Letting Go Of Control (Surrender Your Ego)

Are you feeling stressed from constantly trying to control your life and situations around you? Tired of living in your head and wanting more presence? This insightful episode explores how to relax into life's natural flow instead of fighting it. Tiger offers thought-provoking perspectives on releasing control in parenting, relationships and decision making. Whether you're a parent, spiritual seeker or simply wanting more ease in life, this talk provides practical wisdom and food for thought.

Transcript

If you really want that person to see you a certain way,

Good luck being in a space of deep listening.

You're just strategizing on how you can manipulate them to see you a certain way.

It puts us in a state of anxiety that isn't really listening.

It's essentially a state of anxiety that's saying,

Help me put my illusion back together.

Help me control how you see me.

And again,

Super innocent given the conditioning that we have.

Just like playing a game.

It's understandable that you would identify with the game piece.

It's understandable that you would think the points are real,

But the deeper question is,

What's really true?

Do these points really matter?

Is this character piece really you?

If you can see that,

Then the follow-up question of course is,

Okay,

Where can I release a little bit of control here?

Letting go of control,

Surrender your ego.

What was the inspiration for this?

I was on a Zoom call with someone and exploring the practicality of their life and how in some subtle way,

They were constantly trying to keep their life together.

They were trying to constantly have things be in a particular way in all these different areas of their life,

And they were utterly exhausted.

What was very evident was that this attempt to keep everything together,

Although well-intentioned,

It was really about holding on to a particular image they had of themselves and they had of their family and they had of their life overall.

In one regard,

We can look at the busyness of our lives,

The stress and the anxiety and the frustration,

And we can assume that that's all arising because we care.

We're trying to do the best thing,

Trying to take care of people.

We're trying to keep things together,

But we have to kind of ask here,

Is that really what it's about?

I mean,

Because these expressions of suffering,

The stress and anxiety and the tension,

Is that really because we care so much or is that because we are afraid and afraid of losing control,

Which also points to a fear of losing our imaginary sense of self-importance,

Hashtag ego.

And I think that's wise to ask ourselves,

Because I can ask myself that too.

Like,

When I get caught up in frustration,

I can assume that it's because I really want something to work out because I care about it.

But as I unpack it,

It's really quite obvious that this is all revolving around my ego.

And these are not always fun things to see.

I mean,

My goodness,

It's much more fun to believe that I'm suffering because I care so much.

Right?

One of those cute little lies we tell ourselves.

But this is the way it goes with all profound transformation and growth.

It comes by way of encountering pretty dark truths that challenge the lies that we tell ourselves.

Like,

What is this really about?

I know you say it's about XYZ.

But what's really going on?

And somehow this is tying with the topic of letting go of control,

Surrounding your ego,

Which I think we're off to a good start.

You know,

Because big picture here,

Big picture,

Sometimes I like to fantasize dying with regards to imagining that moment when I'm just done and it's over for me.

Maybe right at that point of it being over,

I ask myself,

So what was the big deal,

Right?

It's all gone now.

It's all done.

What was the big deal?

And I can kind of laugh a little bit at the seriousness involved,

How there might have been so much determination to get somewhere that's not really somewhere at all.

Almost as if I didn't realize that this was all just going to disappear at some point.

Isn't that interesting to kind of ponder?

This is all just going to disappear.

Everything you think you're building,

Everything you think you're putting together,

Everything you're holding on to,

Not only is it going to eventually disappear,

But it's going to change,

Right?

No matter what you put together,

We have this fantasy that we're somehow going to create some sort of stability that's unchanging.

And it reminds me of this conversation where,

You know,

We work so hard to organize one aspect of our lives,

And then another one changes,

And now we have to deal with that one.

It's like the Whack-A-Mole game,

Where you're trying to whack all the moles down,

But they keep popping up.

And of course,

If you have the assumption that it's supposed to look a certain way,

If it's supposed to be a certain way,

Then you're in this constant battle with the reality of the Whack-A-Mole game,

Right?

You know,

Maybe that's a fun analogy to look at,

Assuming you know the Whack-A-Mole game.

Now,

Imagine your worth and value is tied up in the game,

Which would be your ego,

Meaning that the results of the game somehow means something about you.

Do you see the difference in the energy when you play the game?

You can assume that if you lose the game,

Then it means you're a failure.

If the Whack-A-Mole moles keep popping up and you can't push them down,

Then somehow it means you're less than.

Things get chaotic.

Things appear unstable.

Things change.

Yet,

On the other hand,

You realize that's supposed to happen as part of the game.

The point of the game is to play the game,

And the game's only possible with the element of instability.

And very naturally and easily,

We can equate this to living life,

Where,

Yes,

In one regard,

It looks like our task is to maybe create some sort of structure or a semblance of stability,

But at the same time,

The other aspect of that game is things are always changing.

