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Understanding the role of the ego in how we live our lives is essential to understanding the mystery of life.
Usually when people describe themselves they are referring to the egoic self or the personality, the finite side of the whole package we call me. We speak about our likes, dislikes, what we do to fill up our days. We speak of others regarding the actions they take in their lives.
Anything that refers to an action or an outer expression is filtered through the ego. This is neither good nor bad; it is just a function of the human mind. Most of us have a habit of automatically judging the goodness or badness of a statement based on how much risk it perpetuates on our own ego. It is part of our safety process.
Until we have accumulated a good understanding of how the ego tarnishes our perception of the world, we cannot really begin to develop a strong mind management process that will allow us to escape from the trappings of the egoic mind.
In this article, I am going to do my best to explain to you the difference between living in the ego and living with your ego.
If you analyze any advertising material, you will quickly discover that it is speaking to your ego. It wants you to be beautiful, healthy, wealthy and pain free. The advertising needs you to give up your personal power and buy into their beliefs. Because so many of us feel less than absolutely wonderful, we buy into their marketing ploys allowing ourselves to feel better, much better.
But is the change in our feeling temporary or is it permanent?
We learned to feed our mind this way through our childhood development. We wanted to please Mom and Dad so that we got our fix of feeling good and loved. When we didnt do the required activity to get our dose of feeling good, we received something that caused us to feel lack. Since we dont like the feeling of going without, our mind devises methods for helping us feel satisfied (healthy or otherwise).
As we go through our lives, depending on how well we were fed with love, trust and confidence as a child, we constantly search for food for our egos so we can believe we feel good. Sometimes, in extreme cases, this establishes habits that are extremely destructive such as alcoholism, drug use, sexual inappropriateness and abuse and control over others.
When we live our lives in any of these manners, even if it is temporary, we are living in the ego.
Living in the ego is not a bad thing. It is limiting to the full life expression though. If we are so consumed with trying to feel good, we have little time for being or doing well. It is like the lion out on the African Savannahs who is constantly in search of the next morsel of food. There just is little or no time for living beyond need.
If we are going to find any true satisfaction in this life, we need to get past the trappings of the ego and learn to live with the ego in our true selves.
There is a huge difference between the two mental positions. We have already demonstrated some activities that are ego based, so what does it look like or feel like to live in truth?
There are two really important aspects of our mind. They are the personality (egoic mind) and the character (the true self or higher mind).
The personality is temporary. It lives in the moment and for the moment. Once its purpose is fulfilled, it moves onto another aspect of the personality to suit the needs of the next moment. One moment you are elated from the praise you received for doing something well, then the next moment you are angry because someone slighted you. That is personality.
The character is infinite. It is an aspect of the soul, the only permanent part of you. When you commit an act based on the need of the act rather than your own aggrandizement or glory, you are in character. This is not a case of self deprecation. It is a case of doing what is right for that situation.
As we mature in life, we feel the unrest and dissatisfaction of living in the ego. The highs and lows of constantly searching for food for our vanity wears thin, we crave for something more permanent and fulfilling. This is the higher mind calling, trying to bring you out of the cloud of ego. It is called a calling of purpose.
As we move more deeply into the Aquarian Age, the call for this transition is speaking louder. The Universe needs us to mature and move into a higher form of activity that is beyond survival mode. It requires moving into the higher self.
How do we make this transition?
When we strongly feel the desire to live life more deeply, we feel the unrest that sits in our egoic mind. As we become ready, we start using the energy of this feeling of unrest to empower us to embrace our higher journey. It helps us to maneuver past the fears and controls of the ego mind.
Just becoming aware of this feeling is all that is required to begin the transition. The next step is to become very aware of how we allow the ego to mold the goings-on in our lives.
Once we can see the ego at work, it is much easier to take a more conscious approach to life. We begin questioning the choices we have made in the past. We start consciously choosing different outcomes. Eventually this process causes the habitual outcomes to change just through conscious choice and repetition.
A second and very important matter in the process of transitioning from egoic living to healthy living is the acceptance of yourself and your capabilities. It sounds odd and even egoic to say this but we need to accept that we are good and great. The difference being that we accept ourselves internally rather than needing to have others validate us.
In western society, we have made it taboo to cheer ourselves on. We have made it acceptable only to chastise ourselves for our imperfections. How often do we see and hear people who have done really well who upon receiving compliments, minimize them by focusing on their imperfections.
In my book, Embracing The Blend, there is a story that Eva shares about her granddaughter. Myas dad was doing some work outside of their house. He had placed a piece of plywood over a short set of stairs. Mya, being two years old at the time, started walking up and down this ramp. As she reached the top each time, she cheered herself on for doing so well, and then she would run down the ramp so she could repeat her newly found skill. Mya was teaching herself that she was healthy and good. She was teaching herself to be open to learning because she appreciated herself and her new skill.
We all need to do this, no matter how old we are. We need to accept the fact that we are blessed with some wonderful skills and we need to cheer ourselves on when we apply them. When we do less than perfect, we need to accept that we did our best, give ourselves space to be human and know that we will learn how to do better by trying again. This is called loving ourselves! Being our own best friend.
When we are able to see ourselves in truth, without letting the ego run the show, we are in our true self, our character. The more often we can do this and recognize ourselves as we do, the more integrated we become with ourselves. As we learn to accept ourselves in our own unique expression of greatness, the power of the ego will settle down to its appropriate level.
It does not matter what other people think of us. If we can come to terms with ourselves, if we can learn to realize and accept when we are acting in ego and when we can love ourselves just for being the wonderful person we were created as, the we are on the path to having a healthy ego and a healthy life.
We do not need to eliminate the ego or constantly undermine the wealth we offer to the world in order to be acceptable to society and ourselves. In order to offer best value to all life, we need to be all we are. Living in full self with purpose is living with a healthy ego.
I urge you as you ponder your thoughts about this blog to take some time for introspection. What more can you do to express the amazing person you were born as? What more can you do to live a better, healthier and more fulfilling life? What do you need to do so that your ego can feel safe so it can let you have the freedom that is your birth right?
I look forward to hearing your comments and your stories.
