I don’t usually notice when I enter the desert.
There’s no threshold or borderline, just a subtle shift in perception. Things become charged. Disproportionate.
A forgotten dish on the desk.
A missed text I should have seen.
A Costco rotisserie chicken that didn’t make it home.
And suddenly, I am no longer in reality. I am in ego narrative.
The desert is a place your ego takes you to when it has to tell you something. But it does not deal in facts. It deals in meaning.
And the ego… imprecise, persuasive, tireless, like a toddler, really…
is always ready to supply ALL of the meaning.
A dish is not a dish. It is intention.
He saw it.
He knows what you’ve asked.
He left it there anyway as a message (and this is delicate because I don’t think this word for word in my head. But in retrospect, I may as well have done.)
What was neutral becomes personal.
What was forgetfulness becomes defiance.
And this is where it turns. I have a choice to fall into that temptation of the desert narrative or not.
When my son walks in the door,
I do I correct a behavior? Or…
Do I respond to a narrative?
If I do, I punish him not only for the dish—
but for the insult I have already decided it represents.
A gesture he never made.
A message he never sent.
But one I have fully integrated in my psyche without even realizing it.
This is what it means to be in ego.
You are no longer responding to what is happening.
You are responding to what you have concluded is happening.
And the conclusion feels indistinguishable from truth if we’re not aware of the temptations our egos are inclined to fall into when we’re in its desert.
The same distortion turns inward too.
How could I do that?
I should have known better.
This, again?!
It presents as accountability. Humility. It is not.
It is pride. In reverse. Go with me here.
If someone came to me upset about a mistake, I would have nothing but compassion for them. However, turn it around and *I* am the one that made the mistake, I tear myself apart.
Because if everyone else is permitted to be human—
fallible, iterative, unfinished—
but I am not,
then I have quietly placed myself outside the human condition.
Not beneath it.
Above it.
The desert is not concerned with direction.
Only with separation.
Above.
Below.
Apart.
And once I am separate, everything becomes evidence.
My husband comes home from Costco.
No rotisserie chicken. That is the event.
But the mind does not stay with events. It constructs identity.
What kind of man doesn’t bring home a rotisserie chicken? *I* always get a rotisserie chicken when *I* go to Costco. It’s such an easy dinner. Doesn’t he care about dinner?
What does that say about him? About us?
In moments, I have moved from observation
to indictment.
Not what he did but the temptation to take what he did and use it to attack who he is.
The ego is not interested in accuracy.
It is interested in coherence.
It will gather fragments, reinterpret history,
and assemble a narrative that confirms its premise:
I am alone in this.
And yet—
beneath the distortion, there is often something real.
Not the story.
But the feeling that recruited the story.
If I am willing…
Not to believe the desert,
and also Not to silence it—
but to walk into it without falling into the temptation of attaching to the narrative—
A message begins to surface. Not loudly sometimes. Not dramatically sometimes.
But honestly.
It was never about the chicken.
It was that he’s been distant.
Not unkind. Not neglectful. Just… elsewhere.
Work has been heavier.
Conversations shorter.
Connection thinner.
I noticed it—
but only in passing.
I never stopped long enough to name it.
So the ego did. Poorly.
It translated distance into rejection.
Silence into disregard.
A missing chicken into proof.
And then it handed me a story strong enough to react to.
This is the moment that matters.
Not the spiral.
Not the correction after.
But the pause. The pause to resist.
If I can stay here—
without turning it into me against him…
without turning it into what is wrong with me for reacting like this…
something else becomes available.
I can listen.
The way you listen to a child on a playground
who is crying hard enough that the story is only half-coherent.
You know there are other perspectives.
You know the narrative isn’t precise.
But that’s not the point.
The feeling is real.
That hurt.
I miss him.
I feel a little alone.
Nothing dramatic.
Nothing accusatory.
Nothing that requires a courtroom.
And from here—
something can actually be done.
Not punishment.
Not withdrawal.
Not self-condemnation disguised as reflection.
But response.
Clean. Direct. Human.
“I feel like we’ve been a little disconnected lately.”
Not: You never think about us.
Not: I’m too sensitive.
Just the truth—
before the ego got involved.
This is what the desert was holding.
Not the story.
The signal.
But I only hear it
if I can walk into the storm
without becoming it.
If I can listen
without attaching, defending, or collapsing.
If I can let the ego speak—
without letting it decide.
Because when I fall into the temptations—
the personalization,
the indictment,
the self-judgment afterward—
I don’t just suffer unnecessarily.
I lose the message entirely.
And then the desert was just… sand.
But when I can stay—
curious,
steady,
compassionate—
even toward the most irrational parts of myself—
something very quiet and very true comes through.
Not a story.
A need.
And that—
finally—
is something real enough
to respond to. Or else it keeps trying to get your attention.
How long can I resist the temptation of the narrative? Maybe the longer I can resist, the more messages I’ll receive. And the more clarity I’ll have so I can address my adorable toddler ego’s needs without burning my house down. I love the metaphoric idea of 40 days in the desert with all these ego-ic narratives coming at you from all directions and your job is to observe and stoically note the information without falling for the toddler tantrum. It sounds way harder than temptations of the flesh.
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