Ego Works in Mysterious Ways: Thankfully, Heart Shoots Straight!

This will be a short episode in my development of The Fellowship of the Heart. One of the major changes I am making is having the awakening of Eric and Anne Lafarnge happen in different ways and in a disparate time frame.

Why? One reason is my editor’s response about these characters. Another is my own: I want to show how Ego can work in different, equally effective ways in protecting us from the ‘risky’ communications of Heart. Since one of my primary purposes with my novel is to help readers discover core Self, it may be beneficial in illustrating at least a few different paths to sloughing off the work of Ego and evolving into self-awakening.

Eric Lafarnge’s heart has him at a place of feeling that lack of fulfillment, a soul emptiness, and his ego fights against that, reminding him of ambitions to be a partner in a law firm and the advantages of power. This is reinforced by his own wife when Anne’s ego encourages her enthusiasm in advancing to a powerful position as a woman in a male-dominated arena. However, her heart, too, has been whispering, and although she has not recognized it, two of her employees have seen it.

Paths to awakening can be as unique as each of us are. The principle, however, of ego always working towards conformity and acceptance within the parameters of socially acceptable behaviors and positions happens to all of us. In Anne’s case — at least at the beginning — she sees the ‘game’ as attractive and compelling. Eric, though, is analyzing the ‘game’ at his law firm and is beginning to see the futility and emptiness of it. This husband and wife experience internal conflict in their respective challenges and external conflict between themselves.

The following excerpt from my new Chapter 2 reveals her entrance into the ‘game’ of corporate politics as well as the conflict between her and Eric.
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Anne bent down and picked up the pen she had dropped. “Okay, Paul. Obviously, I want the position. I hope to, I want to win.”

“Okay, Anne, if you want to, consider what I’m about to say as mentoring. None of these guys who would be your associates would ever ‘hope to’ anything. They see what they want and get it at any cost. Any cost. Do you understand?” Paul wouldn’t move until Anne locked eyes with him.

“Whatever needs to be done, Paul.” She stiffened. I’m defining it right now. “But know this, I’m not on the verge of this to be pushed around by fear of a bunch of guys. If any of them have anything else to say, they come to me. You are the only one, Paul, who commands me anything. Tell them that, Paul, if there is any more ‘talk.’”

Paul nodded. “Now, you’ve got it.”

He pushed himself sharply from the chair and left just as briskly as he came in.

Anne got up from her chair, closed the door, and pumped her fist in the air. “It’s mine. I know it. He would never have spoken to me like that. He’s too smooth to tip his hand like that if he didn’t know.”

By the next morning, Anne had the confirmations she wanted from both Kathryn Frank and Edward Sampson. Her elation at orchestrating a team, one that she considered a power team, was short-lived. She had begun to contact Eric over her Holocom, but before the connection went through, she cut it short. He really doesn’t care.
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In Chapter 1, Eric has serious doubts and questions and begins to be abhorred by the emptiness of the egoic world that consumes individuals, leaving them broken. Anne, on the other hand, is entering the game of politics enthusiastically, looking up to her boss, who is a master manipulator and controller. Eric’s seeming lethargy about ambition creates tension with Anne.

​Both responses to playing games with others’ lives are works of Ego. The nagging questions are the work of the heart.

This is why I will always, no matter my age or years in these truths, need to counsel with my heart, need to stay in a daily fellowship of the heart. What about you?