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The Fragility of Ego
We have a tendency to believe that ego is only a problem when we think too much of ourselves.
I’ve recently come to understand that ego is essentially… always the problem.
Ego can cause just as much chaos when it thinks highly of itself as when it thinks lowly of itself. Its job is to essentially:
Keep the body alive.
It does this by addressing any and all possible reasons why you are not doing a good enough job to keep yourself alive.
This could be any thing that you said or did wrong in front of others that could potentially get you ‘kicked out of the tribe’ ‘abandoned by society’… etc.
It could be constant criticism over how you are not taking care of yourself enough. Whether eating better or sleeping enough, or exercising…
It could be also be criticism over what you need to do better to fit in more with others.
Improve physique or physical attraction — working out, eating better.. etc.
Get a better job, more income to up the ‘status’
Seeking knowledge and wits or some other trait to excel/impress the ‘peers’ hence your ability to fit in.
It could be constantly alerting you of any potential threat of change in your environment or the deep sense of FEAR for any type of change you are thinking of. Because change could potentially mean danger. As far as IT knows, you are still alive, hence wherever you are is better than where you could be. It is NOT a risk taker.
Keep itself alive in your body.
Constantly proving to you, that you need your thoughts and thoughts are good for you. And that everything needs to be figured out in the perfect way. Hence absolutely attaching itself to itself. The secret is, you aren’t really your ego, but it tricks you to believe that’s the case.
Giving intense fear and trepidation over anything that could potentially wake the REAL you up. It doesn’t want to LOSE its illusion of ‘control’.
With these cute things in mind, we get a bit of a sense where ego is stomping in and creating a sh*t storm. We worry and frantic over every little thing, or if you have trained your ego, you may be making sure you are on top of the game by affirmations and positive incentives for yourself and rewards and tricks, like a dog on a leash. Whether the self image is amazing or pretty self deprecating, it doesn’t change the reality that it’s all ego.
This was a huge wake up call to me. I thought I was always being ‘realistic’, whenever I was harsh on myself. It felt like it was absolutely true, even when the story was so severe as to say that I was the worst thing that existed on the planet.. or any other affirming stories that the ego wanted to create about ‘my’ worthlessness.
I think a part of its main game of creating a story of severe worthlessness, is so that it stays alive, when believing that degree of sorrow in the body, it can be very captivating especially if the body has been told it long enough and has started to believe it, it will physically feel it to be real.
But if that story gets old and boring for it, which eventually it typically does, it will coax you with stories of any and all calibers to keep you in the game. The story of acquiring more wealth, the story of great ultimate soul mate love, the story of rising above.. even the story of spiritual insight and religious virtue.. the stories continue on and on. Anything that grabs attention and creates a mission that the ego then gets to solve and sort out and carry out.
This isn’t to say that all of these things are bad.
They aren’t.
It’s of course better to have a positive dream where one is aspiring for something rather than more of a nightmare where one is hopeless and really swimming in the darkness.
Of course this is just another story.
It’s helpful to remember that all of these instances are just stories, the problem with playing the game, is every time we get to the new tier, something else emerges. The destination is always shapeshifting. We never actually 'get there'. We might satisfy the ego for some time when something is achieved.. but it's not consistent enough, if it were, we would still be blissfully happy by that toy we really wanted when we were 5. It's just not the case. So, we realize we have been fooled all along by the ego. We never fully realized the essence of ‘no mind’ and true peace, when we never really allowed ourselves to sit back and be grateful and happy for whatever is happening. Most humans are always in search of (for the sake of the ego) 1) escaping our reality or 2) improving our reality 3) making sure people/circumstances/reality doesn’t change in some way. The point is, all of which ties us to some form of suffering.
And the grace of it all, is right at the heart of everything, being in the present moment. And of course this sounds all too cliche. How many more times do we need to listen to this??
My problem with this, is even when you know you are experiencing ego. The body believes what it believes and physical reactions happen.
You just lost your job or your house, you are in the process of divorce or someone close to you has died. This isn’t the time that you are going to be laughing at ego. It’s way too real.
Although sometimes in those moments, literally the only thing you have is the present moment. Because all other attempts at escape are almost even more painful.
But the biggest point in all of this, is to remember, it’s the ego’s job, to essentially make us feel unworthy and terrible. Unless you have lucked out (or unlucked out.. no ego is ultimately better than another, and having an inflated ego can create its own set of problems) to have an ego (or developed one) which only inflates itself, then the ego’s job is to inflate itself. And a few of us have well, tethered the ego in one way or another so it doesn’t get too crazy in either direction- into pity or godhood. And some are desperately attempting to retrain the ego to be kinder, and well more inflated, because naturally most egos tend to go the opposite direction.
