anybody? No. Did it help me in the future start to understand the importance of autonomy, the importance of not needing other people's approval to have value in the world? Yeah, at the time I didn't see that or understand that, but I certainly do now. And I often will say to clients who maybe are in a situation where their ego steps in, where maybe their feelings are hurt in some situation, I may step in and suggest that they just shift their point of view. They shift their perspective just a little tiny bit. They step over that line to the right and see things in a different perspective. And even though nothing changes about the situation, their perspective had changed and so everything changes. I haven't talked about the profiles in a while, and I want to tie the ego, particularly the shadow side of the ego, into the personality profiles. When we look at the personality profiles, the people that we see in the world that are the worst examples, they do the most horrendous and heinous things in the world to hurt other people. That's the deepest shadow side of the ego. It's also the deepest shadow side of the charismatic leader in the profile system that I'm trained in, which is the Reese Method, the charismatic leader, of course, like everything in the world, because there has to be balance also has a light side of it. And in the light side of the charismatic leader, we see the people who are the philanthropists, we see the people who are making a difference in the world, who are adding positive things to the world, who are helping others. That's the light side of the charismatic leader. Now, the charismatic leader isn't the only profile who has shadow side and light side, who can do bad things and do good things as well. Each profile has that built within it. But the charismatic leader is the profile that we see the most in society when we think about the people in history who have created such horror and terror in the world. Now, it would be wonderful if we could just have the light side of things on this planet. If everything could be roses and butterflies and rainbows, it would be so wonderful. But that's not how we're wired or it's not how the human brain is wired. The human brain is wired to be negatively biased and so we often look for the shadow side of things or the negative side of things first. When we stay in that energy, when we stay always looking for the negative side of things, when we look for the shadow, when we're looking for the things that are wrong, then we're in the shadow side of that. Ego when we can then flip that and we still look at the harder side of life, but we look at it through a different lens. Maybe if you have worn glasses or wear glasses, you know, if you put on somebody else's glasses, you can't see a darn thing. Or maybe if you take off your glasses, you can't see a darn thing. Now, if you've never worn glasses, you can use sunglasses. An example, you put on a Sunglass with a blue lens, you're going to see things differently in the world. When you put on a Sunglass with a gray lens, you're going to see things differently in the world. You put them on with a brown lens, you're going to see things differently in the world. So the glasses that we put on in the world come from all of the training that we've had through our lives, from birth to the present point that we are in. When we want to see things differently, all we need to do is change the glasses and that will change our perspective. Now, I wish it were as easy as changing the glasses, whether it's a prescription lens or the color sunglasses that you're wearing, but it's not all that easy. It does take some work and it takes some commitment to rewire or repattern the training that we've had. Chances are, since you're listening to this podcast, you probably are already on a path to open up to different understanding within yourself and of the world. With all the many, many programs that are out there, sometimes it can be hard to choose where to begin. One of the things that I did in healing school was a course on conscious communication that really was a wonderful thing for me. And it tied into a course that I had taken many, many years ago when my daughter was only six months old. And it was a parenting course where that was the first time that I understood that I came from a critical family, critical thinking family. And so I had that thread in my life where I had that critical thinking and I would come across very critically and still sometimes I can still fall into that pattern. And then the conscious communication course took that to another level of understanding. When we learned to listen to actually hear the other person rather than listening to respond to the other person, it makes a huge difference in relationships and also in our communication when we learn how to listen really to the other person and what they're saying, rather than listen to the person so that we can then create a response when we listen in that way. That's an ego response. That's crafting and thinking about, oh, how am I going to respond to this? Especially if it's something that we might not like what the other person has to say. Then you're more apt to go into the ego, into the shadow side of things. And an interesting thing that you can do is you can even draw a scale. Get your markers out or get your crayons out. Crayons are probably the better thing because you can get like 128 crayons and there'll be all different shades of gray. But you can sort of create a scale palette of the colors. Black on one side, white on the other, and then find your way up on each side so you get to the color gray. That's sort of like the neutral point, the midway point, and see where you are on. This color scale so that you can utilize it to check in with yourself and say, oh, what level of the scale am I on in this situation? So then you'll have the opportunity of having the awareness of where you are on the egoic scale and the opportunity then to change it and go into a different part of the scale, if you so choose. I encourage you to check in with yourself when you are having a conversation with anybody. It can be a conversation that is not life shattering or life changing with any big decisions that have to be made. It might be a conversation with your letter carrier, right? Notice are you really listening to what they're saying? And by listening, you use all of your senses, not just your ears. You use your feeling sense, your intuition sense. You open up your senses to the other person so that you get a full spectrum experience, if you will, to what that person is sharing, and then respond. You will respond. I guarantee in a very different way than when you just listen to the information that's coming towards you so that you can respond to whatever the conversation is. Now, when you can take this tool, this technique into the relationships that matter the most in your life, you will see real changes in the relationships. You will find that your relationships really improve on a deep level and that even the most difficult relationships can heal on some levels when you come to a conversation in this way. Now, when both people come to the conversation using conscious communication, then even better, even better. There are those people in the world who get negative pleasure out of stirring things up. There are people in the world who get enjoyment out of chaos. There are people in the world