Defining Me - The Ego View

Welcome to another excerpt from my recent interview for Power & Positivity, the Aussie Podcast! I'm Dan Ireland, and I'm going to be showing you how to master your mindset and manifest a simpler happier life. This podcast is about my reflections on the ego and simplifying our lives... I hope you enjoy it.

Transcript

So,

I recently put together some thoughts on this idea of our ego and the role that it plays in our lives and how we can begin to better reflect on this ego to manifest a much more harmonious and hopefully simple life.

I hope you enjoy it.

We are defined so much by who we are and by what we have.

We are compared on what we own,

What wealth we have,

What school our kids go to,

What cars we drive.

Only just the other day I was speaking to a woman that felt shameful driving up to her private school to collect her kids.

She has an old burina and she gets glares from the other mothers not because of anything other than the fact that she doesn't own a top of the range car.

When she's approached them in the past they've actually shunned her.

Not because they've got to know who she was or is but what she has.

I hear these types of stories all the time fueled by programs on MTV of ludicrous wealth being wasted on the ignorant.

It fuels a culture of ignorance and comparison.

We've been told what we hold in a bank account means more than what we can hold in our hearts or what we hold in our heart.

As children we've shown more about what we have that defines us,

The more toys,

The better computer games,

The better grades,

The better sporting skills.

This is what makes you a better person,

Being the best.

We're told this is what makes us important.

So we grow up living a life where accumulation is the pinnacle of our pyramid.

We live a life of accumulating things and that's where our value lies.

Leading us to feel like we need more of something to complete us.

It's the things that end up defining us.

And then when we don't have these things we feel inferior,

We feel lack,

We feel ashamed.

And this feeling,

This sense of anxiety,

Of lack just fuels that egoic fire more.

This side of you that sees itself as that wealthy person driving around in a rich car and well to do and all the rest of it that's basically tutting at you and shaking their head and saying you should have tried harder than this and you should have done that and you should have done that and this endless list of things that you should have done to have made yourself better but you didn't,

You failed.

It just never stops.

This is our evolutionary mind.

It doesn't get to the end of an accreditation and think yep that's it,

You've done it.

You don't need to learn anything more.

No,

Maybe if I know a bit more and I get a degree that's when I'll be content and happy and you get to the end of the degree and you go no,

Definitely need to become the,

Get a master of it and then a doctorate and a professorship and now that you've got the professorship now I need to discover something new.

And begins to define you by what you've done,

Not the person that you are or who you have been all along the way.

It's defined purely on these certifications,

On the knowledge that you've gained.

This endless list of things that just never stops.

There is some beauty in that though.

You know in its own right,

I mean the discoveries what we've made as humans because of this drive that we have,

This evolutionary process has been why we've seen space shuttles reach the moon,

We've seen diseases eradicated that puts warmth and light in everyone's homes.

Although we all have the same brain,

Not all of us have the same skills,

The same intellect.

And we put ourselves down because we feel like as if we've been given a bad hand in things.

And even when I watch YouTube clips and I hear some of the eloquency that I hear people speaking like Jordan Peterson and things like that and I have a gift with how they talk,

How they can portray their thoughts and feelings about things.

I think I wish I could do that.

I wish I had that lack,

That skill to be able to really tell people the way they do.

We begin to define ourselves not as what joy do I bring into people's lives or what do I do to help or how much do I love myself.

And that's not from an egoic standpoint but from a realization of the beauty that is you.

The incomparableness that is you,

The indefinableness that is you.

The ego only works off of definitions and labels,

What we identify as,

The labels we put on ourselves like I'm a mental health facilitator,

A dad,

A son,

A brother,

A husband,

A friend,

An asshole to some people maybe.

When in reality none of these things define me.

I don't need to be defined by other dads or other husbands,

Other roles,

Other characters that people want me to play.

What I've learned is what truly defines me comes from the heart,

A place so sacred that ego can't touch.

The love of my children,

The love of my family and friends,

The happiness you see in people's faces that are around you.

This is our measuring stick.

Now what did you do today to make one person's life better?

This is a question I ask my kids every day.

Sometimes they make up the answer but I want them to know that this is what defines us.

Now Martin Luther King,

One of my absolute heroes which I haven't tattooed on my arm for those that haven't seen it,

As a reminder every day that one man can change the world.

Again,

Not from an egoic sense but in the depths of hate and racism that beauty can rise from the ashes.

It takes a voice,

An action,

A deeper understanding of what it takes to be human.

We can do things nonviolently.

One of his quotes,

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power.

We've guided missiles and misguided men.

Now I have this quote on my laptop.

Comes up every day just to remind me of the egoic nature of ourselves,

Of me,

Of I.

I suppose we could bring that quote maybe into the 20th century and say,

The power of marketing has outrun the power of our hearts.

We love things more than we love ourselves.

Shanti Deva has a verse in his prayer that,

May I become the medicine.

This egoic sense of ourselves,

This flame is fanned brightly by our school system that is built on comparisons.

If you do the best,

If you get your certificate up on stage,

If you become a prefect,

If you conform to the system,

Accumulating awards,

Then you're seen as successful.

You've made it.