And so I wonder if we can view it in a slightly different way that isn't assuming that you're somehow going to win.

Because here's another aspect,

Right?

As you're playing the Whack-A-Mole game,

You can assume that the point of the game is to whack all the moles.

You can assume that that's the point.

But really,

There's a completely different point,

And that point is to engage.

And in the engagement of the game,

Maybe you're developing some skills.

Maybe your dexterity is improving.

Maybe you get to just take up time engaging a game that you have an opportunity to enjoy.

Naturally,

If you don't enjoy that game,

Then you find a different game,

Which has the same sort of parameters,

But maybe it resonates more in a different way,

Which speaks so much to life how we play these games that we don't really want to be playing,

But yet there's so many different variations of games out there.

And then there's the games that you play within the games,

Meaning you can play a serious game,

And then just as easily,

You can switch that to a playful game and still play the same game,

But have a completely different game experience.

As it relates to letting go of control,

This is what I see as the invitation to let go of control.

Relax into the playful nature of it all,

Right?

We can assume that we're supposed to have control,

But that's not the point.

The point is to relax into the game that's being played and see the underlying opportunity there to learn,

Grow,

And play,

Right?

It's like,

It's not the outcome that's the point.

It's the learning,

Growing,

And playing during the process.

See when you're learning,

Growing,

And playing,

At least for me,

I don't see that determination for control.

I see more of a relaxed approach that's open to the game rather than trying to dominate the game.

It's interesting to examine why we might want to dominate the game and see how that just entirely relates to the ego's quest to be important,

The ego's quest to be validated.

It's the example of playing Monopoly.

If we're all sitting around playing Monopoly and someone thinks the money is real,

They're not fun to play with.

Of course,

Thinking the money is real in Monopoly thinks that the points matter.

This paper that they get actually says something about them,

Their worth and value.

And look at how terrified you get when you play a game in that way,

When you think the points are real,

Where the other players turn into enemies,

Where you question their motives.

Are they to get you?

See,

That's all in service to the ego that's trying to use the game as a way of building up your idea of yourself,

Right?

You're looking to use these imaginary points to say something real about you.

And that puts you in such an awkward situation when you're playing the game,

Which is to completely misunderstand the original intent of the game,

Which is really a structure that's designed to allow people to play together,

To share space together,

To experience themselves.

Imagine that you're playing Monopoly and you think you are the character you've chosen in the game,

Whether it's the horseshoe or the train or whatever other options there are.

Can you imagine believing that you are that character?

Imagine you're playing a game and you literally believe that that metal character is you.

And this is the same thing as believing that you are this character in your mind.

The game piece is required because it's one of the parameters of the game,

Which is to say everyone has this element of an ego.

But the question is,

Do you believe that's you?

Do you defend it as if it's you?

Do you protect it like it's you?

Do you want to add points to it as if it matters?

And very clearly you can see that if you do,

You don't enjoy the game.

You're trying to control everything.

And this can show up in such drastic ways in our human lives.

Like in the example,

For the inspiration of this topic,

This person was a parent and this happens so often in parenting,

Where we look to the experience of our children to define our worth and value.

Like if they're struggling,

Then it means the parent is less than.

If they're not doing what they're told,

If they're not doing what other people tell them to do,

If they're not doing good in school,

Then we think it reflects on a parent's worth and value,

Right?

That's collecting points.

Well,

If that's true,

If it's true that this means something about me,

Then I need to control the child to make sure I don't lose points,

Which doesn't put me in a position to deeply listen to the child.

It doesn't put me in a position to be present with the raw reality of the child's experience.

I'm too busy trying to use the child to satisfy my imaginary sense of self-importance.

And there's a beautiful compassion here with regard to that,

Because the conditioning for the parent is to believe that their worth and value is tied up in how they're perceived,

Which relates to how their child is perceived.

And so that becomes the primary objective.

How can I manipulate this experience so people see me a certain way?

It's like having a talk with another human being,

Say a significant other.

And if you really want that person to see you a certain way,

To have certain thoughts about you,

Good luck being in a space of deep listening,

Right?

You're just strategizing on how you can manipulate them to see you a certain way,

Right?

It's serious.

This is in alignment with being afraid of them judging you or being afraid of them not liking you.

It puts us in a state of anxiety that isn't really listening.

It's essentially a state of anxiety that's saying,

Help me put my illusion back together.

Help me control how you see me.

And again,

Super innocent given the conditioning that we have.

But the deeper question is,

Of course,

Well,

What's really true?

Just like playing a game,

It's understandable that you would identify with the game piece.

It's understandable that you would think the points are real.

But the deeper question is,

What's really true?

Do these points really matter?

