Before the Story: A Word on Ego and Spiritual Service

7 min read
4/12/2025

In the journey of spiritual work whether as a medium, healer, coach or guide there exists a paradox that catches nearly everyone at some point. We begin this path because we feel called to serve, to help others connect with something greater than themselves. Yet the moment we start gaining recognition, the moment our readings resonate or our insights land deeply something subtle begins to shift.

The ego, that part of us that craves validation and security, starts whispering a different story. It tells us we’re special. It tells us we’ve arrived. It tells us that the success we’re experiencing is ours alone, forgetting the countless teachers, supporters and Spirit itself that made our ascent possible.

This parable is for anyone who has ever felt the intoxicating pull of recognition in spiritual work. It’s for those who’ve caught themselves judging other practitioners, dismissing beginners or forming exclusive circles that keep certain people out. It’s also for those who’ve been hurt by such behaviour who’ve held the ladder steady for someone who then pretended it was never there.

Most importantly, this story is a reminder that true spiritual elevation has nothing to do with followers, fame or being seen as special. It has everything to do with maintaining our connection to humility, gratitude and the sacred responsibility of service.

The ladder exists because others hold it. Always.

THE LADDER AND THE HANDS THAT HELD IT

There once was a young medium who dreamed of climbing not a mountain, not a staircase, but something stranger something only Spirit could build. A ladder made of moments. Each rung formed from a lesson learned, a reading given, a breakthrough experienced, a night of crushing doubt somehow survived.

At the bottom of this ladder stood a small group of people. Mentors who had once been exactly where the medium now stood. Classmates who practiced readings together in cramped living rooms, stumbling through messages and celebrating each small success. Friends who answered tearful midnight phone calls when imposter syndrome struck hardest. These people steadied the ladder with both hands, their fingers wrapped tight around the wood, their shoulders braced against its weight. They made sure it didn’t wobble when the young medium’s knees shook with uncertainty. They whispered encouragement up through the rungs. They tightened their grip when the wind of self-doubt howled so fiercely the medium nearly let go.

The medium looked down often in those early days and said, with genuine tears in their eyes, “I won’t forget this. I won’t forget you” and for a while, they climbed with gratitude sewn into every movement. Each rung they reached felt like a shared victory. They would pause, look down and mouth silent thank-yous to the people below. The ladder felt sacred then a collaborative miracle of collective faith.

But as the medium ascended, they began noticing figures higher up. Bigger names with thousands of followers. Louder voices that filled auditoriums. People with polished branding, curated social media feeds and exclusive circles that seemed to shimmer with an otherworldly glow. From that height, admiration felt like applause washing over them in warm waves. Support felt like validation proof they were chosen, special, meant for this. The medium soaked it in the way parched earth drinks rain and soon, what had been nourishment became addiction.

The higher they climbed, the smaller the people below appeared. What had once been faces became dots. What had once been names became forgettable. What had once been sacred support became invisible infrastructure something they took for granted, like oxygen.

One day, without quite realising when it happened, the medium stopped looking down altogether.

They started telling people at workshops and in podcast interviews that they’d climbed the ladder alone. That their gifts were self-discovered. That their success came from their unique connection to Spirit, not from the countless hours others had invested in holding space for their growth. They started criticising those still at the lower rungs, forgetting entirely that those people were climbing with the same raw courage and trembling faith the medium had once needed just to place their foot on the first rung. They scoffed at beginners who asked basic questions. They rolled their eyes at the struggling, labeling them as “not ready” or “too attached to their ego.” They shaded anyone outside their new glittering circle of admirers, treating spiritual work like a competition they had won and every time their ego swelled just a little bit more, the medium kicked at the ladder. Small kicks at first subtle putdowns disguised as “constructive criticism,” posts about how “not everyone is cut out for this work,” whispers in private groups about people who “just don’t get it.” Then the kicks grew sharper, more deliberate. Kicks aimed not at the wood itself, but at the very hands holding it steady.

