Monkey Mind Meet eGoat



A happy eGoat!

 Yes, I'm going where you think I'm going.

What gave it away? 

The title?

My aforementioned quirky sense of humor?

Or the picture of a large, smiling goat? 

Credit for this clever post goes to that 'funny you would 'see' that... this is your intuition speaking' connection. Literally.


Here's the story.

I was coaching a woman through some old beliefs about herself and what was possible. She was dealing with feelings of guilt and shame about her past and we were gently moving through these much like playing with a wiggling tooth that is almost, but not quite ready, to come out.


I asked her to close her eyes and connect with where in her body she noticed the feelings of shame and guilt. As she got quiet and relaxed, this image popped into my mind.  Visual images are my speciality. The scene was at a children's petting zoo and the goats were being fed. Ah, I think, a goat will eat anything, anytime, anywhere. They are not choosy animals about what they are willing to digest. I had a hunch that it represented the energy of guilt and shame and just like the goat, the ego can be fed in much the same way.

I shared the image with her and after we had a good laugh, she experienced the deeper meaning in the message of the outstretched hand. The goat was already being fed. A small handful of food. She saw that she was free not to feed it anything else.  The guilt and the shame were coming from an old, small place and the idea of the goat and its endless appetite shifted her thoughts about what purpose the guilt and shame were serving. This shift gave her a sense of freedom and liberation and this new self felt free and ready to move on. She realized the 'eGoat' would be fed in small ways everyday and she was free to direct the bigger, richer part of her energy and passions elsewhere. She AND her eGoat were very happy.

The idea of the goat and its endless and indiscriminate appetite reminded me of the metaphor of the Monkey Mind. Wikipedia defines Monkey Mind as,  "a Buddhist term meaning "unsettled, restless, capricious, fanciful, inconstant, indecisive, uncontrollable."  The reference to Monkey Mind has appeared in thousands of books and articles on subjects ranging from meditation and mindfulness to psychology and self-help.  It is a phrase that speaks for itself. 

I too felt like the eGoat speaks for itself. 

So, the eGoat - Wikipedia listing might read something like this:   eGoat, from the Latin “ego” meaning sense of ‘conceit’ and the Middle English word “goat” [goht] associated with scapegoat or victim; it is an American term meaning ‘insatiable, rabid, starving, ravenous, voracious, avid, greedy, devouring, unquenchable.”

Monkey Mind meet your new friend eGoat.