Welcome to the Buddhist Boot Camp Podcast. Our intention is to awaken, enlighten, enrich, and inspire a simple and uncomplicated life. Discover the benefits of mindful living with your host, Timber Hawkeye.

A few years ago, my friend Carrie went through what she calls a spiritual awakening. She started meditating, she added yoga to her daily routine,

she made healthier dietary choices, she broke her pattern of abusive relationships,

and she even got a new job.

Within a few months, she felt better.

She was motivated by purpose and conviction and she told everyone about it, even people

who never asked and didn't want to know.

Her lectures annoyed many strangers.

She lost a few friends and she got on her family's last nerve when she acted superior to everyone. To be honest, being

around her became a bit much, but I am all too familiar with that part of the

journey so I knew she would eventually simmer down.

She initially felt alone, then confused, and recently, finally, at peace.

You see, over Thanksgiving, Carrie's brother came to dinner with his new girlfriend Michelle, who kept talking about chakra, zodiac, terror cards, and crystals, pushing her beliefs on everyone at the dining table without ever being asked.

For the first hour, Carrie found Michelle extremely triggering.

It felt like ego masked as spirituality, she later told me,

until she remembered what I had written in the opposite of Namaste.

The ego and me sees the ego in you.

Suddenly all of Carrie's judgment of Michelle melted into compassion, and Carrie finally understood what she herself had done for so many years.

She vowed to stop right there and then and she actually enjoyed the rest of Thanksgiving,

even when Michelle went on very

interesting tensions about her beliefs, religion, and astrology. All Carrie had to do

was remove judgment by recognizing her own ego in another. That which we don't like about

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