I was a selfish, insecure asshole.I mean by most people's standards I was a pretty nice guy. I appeared confident and had great friendships. I thrived while being the life of the party or the funniest guy in the room. I was always very good to women, from my perspective anyway. But my insecurities made me selfish and cold at times. I was the kind of friend that would go out of his way to help. But I always kept score. I never let anyone slip. If they were having a bad moment or day and took it out on me, I would never cut them slack. I always knew how to cut people down in the worst way. My closest friends may have known my insecurities, my tendencies to lose my temper, or my inability to take a joke while also knowing my expertise at dishing them out. I had body insecurities my entire life, never feeling like clothes were made for me, glancing at my arms, my legs, my collar bones, checking myself in the mirror or dressing to accent my body image rather than dressing for comfort. This insecurity and self-shaming, was masked by a better physique, but that energy just gets transferred to something else if it isn't understood and healed. In my professional life I grew emotionally attached to all of my endeavors, which would mean that I would turn things into a sitcom drama if they did not go well. I was righteous and virtuous, but I was out of control. Not always. But if I got angry or felt slighted or stepped on or used, if I felt like people were talking behind my back or planning without me or didn't like me or didn't want me or didn't need to include me in everything, the emotional response to that would dictate all of my thoughts, all of my actions, and the very way I carried myself for days. I lost sleep. I fought. I always made sure that the emotion had a voice. And I truly felt real. I knew that I was the realest person in the room. I KNEW with conviction. And I couldn't have been more wrong. My self-awareness was a mask I was hiding behind.When my life started to spiral out of control, when I was having regular panic symptoms, constant anxiety, PTSD, insomnia... when it seemed like every relationship in my life was repeating the exact same patterns, people using me, people not knowing me fully, not seeing me, misunderstanding me, when it seemed like I was always being taken advantage of, never achieving recognition for the worthiness I believed I carried, I was ready to die. I knew I was cursed. But then I realized it was time to do some reflecting. I was the common denominator in all of these situations. I began to understand on a very experiential level that my thoughts and my feelings were on autopilot. I had autoresponses, auto-conversation-starters, auto-feelings, and this predictability began to seem quite painful. I realized that I could not control the way that I felt about things, but also that the way that I felt only came from the way that I experienced life in the past. That I had opinions, beliefs, responses, perspectives, judgments, labels, and triggers that appeared to be ingrained in me, but I realized that they were programmed.The way that I felt, my energy, my happiness, all came from a program. And this program was superficial to this SELF that I began to realize that I am.My diagnoses, my predispositions, my beliefs, my thoughts, my dreams, my very path in life and every choice I had made up until this point, had all been some strange skewed and narrow path created from a program we call the ego. I began to separate myself from the ego, and as I did I could see just how everyone else around me was being controlled by theirs. I could see how their thoughts were completely dictated by the feeling that they had moments before. I could tell that their thoughts and choices were often being control by a story they had been telling themselves that day, or week, or year or even their entire lives. And as I kept separating myself from this program, I realized just how deep this rabbit hole could go for someone seeking the truth.I began to meditate, reflect, and introspect much more heavily and from a place without an agenda to preserve, but to discover at all costs.I researched like a madman and continue to do so. The unconscious and subconscious mind are like an endless labyrinth riddled with unseen walls of "self"-preserving responses, ideas and beliefs that will make it extremely difficult for anyone trying to understand WHY they do what they do. In understanding "the way" we exist from one moment to the next, research of olfactory senses reveal that feelings of love are related to the antibodies that exist in the blood of our mates, that pheromones in the air with determine attraction and decision making...I realized my consciousness was like a child, walking through life with expectations and understandings that exist within invisible boundaries. My consciousness was intelligent, good, helpful, strong, and useful, but it was limited, controlled by fear and preservation, loved with conditions, judged with assumptions, and was terrified of being challenged. My consciousness had only existed through the perspective of these preconditioned programs. I was the ego.If one look from a passerby, if a phone call, a memory, a brief interaction or altercation, if traffic or a sales quota or a poor night's sleep could cause me to act differently, think differently, treat myself and those around me differently, how in control of me was I? Who was I really? And ultimately, I asked myself, WHY was I defining myself with so many limitations??This I who I believed myself to be was simply an array of responses dictated by a machine whose only objective was to preserve itself. And this machine needed some serious reprogramming. I no longer wanted to preserve any part of me that was causing suffering in my life. I wanted to feel better, be better, and have a better life. I wanted to see just how good I could have it, and in turn, I wanted to see just how good I could give to others.As I kept separating myself from the ego, from these self-defeating, self-sabotaging, manipulative, fearful, and defensive programs, a sense of love for my neighbors began to cultivate in my heart. A deeper sense of understanding in all situations arose. The moral obligations, ideas of justice and vengeance, knowings of right and wrong, all began to lose their rigid definitions. Understanding seeded the tree of unconditional love that disintegrated the very fabric I had always judged life on.And as I began to see the entire world around me as love and innocence, the clarity in my mind and heart opened me up to an entirely new way of life. This way has helped me connect with so many in ways I never thought possible. It has helped me to nourish the relationships I still had left, but also to love through and heal from every transgression, every trauma and every negative experience I was given and those that I had caused.Now, I am not Jesus Christ. But I understand how he did what he did. I am not the Buddha, but I know him well. Who I am is a wonderfully beautiful fusion between the Khail who is responsible for everything good and bad in his life, the Khail who is actively growing and working to better love himself and his neighbors, combined with the very essence that flows through everything that ever was and ever will be. You and I are both the human and the cosmic, conscious force that creates, destroys and exists as the universe.Now, confidence and security are warm and powerful knowings deep within my soul.Now, purpose is clear.Now, integrity is directed toward my values and met with unwavering resolve.Now, my connection to the divinity that flows within and around each of us is so clearly recognized, it only requires a breath or two to realize its pounding heartbeat beneath my feet.Now, I am fully responsible for everything in my life, and I have the opportunity to be the best version of myself without any chance of confusing myself back into selfishness, ideas of scarcity, needs to dominate or prove to anyone else, or any insecurity.Now, I am 100% free from any imprisonment, oppression, manipulation or any other fabrication of what may appear to be control.Now, I am, and I will never be anything but I am.And now that I have seen the truth, I cannot unsee it. I will focus every bit of my conscious awareness toward fine-tuning this Khail vessel, for my own valued experience, curiosity and enjoyment, but also so that I may share my experiences with my fellow brothers and sisters, so that I may nourish their purpose and greatness, so that I may be a ladder to climb on, a stone to stand on, and rock to hoist themselves up to their truest selves.And when you realize you are all of this, that you have always been and could never be anything but this, and when you know it on a deep level, we, together will change the world.