I thought I was further along

I sat across from someone, going off on the same loop I’ve watched for years. Same reaction, same words, the exact same emotional charge.

The first thought that arose:

You have no idea what you truly are, and it makes me so sad you don’t see it.

I want to be honest about that thought, because it arrived dressed as compassion. It felt like love & like I was seeing them more clearly than they could see themselves.

Then I caught myself.

From my own experience, and from watching others move through the process of becoming aware, there are two things the ego reaches for first:

1. Nobody else understands your new perspective.

2. They’re all asleep.

This is incredibly common, especially in the beginning. You dance between awareness and ego (it’s just what humans naturally do) so the ego needs something to identify with. That’s its JOB. The ego essentially means “who you think you are.”

And “who you think you are” is very happy to become the one who woke up.

Five years ago, during meditation, I experienced oneness. & my life changed forever, because I’d touched something so altering I could never deny it again. Any weight of separation I’d been holding onto dissolved.

Aaaand then eventually, as we all do, I came back into the mind. Back into the experience of separation.

And the mind immediately started building a NEW story about the new me:

“we are all one infinite being”

“stripped down, everything is rooted in the unconditional”

“I’m aware of this and they’re not, I need to tell them”

So there it was. Number one. My conversations started to feel unrelatable. There was this depth I’d touched and nobody around me got it, and people checked out if I tried to talk about it. It felt frustrating, and a little lonely.

But there’s a loop I stuck my own self into:

What I was projecting onto a person was a reflection of what was inside me. The ego in disguise, now playing the role of the “spiritually awakened person.”

I was projecting separation onto them. Assuming the soul behind their eyes wasn’t made of the same energy mine was.

Which brings me to number two. They’re all asleep.

But what if there is no further along?

There’s no hierarchy at all, actually. That’s also something made up in the mind.

We are all human, and we all dance between awareness and separation. Period.

The judgement IS what puts YOU back into separation.

Two things changed my entire world:

1. Recognizing this was even happening.

2. Looking people in the eyes as if they already knew they were one with God, the universe, everything. Instead of assuming they didn’t.

Because if we are all one (which I do believe we are) then this reality is an illusion of separation, and behind it, in the unseen, we are one connected being.

When you look into someone’s eyes and speak to them understanding that you’re truly just looking at yourself... at another version of you living out a reality on this rock floating in space... a wave of peace fills the air. You’re no longer looking from the mind’s judgment. You’re holding them to a different vibration.

Or should I say, you’re holding yourself to a different vibration.

And that produces a whole different interaction. A whole different reality to then experience.

Now, I’m still human, obviously. I get caught back in the mind, the ego, the emotions in the body, and boom. Separation hits once again.

This is normal, and I no longer shame myself for it. When I notice, I bring my awareness back. That’s all there is to it.

So I sat back down at that table.

Same person, same loop & words I could have recited along with them. Kept the old script going, playing into the same thing.

And nothing about it changed, they kept going & the same story kept circling.

What changed was that I stopped waiting for them to finish so I could fix or save them. I looked at them and let them be exactly what they already are, which is exactly what I am.

That’s the whole practice, no need to overcomplicate it. No need to be a perfect guru who stays in awareness forever.