This is a blog about The Ruby Slippers and The Red Shoes.

The Ruby Slippers are the ultimate expression of our Highest Self – that part of us that is courageous and wise and visionary and able to manifest whatever we desire, named for the “magical” shoes bestowed upon Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.

Most of us know the story: Dorothy traversed the dangerous and bumpy brick road, desperate to get what she most wanted (back home). She tried neurotic friends, The All-Powerful Man, even murder (well, involuntary manslaughter when she dumped water on the Wicked Witch). But in the end, Dorothy never needed any of those things: She had the power all along by clicking her heels together three times and visualizing what she wanted.

On the other hand, the Red Shoes represent the ultimate expression of our ego – that small-self part of us that tells us we are empty unless we obtain, achieve, or covet something. That manifests itself in dissatisfaction, cravings, addictions and never-enoughness.

The Red Shoes are named for the malevolent footwear from Hans Christian Andersen’s eponymous fairy tale, in which a peasant girl named Karen is no longer content with her well-worn red shoes and yearns for a pair cut of the finest silk. As the sad story goes, she gets the shoes, but they begin to control her, compelling her to dance day and night until she is forced to cut off her feet with the shoes on them.

The red shoes are symbolic of our vehicle to escape to anything we’re running away from, like a difficult boss, a stressful home life, grief, sadness, anxiety, whatever. Your escape could be work, alcohol, drugs, anger, shopping, or any number of things. These things may bring momentary peace, but done to addictive levels they also bring pain — and a lot of it.

This is about my search for my Ruby Slippers — my Highest Self — and the hard lessons I’ve learned about keeping the worst of the “red shoes” at bay. I’m far from perfect, although I tried so hard to be, doggedly believing that the road map to happiness and away from pain led outward rather than inward. It is this commonly held belief that keeps people buying, striving, seeking, drinking, drugging, whatever — and at the end of the day still feeling empty and asking no one in particular, “Is this all there is?”

But there is so much more. So much more. And it’s a magnificent journey.