whose egos, the shadow side of the ego, are filled with pleasure by chaos and negativity. Now, will those people change in a lifetime? Who knows? Some of them will. A lot of them won't. So how do we move forward in our own lives if you might be surrounded by some of those type of people? Well, one thing you might do is step out of that relationship. For some of you, you might need to grow into that idea, that thought that you may be best served serving yourself by stepping out of a difficult family relationship that may be terrifying for you. And so you have to grow into that idea, if you will, of stepping out of that difficult family relationship. And sometimes it's necessary to do that for your own well being, your mental well being, your emotional well being to step out of some difficult relationships whether it's family or whether it's a chosen relationship. There was part of myself in my younger years who was afraid to do that, who was afraid to step out of a relationship that was unhealthy because I felt somehow that the relationship was going to shift, that I just needed to give the other person time and they would get more healthy or choose better things. And that was detrimental to myself for a long time where I stayed in relationships for too long both in my marriage and with some family members. But I had to grow into the whole idea of being okay with stepping out of those relationships. And it took time to heal. It took time to heal for myself where I felt like in some cases that I failed because and I failed those people in my life. Today my reality is very different. Today my understanding and my knowing and my truth and my reality is that every single person in my life has their own journey and I have to let them have their own journey, whatever that looks like. Even if it's a dark road, even if they're on the dark side of the ego, in the shadow side, even if they're in addiction. I can only do what I can do and then I have to live my own life, that's a big deal. That was a big deal for me because I came in knowing that I was meant to help people in the world, and I thought it had to start with my family. But there are a number of people in my family who aren't interested in breaking addiction, who aren't interested in learning healthy ways to build relationships. And so I didn't have to. I chose to step out of those relationships for my own well being and for the future well being of every relationship in my life. Every client that I work with, every person who buys my book or listens to my podcast or comes to my clubhouse or takes a course with me, I had to choose to step out of those relationships so I could get healthy, so I could learn new ways of being, so I could learn new healthier patterns that my family didn't have. Now, if I then took the attitude or the thought that, well, I've stepped out of these family patterns and I've done the work so that I can be mentally more healthy and stable than some of those people in my family, and took it to the perspective that, well, I'm better than they are, because look what I could do. That's ego on a lower level and a lower vibration. When you are able to take what you've done and celebrate and say thank you by the grace of the divine, I have been able to learn and create a different life for myself. Through the grace of the divine, thank you. Thank you for showing me a different way, for shining the light and I can have compassion and empathy for those people in my family who are still struggling with those old family patterns. A good gauge or marker for you might be one that has been really meaningful for me in my life is I know when I have made that shift from feeling bad for the people in my life or the family members in my life who are in those old patterns. And I've stopped trying to show them a different way where I've just now I live my life. And I don't want to say I lead, for example, for them, because I'm not leading for example by example for them. I'm stepping into my life for me and for all of those who choose to be around me. So one of the things that have been really helpful for me gauges that have been helpful for me to know when I have crossed that threshold, stepped to the other side of that ego is when I can just sit and hold space for those family members and just allow them to be where they are and hold space and have compassion and have a heart for them. And there have been several times in my life where some of those family members have come back and we have a beautiful relationship now. We talk, we share things, and it brings so much joy to my heart that is so immense, I can't even describe or put into words how grateful I am for those relationships to have healed. So if you have been struggling with ego transcending, your ego, wondering, how the heck do I do this? How do I reach Enlightenment? I encourage you to open the closet door, turn on the light, let your ego out of the dark corner and have a conversation with your ego. Give it a name and a face. Talk to it as if it's another person in the room. Give it some airspace. Ask, what are you afraid of? What are you afraid of? How are you protecting me? Or how have you protect me? How do you think you have helped me? Those are really great questions for you to ask your ego. So I encourage you today to shift your perspective. Bring ego into balance. The shadow and the light know that they both have value in some ways. Now, the egotistical part of the ego, does it have value? Well, yeah, maybe it's showing you how you don't want to be. So there's value. This and that are true in the shadow and in the light. Open the door, turn on the light. Embrace the shadow side of the ego and start to work with it. Transcend that ladder. Work up the color scale from the darkest side of the ego up to the benevolent side of the ego. And when you turn on the light switch and then have conversations, build a relationship, because the shadow side of the ego is fear. It's afraid, right? It's shame. It's doubt. It's all those negative things that you may have been brought up in your life or that you may have experienced or, you know, people that have that's the shadow side of the ego. So let's have a conversation with that part. Let's have a conversation and say, what are you afraid of? What is that voice within you? What do you need? What do you want? And this leans a little bit into inner child work. So that is a wrap for today. I think we've gone pretty deep into the subject of the ego, the light side and the shadow side of it, the dark side. Thanks so much for listening in. Wherever you are listening in the world, I love and appreciate you so much, because without you, there's no point of me being here. So thanks again, and I will see you all somewhere in the universe, hopefully somewhere soon. Come on into clubhouse. Download the clubhouse app if you haven't already done that. Love you all so very much. Be kind to yourself and be kind to someone else today in the world, make a difference. You have to make a difference sometimes in somebody else's life before you can make a difference in yours. But I love you. I appreciate you and I will see you somewhere in the universe. Bye for now.
Speaker B: This podcast was produced by Alchemy of The Earth, Inc. Producer Elise Spizak, media Relations LJ rank director Ryan Fontaine and sound engineer David Breton. Please subscribe to Patreon.com Boldlyauthentic for exclusive membership bonuses.