Confidence is
Confidence is accepting being human.
Confidence is owning your imperfections without shame.
It’s feeling okay being seen making mistakes.
That’s why people love following someone who shares the ups and downs of their journey. Because it’s human. BECAUSE it’s imperfect. Because it’s not telling half-truths, because it’s open not small and fearful.
Life can be wild and messy and raw if you’re not playing it too safe or even if you are.
Judgment
When you’re unconscious, judgment feels like relief—it vents your discomfort and pins it on someone else.
But with awareness, it feels toxic, like a hangover.
I’ve had to step back from judgment-heavy relationships. Now I’m practicing staying present without absorbing it, and I feel visceral relief with people who are also working on calling out their own bullshit.
I recommend this book
Lean in
I’m leaning into all the tendencies that society and others have made me feel are wrong. I’m:
taking my time doing the inner work that can be seen as “unproductive” or “stagnant” from the outside
making a bunch of blog posts on some days and none other days [ I think we have falsely made “showing up every day” a moral standard when applied to our productive output ]
living by seasons [ again not demanding a constant stream of output every day ]
not wearing a style guide like a straitjacket, freely following whatever feels good moment to moment
not over-believing in the concept that everything has to take time, realizing the power of energy and intention to enter the place where time doesn’t exist (flow state)
I don’t think these things are actually very rebellious–they feel quite natural, but leaning into them in our society feels very uncomfortable and contrarian.
Hell is…
feeling victimized, blaming others, taking things personally → you’re hostage to others
not trusting anyone → you isolate and call it safety
not trusting yourself → you outsource your power
not being present → life is happening but you’re not really there or engaged
trying to control things you can’t → you get frustrated with no way out
paralyzing / avoidance-causing perfectionism → ego-driven fear disguised as standards (or as Liz Gilbert described, “I think perfectionism is just fear in fancy shoes and a mink coat, pretending to be elegant when actually it's just terrified. Because underneath that shiny veneer, perfectionism is nothing more that a deep existential angst that says, again and again, 'I am not good enough and I will never be good enough.”)
The ego
Our two operating systems, according to ChatGPT:
Ego
Survival software.
Built from your conditioning, fears, desires, and need for identity.
Obsessed with safety, status, control, and comparison.
Narrates your life constantly, and tends to believe it is you.
Not “bad”—you need it to navigate the world, but it’s limited and reactive.
Higher Self
The observer behind the thoughts.
Doesn’t need validation or control; it knows.
Moves from intuition, creativity, love, connection.
Feels expansive, timeless, and grounded at once.
It doesn’t collapse when circumstances shift—it holds perspective.
One is a lens, the other is the sky. The trick isn’t to kill the ego (that’s impossible and would make you dysfunctional) but to see it, use it as a tool, and let the higher self steer.
Your ego is like wearing sunglasses. The tint changes how you see things—sometimes useful (protects your eyes, sharpens focus), but it’s not the whole picture. If you forget you’re wearing them, you mistake the filter for reality.
Your higher self is the actual sky. Wide, spacious, unbothered by clouds, storms, or the fact you’re wearing glasses. It holds everything without losing its nature.
Now, about “killing the ego”: people sometimes think awakening means ego-death, but in practice that would be like trying to drive a car with no steering wheel. The ego organizes your identity, keeps you safe crossing the street, pays your bills, helps you say “I am Kia.” Without it, you’d just be floating awareness, useless in 3D life.
The skill is:
See the lens (notice when your ego is running the show: fear, defensiveness, image-management).
Remember the sky (drop back into presence, compassion, intuition).
Use the lens on purpose (ego as a tool: negotiating rent, editing your bio, setting boundaries).
Let the sky steer (higher self decides direction: what feels aligned, expansive, true).
Keeping in mind the ego is survival software, being free from the ego looks like:
Responding instead of reacting.
Knowing your worth without needing approval.
Letting go of what you can’t control.
Feeling deeply without losing yourself.
Creating, speaking, living from the heart.
Enjoying life without measuring or comparing.
The ego is still there—it just stops running the show.
Criticism
“People judge what challenges their worldview. And their reaction is more about them regulating or not regulating their own emotions, than about who you are or what you do.
Criticism reveals way more about them than about you.”
It is vulnerable and brave to share your first steps of a journey. It is not something everyone is willing to do. So your freedom to show up imperfectly may trigger people who want to, but are blocked by perfectionistic tendencies. Their discomfort/envy might get projected onto you as criticism. The ones who are trying to police you police themselves.
Take what’s useful, leave the rest, and keep showing up imperfectly.
