Change is inevitable, as is our ego's drive to prevent it.  If you have ever attempted positive change, whether it be a shift out of a repeated negative behavior pattern or even in gaining a promotion at work, then I suspect that you have also endured ego's chatter and debate.

  Activation of our personal lie is ego's primary method of preventing change.  This activation creates the first-round volley of thoughts, including perceptions of inadequacy, fears that we will fail, and even a "need" to protect ourselves from imaginary threats.  These concerns however are simply a product of our past conditioning; they aren't themselves real, they are just old movies on a rerun, designed to prevent change.

  Enlightenment then, from within this context, is about shedding the weight of ego's mechanisms that keep us "safe" and apparently unchanging.  In fact, when we are stressed by our thoughts, we can feel that we have the "weight of the world" on our shoulders.  And when we release or let go of those patterns, we "lighten up" in more ways than one.

  First, we immediately feel lighter, literally.  The weight is lifted off of our shoulders (or head, back, etc.).  This experience is one expansion; we feel both relief and a sense that our "blinders" have opened up - we begin to notice more information from our environment.

  Secondly, we begin to take ourselves lightly, meaning that the level of importance (or seriousness) we attach to ourself begins to diminish.  It becomes easier to empathise with others and easier to share.  Our connections to others, and to life itself, become more valuable than objects (which cannot "love us back").

  But that is only round one.

  In round two, after we have recognized the change or shift, ego references the past in an attempt to prove that we have made mistakes.  You see, we always make our highest choices based upon all of the information that we have available.  Looking back at old choices that we've made, it is very easy to judge them as incorrect now that we have more information.

  EXAMPLE:

  If using our rear-view mirrors reveals a past non-optimum choice, that is proof that we have changed.  It is also proof that we have grown and won't make the same poor choice again.  That is because we always make the best possible choices for ourselves based on the information that we have.  Now, with new information, we will continue to make better choices.  It truly is that simple.

  Consider this:  if we look back at choices we've made in life and determine that we were always "right" based on our current point-of-view, that is evidence that we haven't learned any new information.  We are actually sentencing ourselves to making the same choices again, keeping our lives apparently unchanging and "safe".  This perception, of being "right" in the past, is an indication that ego is affecting our free will through the use of blinders.  If we can see mistakes in the past however, that is an indication that we have grown and now have better information.

  Release of our personal lie (and blinders) reclaims the free will that had been masked, and gives us an opportunity to reevaluate our past.  This examination of past poor decisions however, is ego's attempt to reactivate our personal lie.  This "round two" struggle is simply ego's upgraded, subtle strategy to prevent the change we are experiencing by highlighting (and focusing on) our past ignorance.

  If we begin to judge our past ignorance, we will reactivate our personal lie and lose the expanded perception we gained when we released our blinders.

  Surviving the test of ego's round-two punch then simply requires acknowledging that our current perception of past ignorance is proof that we have grown, "lightened up" and are now making better choices based on a greater range of perceptions.  Vigilance in maintaining this personal acknowledgment will eventually bring ego into alignment, allowing for dissipation of the personal lie and for an ever-increasing range of perceptions.