Is this Me or My Ego?

All over social media and in personal experience I hear statements like “if they can’t handle me at my worst they don’t deserve me at my best” or “I’m done wasting energy on people who don’t give it back” which in essence echoes a sentiment that when people don’t act the way we want them to, we have justification to cut them out of our lives.

In reality this plays out constantly in social interaction, friends for years or family members have an argument, fall out and then don’t speak for years or perhaps they make up but the relationship is never the same.

In another scenario you have a misunderstanding with a stranger and come away from it consumed with rage at the stranger who you know nothing about because you feel they have wronged you in some way, whereas in reality both reactions were derived from a subjective perception of the situation.

Hello Ego.

What is Ego?

Daniel Boehm in his article Understanding Ego and How to overcome it states:

   “ Your sense of “I” or individuality is a result of your ego, so in that sense it’s necessary”.

Abby Wyne in her article “An argument in favour of Ego” states: 

“The role of the ego is twofold—to protect us and to help us tell ourselves apart from other people”

Our ego is our conscious mind it allows us to understand who we are and what we stand for and how we operate in our subjective reality, this is my understanding of Ego.

Several constructs fall under our ego: Feelings of self esteem, self worth and self confidence all directly relate to it and create this aspect of ourselves called “the false ego”.

The reason it’s called a “false” ego because it is subjective. For example the ego sees the colour blue and mindfully accepts it for what it is – the color blue. The false ego sees the color blue and projects subjective thoughts and feelings unto it; “blue is my favourite colour” or “i hate the color blue because it reminds me of my ex” etc.

The false ego is created by society and your subjective experience within the society, it is a product of opinions and judgements you have held on to – some yours and some given to you by people you care about or have cared about, or maybe don’t even know that well .....but we’ve held on to these opinions and internalised them.

In short, your false ego is a narcissistic search for being accepted, validated and loved. - DB

The false ego is also a defense mechanism which we often create to protect ourselves from emotional pain or protect ourselves from the harsh realities of our own inadequacy and imperfections.

For example: a person who has low self esteem based on early childhood experiences might develop an opinion of themselves within their false ego that tells them that they are alone not because no one likes them but because no one deserves them.

We hold these beliefs and let them guide us through our interactions with others, and when things don’t go our way we seek out the thoughts that validate this world view and discard any others that contradict because we desperately need to believe that we are what we think we are otherwise the foundations of our world and belief system “come under threat”.

That is why in arguments we don’t listen to understand, we listen to respond. That’s why during break ups we seek to tarnish the image of the one our worlds used to revolve around. That’s why when you have an incident of road rage you don’t blame yourself for being impatient but you blame the other person for wasting your time. In conflicts of opinion when you think about it you don’t acknowledge the valid points the other person made but instead you replace that memory with how you felt about what they said and blame them for making you feel that way, not realising that they must feel the exact same way

False ego comforts you and makes excuses for you, it prevents you from accepting truth in favour of embracing pride, it tells you that if you admit to being wrong you give someone else power over you and we cant have that. It cleverly sifts through your subconscious and selects all the memories and thoughts which back up the opinion you have decided to hold and as such helps you carry on with your life with a false sense of peace. False because your peace does not come from doing the right thing, but from doing the thing that feels right regardless of the impact on others – selfish peace.

“If they cant handle me at my worst, they don’t deserve me at my best”.

But remember...

Negative states of mind, such as anger, resentment, fear, envy, and jealousy, are products of the ego.” – Eckhart Tolle

“The purpose of life is to experience and enjoy it as much as you can and to truly push the limits of your personal growth and who you can become.

The truth is that you don’t have to listen to the many thoughts you have about yourself – this is not who you really are”

So whats the way forward?

We have to strip away all these layers we have created to protect ourselves from hurt because in reality all they do is steal our joy and warp our view of reality.

Ofcourse I realise this is not easy and will not happen overnight, but it will happen if you make a conscious effort in every moment, in every situation, in every relationship to be as kind to the other person as you are to yourself.

If you observe a toddler, they are brave they are loud they are authentically themselves, they don’t judge they just observe and accept the world for what it is.

We need to find a way to return to that. We need to find our “eyes filled with wonder” because the world is a beautiful place and social interaction can be a beautiful thing if we allow ourselves to get out of the way.

Happy Holidays and Thanks for Reading

Be blessed

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