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The Ego
You may here it called many other names, the false self, the inner critic..... here is a brief explanation to understand what might be holding you back from more joy & satisfaction. The way to feeling at peace within.
- Ersilia Tarantino
- 16/04/2020
- 9:24 AM
- 0 comments
An old Cherokee chief was teaching his grandson about life…
“A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.
“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves.
“One is evil – he is anger; envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, self-doubt, and ego.
“The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.
“This same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather,
“Which wolf will win?”The old chief simply replied,
“The one you feed”
IT'S STARTS AS A MASK
Have you ever watched a cat chasing its tail? It is like the tail is a separate entity to the animal; almost as if the tail has a mind of its own, teasing the cat to catch it. Our ego can be compared to this, it is part of us but a separate entity, an illusory I a mask. There is a psychological process that starts at a very young age, this process of masking who we really are.
There is power in self awareness, it brings relief, control and mastery.
It makes us doubt? Have I done the right thing
The above story helps explain further this illusory self and two states of mind; our core, our true natural state, our very inner being, that is in touch with our source and our connection to all others. Often called our spiritual self, higher self, the real self or even the god self. The other state is known as the ego, an illusory self or our saboteur, false self, judge, external persona, taking us away from understanding who we really are. A self -created identity, and persona that is responsible for many of the thoughts that we hear in our heads or the feelings that are perceived. It creates an idea of separateness from our true natural state which is joy, the bundle of joy when we came into this world. It is the unconscious state, the self-doubt, our mask to the exterior world to cover up our authenticity. It controls our thoughts and most often keeps us in a negative state, criticises us, self- judging, self- sabotaging, doubting character who wants to hide you from who you really are. It gets pleasure from struggle and making us believe we have a problem, lack of money, self -esteem, fear, unworthiness, acceptance, conformity.
Find your pearl within
Why do I say this? Well because when we judge ourselves we are denying who we really are and causing ourselves to suffer. Why do most people suffer? The answers sadly being due to the personal perceptions and interpretation of what is true and/or false and how much we decide to believe this, the mental noise in our heads, more often than not this comes from exterior influences, soceity, our childhood limits, put there by the Ego who likes to make comparisons. How you are seen by others often becomes the way you describe and see yourself.
Imagine now a nut with its exterior hard shell protecting the seed inside. This is your inner core, your true natural state. It is the beautiful seed inside that grows and gives birth and life to new plants new seeds, to creation. It is like the pearl in an oyster. It is what you, me and everyone has which connects us all but allows us to be individuals. Each seed sprouts with its own flower, its own magnificence, it’s own colour.
However, one has to let go of the shell before this can happen. It is not easily broken…we often struggle to smash it to get to its interior. The Ego is like that hard outer shell. This self-created persona and hard external protection, a state of mind that wants to stop us from seeing our real beauty as a representation of who we are. It is a mental state which believes in struggle and fear, self-criticism and self-comparison, judgment and dissatisfaction. We don’t know there is beauty, the natural seed within unless we crack the shell.
Where it comes from ?
The Ego is created by our past experiences, by our family history, often as me and my story. It is created by the identification with things, roles, labels, possessions. If I asked you to define who you were, you would probably start by saying your age, your nationality, your job title, what you do. You may take the words of others and start describing your character traits, I am intelligent, I am kind, fun, gentle or strong willed. You may describe what you look like, tall, short or muscly. This is all but a muddle of a process like in a factory line, the ingredients that have been added along the way, what we have identified with over the years and not who we really are. It is the “I” of the ego. Each ego is individual based on these past experiences. There is however but one vital ingredient the core, the true natural state.
When it might be helpful
I would like you to consider that the it is possible to live from our true state, from joy and happiness, that which knows who we are with no perceptions and that which brings us to that point in our life when we ask……what are we doing this all for? What is my purpose? What do I want to change? What is important to me? How can I stop judging myself? How can I love who I am?
How do we know when we are living in the ‘Ego’? The majority of time we are living in this ego state, it creates fear so that we won’t let go of it. We see this in our physical reactions for example when someone says something about us that we do not agree with, we try to defend ourselves. If we were at peace with who we were we would not need to defend ourselves.
The Ego can also be noticed in an argument, we often want to be right and show the other they are wrong. We want to show our superiority, or we when we are fault finding. When we don’t accept our situation, we suffer and we struggle. The ego likes us to struggle and suffer, create problems. It believes this is how life should be.
The Ego strengthens itself when we think or feel guilt. It is very hard to get rid of the Ego, it is not about getting rid of it, although one can, it is more about making friends with it. We can at least begin to observe it at work, on ourselves and perhaps others and identify ourselves with this state. To remember I am not my problem my struggle.
The mind creates struggle because the ego plays on that and needs it to stay alive.The first step in understanding our Ego is realising we are not this entity. What is your illusory self? What am I identifying myself with? What am I defending, an illusionary self a mental perception? Start to be the observer of the mental noise and the emotions created by it. By no longer identifying with the ego it will help you to reach your core, that of the other and the illusions. Once you recognise the illusion and that all your relationships, interpretations and misinterpretations become based on this you can start to see the Ego at work, and from this point decide whether you want to make your decisions coming from your core and love or the ego state and fear…
If you need help balancing and finding harmony with time out, work, relationships and children, it would be a pleasure to help. I also offer a Joy of Money program to deal with the stresses and challenges of transition through times of change.
Please contact me to find out more on +61 497 062902, hello@inspiringbreaks.com