Is this character piece really you?

And maybe you can see it just a little bit.

The follow-up question,

Of course,

Is,

Okay,

Where can I release a little bit of control here?

Or where can I be honest with myself about how I'm taking this seriously when it's not really serious?

Can I surrender that aspect of the ego?

And I'm not talking about destroying the ego.

I'm not talking about killing the ego.

I'm talking about,

Can I see it more clearly?

Can I see the innocent misunderstanding that's believing these points mean something about me?

It's not that you see that the game isn't real and that the points matter,

So you don't play the game anymore.

You reorient yourself to the game,

Like,

Oh,

Okay,

It's not about that.

It's not about me controlling an outcome.

It's not about me collecting points.

This is really about me just being present as an opportunity to hold space and be with others or if you're playing a game by yourself to learn,

Grow,

And play.

I do like that shift though,

To step out of the seriousness for a moment and ask,

How can I see this in a more playful way?

Can I make this not about me?

How can I see this as an opportunity to learn,

To grow,

And to invite myself into a deeper quality of play?

You know,

Part of what makes games fun is that they're engaging,

Where you do get lost in the game.

That's part of the play of it.

This isn't to insinuate that we should never get lost and that we should never have moments of thinking the game's real.

If anything,

It's just bringing a little bit of balance to it,

To remember.

And then once you remember,

You take a deep breath and then you go back to playing the game,

Which I also feel is the great invitation of spirituality.

The invitation isn't so much that you discover some insight and you automatically become Zen all the time.

No,

It's just a momentary invitation to remember what's actually real and true and then go back to living your human experience.

And then when you get lost,

You come back home and you check in.

What's really going on here?

Oh yeah,

I'm taking this personally.

Oh yeah,

I think the points are real.

And of course,

That's the learning too,

Isn't it?

You engage,

You get lost,

You take a step back and you reflect,

And you learn something.

You know,

It's amazing how,

In one way,

A lot of the learning points back to some form of letting go of control.

It points back to a surrendering of the ego.

I think that this is the real heartwork in our human journey,

Is that we are constantly encountering the rough edges of our ego.

The ways that it hides,

The ways that it pretends,

The ways that it holds on,

The ways that it tries to control.

And then we have an opportunity to look at it compassionately and then remind yourself what's actually true.

And it's an unending process.

There's no end point.

We constantly just see this lesson again and again.

All right,

That was quick.

I think I'm done.

I'm done running my mouth.

You guys got any questions?

We'll wrap up with a guided meditation shortly,

But switching gears for now.

It's extraordinary,

Again,

Looking at my own experience.

It's extraordinary to see how so intimately tied my disturbance is with my ego's fight for survival.

It's important that it's tied to the disturbance because the disturbance tells me I'm not seeing things clearly.

That's one thing I love about how this human thing has been set up.

If I'm emotionally disturbed,

It's inviting me to step back and take a breath and question what it is I think is happening.

How can we care and not care simultaneously?

I like that question.

The way that this is seen from within my experience is that I care about the totality,

But I don't care so much about the imaginary separate parts.

I care about the sacred invitation of the game,

But I don't care about the points.

There's a deeper care for the whole thing.

The ego cares about all the little separate pieces,

The separate pieces it uses to keep its illusion together.

But of course,

Those separate pieces aren't really separate pieces,

Which is why it's so difficult to keep it all together.

And I like the softness of I care,

But I really don't care.

I care how you're doing,

But I also don't care because you're doing how you're doing.

I don't need you to feel a certain way,

Right?

So I don't care in that way.

Maybe it's appropriate for you to be disturbed right now.

Maybe I care about your happy as much as I care about your sad in the way that they're equal.

Maybe I care about your victory equally to care about your struggle.

See,

I care about the whole thing.

It's not putting one end of the polarity on a pedestal.

It's all important.

You know,

A good example of this is caring about both sides of the polarity of victim and aggressor,

Which is also to say having compassion for both sides,

Because of course,

You can't be an aggressor without feeling like a victim and feeling like a victim turns you into an aggressor,

Which is kind of hilarious because we can say,

Oh,

We care so much about the victim,

But yet we don't care about the victim within the aggressor because the aggressor feels like a victim.

And so if you really cared about the victim,

You'd care about both sides.

Wondering in making a decision,

Considering what our soul wants,

Listening to what our mind is guiding,

Is our mind being guided by ego and soul and mind?

Well,

If I understand you correctly,

I would say in some regard that it's the same thing,

But we call them separate separate things to communicate and understand.

The mind and heart work together,

Which for me just points back to a stillness that says just be still and listen to what's really true,

Which is also like saying what's deeply sincere and start there.

It can be kind of chaotic to kind of figure out,

OK,

What is the heart saying and what is the mind saying,

But yet there's stillness where they can kind of melt together.

