YOUR LOST EGO: Finding it can give you strength to live your truth

Sometimes, you need to lose your ego to find your truth. But other times, you need to find your ego to have the strength to live your truth.

When I was 22 years old, I got a call from my boyfriend telling me to pack my bags and meet him at his entrepreneurs’ retreat on Necker Island, aka Sir Richard Branson’s private island in the British Virgin Islands.

You should know that Richard Branson is my absolute idol. Not only is he one of the most prolific living entrepreneurs in the world, the founder of the Virgin brand (Virgin Records, Virgin Mobile, the Virgin airlines) who now controls more than 400 companies in the Virgin Group, but he’s also down-to-earth, adventurous, a philanthropist and a cool dude in the sea of greedy, power-hungry mega-entrepreneurs of our day.

I knew for months that my boyfriend was going to be on this trip for seven days, and of course I wanted to go. He’d tried, unsuccessfully, to pull strings to get me there earlier. But once he was there, he happened to mention me to just the right person, and she made it happen. I was elated! Not only was I going to Richard Branson’s private island, but I was going to get to sit with him at the dinner table!

When I arrived at the tiny airport of the British Virgin Islands, it was the middle of the night and pitch black. I boarded a small speedboat, and off we went, blazing into the abyss of the sea. I was exactly where I needed to be, so free, so wild, so connected to the magic of life.

The boat took me to Branson’s catamaran, the largest ever built. I thanked the man who had picked me up, then I boarded the catamaran and crawled into bed with my boyfriend.

The next morning, I was introduced to the other guests. Little did I know that one of them would change my life. Over breakfast and a latte, I met her. Her name was Lindsay.

I didn’t have to pretend

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As we began to talk, I immediately felt accepted and at home—even though I was as far from home as I could imagine, in the middle of the Caribbean, on Richard Branson’s boat, surrounded by the bluest waters I’d ever seen, with turtles swimming by. It was surreal, and I did my best to pretend that I deserved to be a part of it. But with Lindsay, I felt like I didn’t have to pretend.

She told me that she was the only woman on the trip who wasn’t a partner of one of the men; they’d all subsidized her trip because she was such a lovely addition to the group. She was breathtakingly beautiful, with piercing blue eyes and the most adorable auburn freckles. Blonde, beachy-wavy hair, perfect teeth, full, naturally rosy lips, a gorgeous figure and a warmth that made me feel like I was important and loved. Her smile was simple and pure.

I couldn’t help guessing more about her. I imagined she was about 35, led a wildly privileged life, was über-successful and had everything handed to her. Surely, I thought, she’s already had sex with at least one of the men here to earn her way. (Such was my thinking in those days.) Isn’t it amazing what we can make up about someone before we know them?

She told me that she’d just returned from a mission to India, where she’d raised money for a reusable water bottle project and had hand-delivered water bottles to kids at an orphanage. She’d flown directly from India to Necker Island with one suitcase. I was impressed.

I asked her what had inspired her to do such a thing. She said she lived for philanthropy. She’d already been on dozens of trips to the most poverty-stricken parts of the world in an effort to make a difference. She explained that she grew up with a Mom addicted to meth and other hard drugs; her mother was homeless. She never wanted kids to feel rejection the way that she had.

She also told me that she was 22! She was exactly my age and already had three businesses. One of them was her blog, livemorehappy.com. She’d left college to travel the world alone and learn about new cultures.

I was smitten. How had a woman my age already done so much? She was raw and roughed up by life, but yet she was a humanitarian. She had trauma and pain like I did, and yet look at what she had made of her life! We were instant friends. I remember saying to her: “You’re an absolute miracle. You need to tell your story!”

No ego?

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Over the next few years, we collaborated in several ways. She spoke multiple times at the live Inner Goddess Unleashed Summit events I hosted in San Diego. She became a part of my early coaching program, the beginning of my women’s work and entrepreneurship circles.

She took me to the Door of Faith Orphanage in Mexico, where she’d fundraised to throw the orphanage a party with a bounce house, piñatas, cakes and art projects, and brought thousands of dollars’ worth of supplies with her.

I watched her start the nature reserve program on Necker Island and have casual text convos with Sir Richard. I watched her work alongside other top global entrepreneurs and CEOs. I watched her soar in her career with LMH Promotions and enjoy the most exclusive invites, like artist passes to Coachella.

And yet the strangest thing about Lindsay was that she seemed to have no ego at all. There was no sense of accomplishment, no pride, no arrogance. She didn’t appear to know how beautiful she was or how much of an impact she was making. It was almost like she didn’t quite believe she existed. For all her gorgeousness and all she’d done for others, it was as if when she looked in the mirror, she saw nothing there.

Through the years, we developed a deep friendship. I knew what it felt like to have the world think you’re amazing and successful but to feel empty and broken on the inside. I knew what it felt like to be judged as a ditzy blonde and to have to prove your intelligence and value.

When I self-published an earlier version of this book in 2015, I asked her to be a partner in my launch. On June 1, 2016, she wrote this about it on her blog, a post she called “Empowered, Sexy & Flawed”:

My dear friend Jolie Dawn just featured me as an “Empowered, Sexy & Free” woman in her book re-launch. It feels inauthentic when I look at it because I have not felt any of those things lately. Who am I to be featured? How fitting, though, that Jolie was one of the key people who pushed me to begin writing more openly and honestly. So here I am, challenging myself to share myself, to once again feel empowered and free.

It’s been very hard to write lately.

I take that back.

It’s been very hard to share lately.

Not only because I have been so busy with my new project, a renovation of a rundown beach house in Baja into a vacation rental, but for many reasons. My spirit has felt broken. I feel like I have suffered some serious losses lately.