Even my six-year-old feels lack if she doesn't come home at the end of the day with the end of day note,

Which shows her successes.

She thrives on this success.

It's tough trying to remind her that this is not what success is in its entirety.

This is just a part of it.

What happens?

What happens when something in your life disrupts this fulfillment by things,

By success,

By whatever?

What happens when all of a sudden you become ill,

Get fired from work,

Don't get hired because there's another person that's better than you,

Or you find your partner cheating on you,

Or a pandemic hits,

And everything you do comes to a grinding halt,

And there is just you and your thoughts and emotions,

A real depth of lack of self-worth at home.

There are so many possibilities of these things that could go wrong,

But we're just never shown this reality.

We are sheltered and then unleashed,

Which is no wonder why the largest cause of death in people aged 16 to 25 is suicide,

Because we aren't prepared for the culture that we've been bred into.

We have all this success at school and then nothing.

If this is our yardstick,

If accumulation of wealth and accreditation is what we compare success as,

This egoic view of our existence with no tools to manage the mind when it goes bad,

When it begins to turn on you when you're not measuring up to the very high standards that it sees itself as,

We find ourselves anxious and depressed,

Comparing ourselves about who we were or what we could have been.

We only know comparisons.

We only know accumulation of things.

We never learn who we are,

And I use the we there rather than the very Zen I,

Or who am I,

As this incessant search for the seat of the I within us,

That very real who am I question.

We begin to recognize it's a bit of a goose chase,

As most things in Zen are,

But how could we ever find something that's not there?

Who am I trying to find?

There's some wonderful answers in that question in itself,

But it's the transformation of this I am to we are that allows you to see the beauty in everything,

Your beauty in everything,

That we can see even the inanimate with all without separation.

There was a quote by Waldo Emerson,

Now apologies if I don't get this right,

I believe it is when the world is constantly trying,

No,

Being yourself in a world that is wanting you to be something else or is constantly trying to make you something else is the beauty of our existence or something similar,

Apologies Waldo if you're listening to that,

I've got that wrong.

What he means is if you can be yourself in a world that wants you to be something else,

That is the definition of your existence,

That's why you're here,

To find who you are.

This ego,

It doesn't know that,

It only knows the perspective of others,

That's what it learns from,

It learns how others have perceived you,

It doesn't know you,

How could it?

It never speak to you like the way it does.

So we need to inquire into ourselves,

This is the medicine,

This is the antidote,

We need to rid ourselves of the thought of getting rid of any ego,

It is impossible to get rid of it.

How do we get rid of something that isn't even really there,

It's just a voice in our head.

It's not tangible,

There is no battle to be won here,

You just need to soften the flame enough to show ourselves that this is not who we are,

This is not what defines us or defines me,

That there is much more to me and you and everything and that these thoughts are only perspectives of others,

Not my own.

And when we begin to dim that egoic flame and fan the love and kindness flame,

What happens is a flaring of the ego that turns away from being a bully and there is a distinct transition.

For me,

Being depressive and anxious and suicidal at times,

It was a battle for me at the start,

I fought it every minute,

I didn't know any other way,

I even fought it in my sleep all the time,

It was a horrible nightmare.

But when I started to inquire into myself,

I started following the path of liberation from the Buddhist text and in particular was a line out of Eckhart Tolle's book,

The Power of Now,

When he said,

Fighting with your ego will just make it stronger.

So I stopped right there,

I made a conscious decision that I'm not going to fight with me anymore and I also made a conscious decision that every day I'm going to make effort to be kinder to myself.

And that alongside a regular meditation practice,

When I say regular,

I mean every day,

Up to an hour and a half most days and that went on for several years.

But it was the first six months where I really began to see the transformation.

Now that first six months when I made that conscious decision,

I just thought,

I recognized just how much energy I was consuming battling myself and I just thought I just need to divert some of this energy into something more helpful,

Or as my teacher would say,

A much more fruitful practice.

And it was the best investment of my time for me that I have or have,

Am,

Or had ever done.

So we learn not to fight ourselves.

We learn kindness and compassion is the key.

Right at the heart of you is a completely compassionate being that just wants to be loved and be part of love.

And so we just need to begin to soften that voice in our head because how we think about ourselves matters a lot.

So I hope you enjoyed that little podcasty thing.

If you did,

Please don't hesitate to subscribe or like or share.

Please I'd love to get this message out to as many people as I can,

Especially if you enjoyed it.

I'd love your comments.

What did you like or not like about it?

Please and thank you so very much.

Have an amazing rest of your day.

Reviews

Universal message made for a Fabulous talk! Thank you!

Beautiful podcast 🙏🏻 I have been spending too much time lately fighting with myself and my ego lol love the suggestion about focusing on love. Thank you!

A wonderful discussion on the power the ego has over us! I'm one to have battled over the years this comparison thing that we have grown up with! I would be driving on the freeway and be passed by someone in a nicer car and I would honestly feel less than, lacking in something! But your discussion has reminded me that we are not our ego, we are so, so much more! Thank you, Dan, will listen again!

I really enjoyed this short talk because I have struggled all my life to be my authentic self and to be more honest and open about feelings and not to be defined by others
After 80years on this planet I am still having difficulty
I look forward to more of your talks
Thank you