I shared my reflections on the Green Purse with Mae Yo and she offered a few thoughts I will share here: 

Identity comes from what we are familiar with, we reiterate it, we become used to it and then, in our minds it becomes us and ours. We are repulsed by things we don’t like and attached to stuff we do.  

It all starts with me and the bag, but compliments from others, Eric’s comment that the bag reminds him of me, build my sense of specialness that is confirmed by the bag. There are 3 types of self/ego: 1) inflated 2) middle 3) small hearted. When we get a compliment it inflates our ego while with no comment we stay in a state of middle or little heart. This is how we confirm our sense of self. Like the body needs food, the sense of self is fed by self belongings –we use object in this world to feed and sustain our self. 

When we want to preserve something (like a bag) why do we do it? Like a preserved food, a pickle, we want to delay time, we want to sustain our stuff and self as long as possible.  

My home work was to go home and see if my own experience confirms this, to see if I can prove the tendency to use self belonging to feed self, the tendency to preserve to sustain self, are true.  

I asked Mae Yo a final question: What am I missing? Her reply: “ You haven’t committed that this path is the only way. You would still give another method a chance, to keep your options open. Its like you haven’t really broken up with an Ex yet, so ask yourself why not? When you are convinced, you will be able to walk the path alone. Its like a swimmer, looking at the competitor in another lane makes you lose time.”