The people below felt every single strike. Their knuckles bruised purple and yellow. Their arms trembled with exhaustion. Their backs ached from the unrelenting weight. Some of them cried quietly as they held on, tears rolling down their cheeks and falling onto the ground beneath the ladder. Others felt flashes of anger, sharp and hot, before breathing through it and choosing to stay.

But none of them let go.

Not because the medium deserved their loyalty they didn’t.

Not because they were too weak to walk away they weren’t.

But because compassion is a muscle stronger than pride and these people had trained that muscle through their own spiritual work. They knew what it meant to fall. They knew what it meant to need support. They knew that abandoning the ladder now would mean the medium’s inevitable fall and they couldn’t bear to let that happen, even to someone who had forgotten their names.

Eventually, inevitably the medium kicked so hard that the ladder lurched violently to one side. They grabbed at the sides in sudden panic their confident grip replaced by white-knuckled terror. The ladder swayed sickeningly and for one breathless moment they felt certain they would fall. The validation, the applause, the curated image none of it could steady them now.

For the first time in months, they looked down.

What they saw wasn’t what they expected.

The people holding the ladder weren’t angry, their faces twisted in justified rage.

They weren’t bitter, their words sharp with resentment.

They weren’t plotting revenge or preparing to let go and watch the medium shatter on the ground below.

They were tired.

Deeply, bone-weary, soul-tired.

They had carried the medium’s weight without praise, without recognition, without even being remembered. Their shoulders sagged. Their eyes carried the particular exhaustion that comes from loving someone who has stopped seeing you and yet, even now even bruised and aching and forgotten they still held the ladder with both hands.

Something inside the medium cracked wide open. The shell they’d built from followers and validation and carefully crafted spiritual branding splintered. The ego that had climbed so quickly, that had felt so solid and necessary suddenly revealed itself as paper-thin. The validation that once tasted sweet as honey now curdled bitter in their mouth, leaving them nauseous with shame.

They realised, with a clarity that felt like ice water in the face that the only reason they had risen at all was because others had chosen actively, daily, sacrificially chosen to steady what they themselves could not.

The medium began climbing back down. Tentative at first, each step heavy with shame. Quiet, because what words could possibly carry the weight of what they now understood? Their hands that had once gripped the rungs with such confidence now shook as they descended and with each rung they felt smaller and somehow more real than they had in months.

As they descended, something strange and sacred happened.

The ladder grew stronger beneath their hands. The wood, which had been trembling and unstable moments before, smoothed and solidified. The wind, which had been howling with the medium’s own fear and arrogance, calmed to a gentle breeze and through the rungs themselves, Spirit whispered in a voice that was both heartbreakingly gentle and absolutely firm:

“Elevation has nothing to do with height. It has everything to do with gratitude. A medium who forgets the hands beneath them will always fall not because they deserve to, but because they’ve severed themselves from the only thing that ever held them up in the first place. Connection. Humility. Service. These are the true rungs. Everything else is just altitude without ground.”

At the bottom, the medium placed their own hands against the ladder. Not to climb this time. Not to ascend or prove or achieve. But to support. To hold steady. To become the foundation they had once needed and forgotten to honor.

Their hands fit perfectly alongside the others, as if the space had been waiting for them all along and in that moment, without fanfare, without applause, without spotlight or social media post or testimony to their transformation, they learned the truth every real medium discovers sooner or later:

Sometimes the holiest thing you can do the most spiritually elevated work available to you is to hold the ladder steady for someone else’s climb.

To brace your shoulders against their weight without needing them to know your name.

To whisper encouragement up through the rungs even when they can’t hear you.

To stay when your hands ache and your heart breaks and they kick at the very thing you’re sacrificing to give them.

This is the work beneath the work. The service beneath the service. The real magic that makes all other magic possible and the medium finally, gratefully, humbly understood.

For anyone holding a ladder right now: you are seen. Your hands are holy. Your steadiness is sacred. The ones climbing above you may forget, but Spirit never does and for anyone climbing: pause. Look down. Remember the hands. Speak their names with gratitude. The view from the top means nothing if you’ve forgotten how you got there.

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