And this is often made difficult when we assume that there's a right or wrong thing that we should do because that disregards the sincerity of what's real and true within you and looks for external validation in your decision.

The question is what's deeply sincere?

And a very valid answer to that is I don't know if that's the case.

It's OK to not know.

It's valuable to rest in the not knowing if that's what's true.

And then oftentimes we do know,

But it scares us so we can pretend like we don't know.

But really,

We know it's just scary,

Which is often the case.

And that's part of growing,

Growing in our decision making ability is facing the choice that scares us and oftentimes seeing that that's actually the best choice.

And the reason it scares us is because it challenges our ego.

It challenges the illusions that we're hiding behind.

So of course,

That's the growth opportunity to do what honors what's real and true,

Regardless if it jeopardizes the imaginary sense of self-importance.

Yeah,

It's not supposed to be easy.

I think that that's a very interesting assumption.

I think that's partly because in one way it's simple and we think because it's simple,

It should be easy.

But that's not the adventure of life.

The adventure of life is there to challenge you,

Help you move through fears so that you can see there's nothing to fear,

Which is a great opportunity to just come to terms with that.

Like,

Oh,

Maybe this is supposed to be challenging and then find within yourself what we might call a courage that's willing to face that challenge,

Which isn't that the case.

We ultimately get to that point,

Right?

We can hide and hide and hide.

We can avoid and avoid and avoid.

But sooner or later we realize,

Okay,

It's time to go.

It's time to do what scares me.

It's the only option.

And then you learn.

Welcome to this space.

I am officially inviting you to join me for a very short and sweet guided meditation.

Inviting ourselves to let go of control and surrender this adorable ego that constantly fights for survival.

Let's go.

And we just take a moment and allow ourselves to ground in the present moment.

Coming home to right now.

And what I'm going to do,

And I invite you to join me,

Is just take some natural but deep breaths and allow them to invite me into a deeper presence.

And then we'll see what happens from there.

Let's just breathe.

You know what I find fascinating that arises for me in this moment is that all of my attempts to control is really just trying to control the mind.

It's trying to control thoughts and narratives and stories,

Whether it's my own or even trying to control other people's.

It might look like we're trying to control something on the surface,

But I wonder if we can just recognize that to whatever degree that we can.

The ego is in this constant fight to control a particular narrative.

It's like we're trying to manage a life that's lived in the mind and we're completely missing out on the deeper reality.

The opportunity to be present.

The opportunity to connect with the sincerity of what's actually here.

Because when I look at this moment right now,

I ask myself,

What is there to control?

Even the breath happens on its own.

Which is funny because when I want to control the breath,

Then breathing becomes a little bit difficult,

A little bit agitated,

As if it was up to me.

That's silly.

I wonder if this naturalness of the breath,

Where life does it all,

Is not the same with everything else.

We're sure in appearances it might look like it's up to me.

It might look like I'm doing it,

But am I really?

Maybe that can be the invitation for our time together right now.

We can start by letting go of control for the breath and we can surrender any thought,

Any idea that assumes it's up to you in any way.

And maybe even fall into a profound gratitude that life extends such a gift as this,

A breath that's given without asking for anything in return.

Let's relax into that.

Let's go back to this breath and let's watch how as we surrender,

As we let go,

The breath becomes infinitely more effortless.

I wonder if we can extend this invitation to our lives.

I wonder if we can surrender those expectations that say you're the one that has to control everything.

Can we let the breath just return to the breath?

Can we let life return to life?

Can we give people back to themselves?

And maybe in doing so,

We can finally come back to the sincerity of our own hearts.

Because don't you recognize,

And I say so because I see it in my own experience,

We can get so lost with trying to control things that we become so disconnected from ourselves.

It's like we abandon ourselves in the hopes of one day getting everything under control.

How's that going?

Okay,

Well,

We can come back to right now and just start over.

Let's take a few more breaths,

Connecting with some gratitude,

And then we'll go back to the playful opportunity of our lives.

Okay.

Thank you for taking this time to just be with me.

Cheers.

Reviews

Thank you

Wow really deep. The choice of words you used to make us listeners understand your message was excellent. That really helped.
Thank you so much🤍

Love love love this! 🙏💝💕. So much so that I’m going to list to it again. So many amazing things to consider.

Thank you Tiger, can’t wait to come to your next retreat 🥳💝💕💫🥰

Thanks tiger. Lots to reflect on here. Since my husband died, I am acutely aware of we don’t take any stuff with us. I loved what you said about how you think about dying and did any of those things you tried to control or worry about matter. so profound and truthful and a good way to see if I’m limiting my life in anyway

Thank you for the reminders that we can safely let go and have gratitude that life is and will take care of us! Beautiful.