So today we're going to be talking about the ego and we're going to be diving into what most of us don't recognize about the ego and we're going to be talking about why it's so important to understand the blind spots when it comes to the human ego.
And number one,
The ego is a survival mechanism.
It is not your true self.
So in order to transcend the ego or to at least not be controlled by the ego,
Which is a subconscious survival mechanism,
It's important to begin to disidentify from ego by just putting a little bit of conscious space between you and ego.
In other words,
When you're thinking about your ego,
It would be important and helpful to recognize that,
Wow,
My ego is built for survival.
It does not represent my true self.
The ego was built to protect you,
Not to express the authentic you.
It is a psychological structure developed through memory,
Conditioning,
And comparison,
A narrative cell that emerged so the organism could survive in social hierarchies.
Yet most people mistake the survival identity for actually who they are.
They defend it,
They feed it,
And they seek validation for it,
Not realizing it's just the software running in the background of the mind.
As the stoics and even later Carl Jung observed,
Freedom begins the moment you can witness the ego as an object in consciousness rather than the subject of consciousness.
When we are operating from ego consciousness,
Try to understand that ego is built for survival and therefore how you can check and monitor yourself is to just ask yourself,
Do a quick check.
Am I operating from fear?
Am I operating from stress?
Am I seeking validation?
Am I nervous?
Is there something that I'm not looking at?
Is there something that I'm avoiding?
Am I projecting?
Do I feel anxious and am I off putting that on other people and expecting them to make me feel better?
What's really going on here?
The blind spot that most humans have is that most humans never develop the inner distance to observe the ego.
They confuse ego's fear as annihilation for intuition,
Mistaking survival for truth.
And so when fear gets activated from ego,
We oftentimes mistake that for truth.
But fear is designed to keep you safe.
Your sense,
Your true self or your,
I would say,
Your sovereignty and even your recovery hinges on you being able to separate yourself and distance yourself within your own mind to develop the metacognition to be able to observe when ego is in operation versus your true self.
A quick check for me is to just do a quick scan of my emotions,
Which most people aren't even doing.
They're just reacting from their emotions.
It's constant.
There's a stimulus and there's a reaction.
And what I've taught myself to do is to find the space between the stimulus and the reaction so that I can find the space that allows me to distance myself from the ego mind.
And this is a blind spot that humans possess.
Most humans never develop the inner distance to observe the ego.
Number two,
Ego thrives on opposition and control.
The ego actually stays alive and sustains itself through contrast,
Me versus you,
Right versus wrong,
Success versus failure.
It cannot exist in stillness because stillness dissolves it.
The moment one stops resisting reality or needing to be right,
The ego panics because identification begins to weaken.
Nietzsche is one of those who says that the ego feeds on resistance.
It needs something to fight in order to know itself.
And this is what goes wrong in many relationships when ego is in control.
We fight with our spouses.
We fight with our kids.
We fight with our in-laws.
We fight,
Fight,
Fight,
Fight,
Fight.
And we don't recognize that the ego thrives on me versus them.
It thrives on opposition and control.
Thus,
Many people unknowingly perpetuate internal and external conflict just to maintain a sense of this identity.
And I think we can all recognize a little bit of that in ourselves where below the veil of consciousness,
We did not know that we were operating purely through this ego identification,
The me versus you,
Which is otherwise known as separation consciousness.
And the blind spot that we have is that the ego doesn't want peace.
Your ego doesn't want peace.
The people that you know,
And maybe even this was you from time to time.
I know it's been me.
I didn't want peace.
I wanted to be in control.
I wanted to be validated.
I wanted someone to say,
You're right.
I see you.
I hear you.
I believe you.
But my ego wasn't looking for peace.
It was looking for control because below the veil of consciousness was a faulty belief,
A very,
Very childhood,
Very subconscious belief that had me believing that I needed approval in order to feel worthy.
And so overcoming these obstacles is truly also tied to emotional maturity.
Remember that our blind spots as humans below the veil of consciousness,
We would rather be right and miserable than free and uncertain.
Because when we are challenging others,
We are operating from ego and we are seeking control outside of ourselves.
And the minute we stop needing that control outside of ourselves,
Then ego dissolves and ego does not want to dissolve.
Number three,
The ego fears death,
But awakening requires its death.
Every true path to enlightenment from Buddha to Mr.
Eckhart Tolle points to ego death.
Yet the irony is that the ego fears dissolution more than anything because it equates non-existence with annihilation.
When you begin to disidentify from your stories,
From the past,
From roles and opinions,
The ego interprets this as danger.
In reality,
It's a threshold to awakening,
The space where the timeless self,
The observer consciousness,
Can be revealed.
It's a very exciting plane of consciousness,
But it comes along with great terror.
It comes along with great uncertainty because the mind is learning to basically up-level and release its identity with ego,
Which means that I'm stepping into the unknown,
The nervous system doesn't like the known.
Anything that your nervous system associates with familiar,
Even if it's painful,
The nervous system also associates with safety.
It takes tremendous courage to do this work and to disidentify from the past and to choose not to allow past memories or past patterns,
Past beliefs,
Past frequencies to control you for the rest of your life.
The blind spot most of us have is that people cling to their pain and limiting stories because the ego would rather be someone who suffers than no one who is free.
The impact on our lives,
On our mental health,
Our emotional freedom,
Our financial success,
Our relationship success,
When it comes down to ridding ourselves or at a minimum observing how we operate from ego,
From survival,
The consequences of awakening to this truth are immeasurable because once you are free from ego identity,
You stop chasing.
You stop chasing.
You start being.
Your frequency changes.
Everyone carries a frequency.
And when someone is in fear,
They cannot attract the abundance or the peace that they seek because it's an opposite frequency.
It's an opposite reality.
And I have learned in my life that although I am not my mind,
The mind is a tool that I can use,
That I can cultivate,
And I can sharpen.
I can organize it.
I can learn to observe it,
And I can master it to help me understand these deep psychological understandings of ego identity.
And when I develop metacognition,
The ability to observe the way that I think,
I step out of the thinking ego mind.
It's sort of like stepping off of the roller coaster to observe the roller coaster's loops.
My job is to stay on the sidelines.
My job is to stay the observer.
My job is to not allow myself or my point of focus to be pulled under and submerged by ego identity.
That's my job.
And these blind spots,
Acknowledging these blind spots,
Are so very helpful along my healing and recovery path.
And I so hope that has helped you.
Namaste,
Dear ones.
Until next time.
Bye for now.
