We Need To Talk - My Story: Ego & The Gap Between Knowing and Doing

📌Timestamps: - Ego & The Gap Between Knowing & Doing

00:00 - Introduction & Setting the Stage

• Opening thoughts on Ego - The Gap between Knowing & Doing 

01:30 - The Two Conversations

• Conversation with Swami Anand Swatantra “ Ego”
• Hart-to-Heart talks with Alice about vulnerability & trauma
• What triggered me to make this episode

02:37 - My TBI Survivor's Unique Perspective

• Learning everything twice: before and after injury
• How trauma changes the relationship between knowing and doing
• The universe as my patient teacher

04:41 - Before the Injury: The Control Illusion

• Believing I could work and think through everything
• The analytical approach to life
• How trauma stripped away these illusions

05:43 - Doing Mind vs. Thinking Mind

• Accessing different parts of my consciousness
• Introduction to Buddhi - Intuitive intelligence
• How my Thinking mind demands guarantees vs my Doing mind learns through action

06:55 - Relearning Trust in my Doing Mind

• Post-injury experiences with body memory
• When hands remember what the mind forgot
• The Intelligence that exists beyond analytical mind

08:08 - Ego's Temporal Prison

• Eckhart Tolle's teaching on ego and the present moment
• Ego's past and future
• Personal experience rebuilding sense of self
• Trapped between regret and anxiety

10:08 - Practice of my Presence Ritual

• Karma yoga “The path of selfless action”
• Relearning basic functions after my TBI
• What problem exists in the Now

12:08 - TBI Teaching: When Survival Becomes an Awakening

• The messy reality of Trauma recovery
• Two years on the couch as my safety zone
• Gabor Maté's teaching on Ego preferring familiar pain over growth

14:36 - The Moment of Realisation

• Difference between Thinking, Trying, and Doing
• The Magic of instant feedback
• Why “Trying" to me means setting myself up to Fail

16:36 - My Daily Practice of Defiance

• Standing up to my ego-mind
• Action over Analysing
• My 60-minute journey to the fence
• Breaking down the timeline of recovery

18:38 - Two States: Doing and Not Doing

• Eliminating "trying" as middle ground
• "I did it, just didn't succeed this time"
• The Action of doing itself is Success, regardless the outcome

19:43 - When Soul Gets Edged Out

• Deepak Chopra and “Edging God Out"
• Post-injury disconnection from self
• Waking up in a stranger’s life and body
• Feeling like a ghost in my own existence

22:28 - Being Erased from the Self

• How Ego edged Me out
• Reconnection to the self and the Universe
• You are NOT your thoughts

24:10 - The Space Between Stimulus and Response

• Rebuilding the pause that trauma collapses
• The Trauma Sensitive Yoga training insights
• Creating conditions for choice to emerge

26:14 - Trauma Sensitive Yoga’s Invitation

• Inviting Awareness through the Body
• The Radical possibility of choice
• The space where agency lives
• Relearning the sensations of the body

28:15 - What my Brain Injury and Old Trauma Stole from me 

• I am NOT My Reactions, I am NOT My Pain
• It’s My Choice of what comes Next

• The space where healing lives

30:17 - My Truth about Trusting my Doing Mind

• Emotions still gets scrambled
• Practice of stepping back from all the confusion
• It’s Not about Control over the Mind
• The Ego Voice wants to keep you Small

33:57 - The Real Question about Knowing & Doing

• Are You willing to do the Next Right Thing?
• Staying Awake and Aware to Receive Answers 
• Invitation to take Action from a place of NOT Knowing
• Be willing to start taking the next step

36:06 - Three Perspectives on Ego

• Tolle's: Dysfunctional relationship with present
• Chopra's: E.G.O. as Edging God Out
• Maté's: Trauma Informed protective mechanism of Ego

38:14 - Closing Wisdom

• The When of Tolle, The What of Chopra andThe Why of Maté
• The Beauty of Rebuilding  my sense of self 
• Ego is not my enemy anymore

40:59 - Namaste & Sign-off

• Short answer to the question from Alice!
• Keep dancing in the rain like nobody is watching

Disclaimer: I'm not a medical professional

These are all my experience as I live with my TBI