Inside each of us, there are two parts/voices/selves: the ego and the soul. The goal of the ego self is to first survive and then thrive. To do this, the ego must be healthy—not overwhelmed by trauma or overinflated. It must be healthy. Then the ego self can move toward the goals of surviving and then thriving.
The soul doesn’t care about surviving or thriving. It is eternal. It cares only about growing. Listening to the soul is actually more important, but to do so makes it harder for the ego and its goals.
A person who never thinks at the soul level has an easier time in this 3-D life.
The soulful person will always feel conflicted as long as they don’t realize that the conflict is between their ego self and their soul self. The goals are competing but it’s not as simple as ego = bad and soul = good. The ego tries to keep us safe and so is fear-based. But we do need to eat, sleep, exercise, etc. The soul chooses love, always. It’s this natural tension between love and fear that creates conflict within us.