I lost my passion project business, Givebackpackers, to a lovestruck, obsessive computer programmer that stole the company by creating a competing website with the same name, to force me to work with him.

I’ve been harassed by this “friend” who wanted more than friendship for months now, causing me to fear for my safety and my security.

I lost my boyfriend of a year because of his health issues and have felt like I am constantly defending our mutual decision to people who just don’t understand how “love just wasn’t enough.”

I lost a lot more money than I anticipated on this Mexico house, discovering that everything from the floors, kitchen, and windows to the plumbing and electrical needed to be completely replaced before even beginning to furnish [it].

Besides just money, I have lost time and faith. I’ve hired people who stole from me and who took advantage of my kindness.

I was unable to get the support of the neighbourhood that I was expecting going into this project.

I’ve watched my stepmom’s health struggle to return with more chemo than was expected, while my best friend is going through the same heartbreak of watching her mom fight cancer. It’s been emotionally exhausting.

I am living in a constant state of defending myself, picking myself back up, and forcing a smile.

I’m a strong person because of everything that I have been through my whole life, [from] parenting myself from the time I was five years old to starting a business in a recession after dropping out of college to travelling the world alone.

There’s so much I can face without fear, but being on the defense all the time is exhausting. I can play offense. It’s easy to be the one running down the field, but much scarier to have someone running at you.

I’ve defended my choices and my business, my house and my freedom. I’ve even had to defend my writing.

I’ve been hurt by the things people have said to me and behind my back. I’ve been tired of defending who I am, what I have created and why.

I feel tired of defending and tired of being vulnerable. I want to shut it all down and hide away.

I’m afraid of being rejected or hurt any more. I’m afraid I won’t be able to be strong through any more of it.

I’m a strong person, but I am sensitive. I know that I do not have to defend myself to the people who matter. I tell myself that the ones that matter already know me and love and support me, and the ones with whom I feel defensive don’t matter.

I have held off for months sharing my writing and my thoughts. I have been biting my tongue to feel safe and supported. I have been seeking comfort and stability and ways to nurture myself.

I am writing and sharing this because I find strength in my honesty. I am not a fake person. I do not need to be adored by the masses and make everyone else feel comfortable at the expense of my own freedom.

So if you are reading this with anything but love, why are you reading?

If you are reading this with love and support in your heart, thank you. You are why I share.

As you can see, 2016 was a really hard year for Lindsay. I watched her mental health decline as it seemed that life kept letting her down. We went on a trip to Mexico together, and I remember having a hard time lifting her spirits. When I got home, I felt worried about her. How could she not see how amazing she was?

She shared openly on social media about her struggles in life, with men, with business partners, with friends. She’d always had a positive message amid all the pain, but then I noticed that that started to change. I would reach out often to encourage her.

She was the friend who was there for me when my fiancé broke up with me. She told me I was young and hot and had the rest of my life ahead of me, so I should get excited, and it worked. I felt a surge of joy for life again in the middle of a terrifying life change. She always knew what to say.

I tried to be for her the person she was for me, but I always felt that she wasn’t letting me very far in.

Out of touch

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In the fall of 2016, I moved to Austin, Texas. It wasn’t uncommon for us to lose touch for a few months at a time and then pick right back up where we’d left off. We were busy women. After I moved to Austin, we were out of touch for a period.

Then I answered a surprise FaceTime call from Lindsay’s former business partner, who was a friend of mine. I was excited to say hello, but as soon as I saw her face, my mood changed.

She said, “Jolie, I just got a message from someone saying that Lindsay’s body has been found.”

I dropped the phone. I immediately felt sick. I called Lindsay, but her phone went straight to voicemail. Life came to a screeching halt, and I felt a pit of horror open in my stomach. I pleaded with God: “Let Lindsay be OK.”

I called Lindsay, but her phone went straight to voicemail. Life came to a screeching halt, and I felt a pit of horror open in my stomach.

But I knew she wasn’t. I reached out to Susan, one of Lindsay’s best friends, and she told me the harsh truth: “I was the one who found her. She was dead in her apartment when I broke in. She committed suicide.”

One of my closest girlfriends in this life, gone in just an instant.

I kept thinking to myself, “How do I undo this? How can we get her soul back into her body? Surely she was out of her right mind; there has to be a way to fix this.”

There was no fixing this one. No turning back. No redo.

Those gorgeous blue eyes, the freckled face, that contagious laugh, the perfection of her natural golden hair—it was all lifeless, about to be sent for cremation. I just kept seeing the image of her beautiful 27-year-old body wasted, thrown away. Sadness still pings me right in the centre of my heart when I think about her.

During this time of massive loss, I questioned life more deeply than ever before. With my Dad, it was different. Still terrible, but different. He’d lived a full life, fought in the Vietnam War, left a legacy through his family. With Lindsay, so much more of the story was still left to be told. For the first time, I questioned my strong spiritual belief that “everything happens for a reason.”

Her biological mother sent me her suicide note. It told the story of a woman who was rushing through life, far from who she’d been before. If only we’d seen it coming? Nobody had.

Lindsay had lost herself. She lost her identity in multiple relationships with men who cheated on her, in the pain of her childhood, in her desperate efforts to help others because she couldn’t help herself. That beautiful soul left this planet while feeling absolutely worthless.

I reflected on all the times I’d told her how much I valued her and what her worth was to others. These were the very things about her I was so envious of, and yet she’d never really believed them. After all those times she’d helped me come home to myself, she wasn’t able to come home to herself. And I wasn’t able to help her. I felt guilty. I was inconsolable.

But I was alive.

images : Depositphotos