The peace inside of this, is that any thoughts, are ego. As long as there are thoughts, there is ego. Things like anxiety and depression, all start from thoughts. Depression usually starts from — “nothing has value”, “life is hopeless”, “I am hopeless”. Anxiety usually starts from — “This shouldn't be like this”, “I shouldn’t be feeling this way”, “This is a nightmare”, “I need to get out of here”, “Anywhere but here is okay”. Depression typically is in full acceptance and despondence about the state of the body and life, the apathy is so great as well as the worthless nothingness, that there’s some degree of acceptance of the lowly place one is in. Anxiety is where one is aggressively at a rapid fire rate vehemently disagreeing with what is happening RIGHT NOW. It feels like crawling out of one’s skin, literally, sometimes it feels like the heart will actually do that. “That person shouldn’t be like that, this shouldn’t be like this, life shouldn’t be like this, I shouldn’t be like this!” It’s the opposite of acceptance.
When I was going through these periods of time of really heavy emotion, my thoughts were against me in every way, and it was debilitating. The biggest asset one has in these states, is in coming back to truth of the present moment. And changing the thoughts. “This is exactly where I need to be”, “I’m only perceiving a fraction of what is possible and of reality.” “There is so much to explore and discover”. “I get to create my reality,” “I get to be here.” “Life is about moving forward, and embracing what is”, “I can breathe.” “Actually everything is showing up as kindness for me in this moment.” “Maybe I’ve believed my thoughts for quite some time now, but it doesn’t mean that I have to continue.” “Things can change in an instant.” It can be helpful to start small, retrain the ego, say kind things to yourself and stop believing all of its bullsh*t. When you start small with kind phrases, the mind will find how those thoughts could be true. This is essentially how you 'build' your ego, or 'retrain' it. Which can be helpful if a lot of suffering is taking place.
Even with a trained ego, fortunately or unfortunately... our egos are still crazy fragile. The point of their existence is to be fragile. The benefit of a fragile ego is returning the real you to itself. The bad thing about a fragile ego, is the amount of suffering one typically goes through in order to get to the point of complete fed-up-ness to be returned to the real you. I don’t care if your ego has trained itself to be the most successful person in the world. The point is, there is still ego, and unless your consciousness is completely aware of itself with no attachment to ego, it’s gonna sting when someone shows distaste for you. No ego, appreciates this. No matter what we pretend to say on social media #Idon’tgiveash*twhatpeoplethink…pretty sure if you are saying it... it's because you care, because it stings. In fact, it's a whole new identity to pretend that you don't care when you do care, and do more and more 'unique', 'ego-y' things, just so ego can play with that identity. If you didn't care, you wouldn't feel the need to plaster it all over the web.
It’s part of our biological make up to care. Every ego wants to feel accepted and validated. If it didn’t we wouldn’t have a working society right now. Some would argue whether it works or not. Myself included … :) But it works to whatever extent that it does or doesn’t, because people more or less do care what others think.
So what does it look like to come to peace with the reality that that part of ourselves actually does give a sh*t what people think. Yes, my ego cares what people think about it. It has feelings. Can I train my ego to be cool with that? Suddenly it releases the resistance and or desire to inflate or withdraw. Can it just be itself fully knowing that it's going to hurt when others don't like that 'self', but do it anyway? What does true freedom look like? What does it look like to understand how the ego works, and prep for it, in order to live free, and not get sucked into it's games and BS.
Yes we have egos, yes they are fragile as sh*t. No we don’t have to argue about whose is more fragile or whose is more of an asshole, or whose is the most transparent. None of it matters, they are all egos, Their function is to mess with pure consciousness - for the experience of that. For God’s experience to know what it's like to not be god, and to be in the illusion of separateness. They are made to be that fragile, for the experience. Even an ego that is super inflated, is probably more fragile than anything else, because it has built its identity around everything it has created… hence… when those things are taken away… pretty much so is the ego's 'self-worth'. And the nature of reality is… everything changes. No ego of course.. get’s out of here alive…
Real question is, can my ego have compassion for the ego that you came with. Can my ego have more compassion for the ego that I came with? Can we wholeheartedly accept each other as the incomplete pieces of sh*t that our egos totally are, because they are wired to mostly be selfish as they are programmed for survival?
Can we realize that any identity that we have, just belongs to that ego, whether it’s religion or profession.. or any mix of anything that we could possibly do or be. It’s just a fancy attire that the ego likes to wear so it feels whatever it wants to feel from that — whether worthlessness or superiority — it’s the same coin with different faces.
I can witness my ego, I can be present with my emotions, and I can still feel pretty sh*tty sometimes when things don’t go the way ego wants it to go. I can know damn well that it’s all ego, and still feel all the feels.
And it’s okay.
I love and accept myself.
And I love and accept you too.
Even if I have wildly offended you,
Even if you never want to speak to me again.
Even if you curse me
Even if you don’t agree with me
Even if you say terrible things to me
Because, none of those actions your ego does, actually matters, because ultimately we are one and the same. Sure it might sting my ego a bit, yet consciousness will always be unaffected, consciousness will find all of it to be an interesting aspect of this universe of pretend separateness.
No ego is better or worse than any other ego — they all do the exact same thing, they respond to what they have been programmed for. And when we get that egos are programmed to be selfish self-deprecating/inflating fools suddenly life becomes a lot less personal, in every way.
This news could be depressing, but the best part is consciousness permeates all of it. Everything is just as pointless as it is a fun dynamic adventure of some crazy trip of consciousness. What’s more helpful for the ego to believe? That’s what you get to decide.
Namaste,
Esther
