Understanding The Ego: The Five Stages Of Development

In this eye-opening talk, Michaiel explores the five stages of ego development and how each one shapes our sense of self, worth, and power. From the infant’s cry for survival to the adult’s quest for meaning, you’ll discover how the ego evolves—and how it can trap you in cycles of fear, inadequacy, or resignation. But there is a way out. With warmth and deep insight, Michaiel reveals how midlife often becomes the turning point—where spiritual awakening begins and the Soul calls you to remember who you truly are. This class is a guide for anyone ready to reclaim their power, mature their ego, and align with their higher self to live with greater purpose, freedom, and joy.

Transcript

And the journey of separating and forgetting in the human kingdom is when you turn it around,

Where you start the journey then of remembering who you truly are and reuniting with your true essence by choice.

It's always by choice.

It's not gonna happen automatically.

But physically,

As we become born in the physical world,

Our bodies are going to automatically grow.

You can't stop it.

You're gonna move from being an infant to a child to an adolescent to a teenager unless something happens and you don't continue the journey.

But your body kind of forces you to grow.

That's why I call most people that are above the age of 18 grownups because they have grown up.

That doesn't make them an adult because an adult is a conscious choice.

Always to be the adult is a conscious choice.

But your body will become a grownup.

On this journey is where the ego begins in the human journey.

And the infantile ego,

When you were first imbued into a physical body and thrown into the world after nine months inside your mother,

You began a journey and you needed to divide part of your consciousness to protect you.

And that is the infantile ego,

The very first stage.

And the infantile ego is most concerned about am I getting enough?

Am I getting enough love?

Am I getting enough attention?

Am I getting enough food?

Am I getting enough sleep?

Am I getting enough,

Getting enough,

Getting enough?

And it's all about getting.

And it's completely,

Totally self-centered because at that time,

The world does revolve around that infant,

Doesn't it?

That infant cries and mother comes running with a bottle,

Comes running with a blanket,

Comes running with a rattle,

Comes running with food,

Comes running with something.

So the minute that child reacts,

It's like the world revolves around it.

And it did as an infant.

And so that part of you,

The infant ego is focused,

It's security upon am I getting enough?

And then you grow and you start to recognize that you're not the only one on the planet,

That you have siblings,

You have a brother,

You have a sister,

You have classmates,

You have neighbors.

And you start to compare yourself to your brothers and sisters.

You start to compare and compete with those other kids in your neighborhood.

And when you move into the child stage of the ego,

The emphasis shifts from am I getting enough?

You still have that,

But you go beyond it to competing and comparing.

And then the main focus of your security is am I good enough?

Am I good enough?

That becomes the greatest concern of the child.

And yes,

You still wanna get enough.

It doesn't stop that,

But the emphasis shifts and focuses on am I good enough?

And because the ego is only measuring it from its very limited senses and doesn't understand the true value of who you are as a spiritual being,

You always end up feeling you're not enough.

And that's where the ego's if only's come in,

Right?

If only I weren't born in this family,

If only I weren't born a girl or born black or born Asian or born whatever,

There's always an ego's reaction of not being good enough.

And every human being has to deal with that.

Every human being,

Too tall,

Too short,

Too fat,

Too many freckles,

Not enough freckles,

Whatever,

It's always something.

The ego always ends up feeling inadequate.

And there's a reason for that.

And then you continue to realize you're not the only thing in the world,

And you start to interact with your neighbors,

And you start to have to deal with other people.

And so you're no longer focused on being completely self-centered,

But you certainly lift that to,

Well,

Yes,

There are other people around.

I understand that now.

The world doesn't revolve around me,

But I'm the most important thing.

That self-importance is what self-centeredness evolves into as a child.

The child and what it wants is all that matters.

Doesn't matter the impact,

Doesn't matter if mother's tired,

Doesn't matter,

It's like,

I want it,

And it's of self-importance,

Is that next stage of the ego.

And it tends to react as blaming and feeling powerless.

Blame and powerlessness is tied into the child ego.

The infant ego identifies with victimhood because it is completely,

Totally dependent upon other people to make sure it survives.

It's completely dependent upon your parents.

If your parents put you out in the woods when you were three months old,

You would not have survived.

So we can be victimized,

And truly the victim consciousness is part of the infant who did not have responsibility or ability to respond to the reality.

That identifies the infant child ego as the victim.

As we grow,

It turns into anger and blame,

And powerlessness is the second stage of the child ego that goes into a feeling from victim into a feeling of not being good enough.

And then you continue to grow,

Don't you?

Your body,

No matter how much you wanna stay a young child,

Or you're eager to become an adult,

Either one,

Your body's gonna take its time moving you in that direction.

So then the third stage of the ego development occurs when you move into the adolescent teenage years.

The adolescent teenage years is when you start going into panic because you feel out of control.

Your body is starting to change.

Hormones are coming in.

If you're a female,

Your menstrual cycle.

If you're a male,

You start to have sexual desires and energy that you never felt before to that level and degree.

You start feeling these hormones surging through your body and your desires,

And you're feeling out of control.

That's the next stage of the ego's development.

And it moves into the junior high and high school years,

Into college years is this ego teenage part of you.

And so the emphasis shifts.

You will still compete and compare.

It's not like one level of maturity stops and you stop feeling those other needs.

No,

They just don't become the main focus.

The next focal point is when you're in school and you're realizing,

I'm gonna be 18,

19,

I've gotta take care of myself.

I've gotta figure out how I'm gonna serve the world and how I'm gonna be self-reliant and be autonomous so that I can take care of myself.

That all happens with all these hormones and your body's changing and you're getting hair on your body,

You're growing up and you're in complete panic as an adolescent and also wanting a sense of control.

And so then the ego becomes very judgmental,

Black and white.

You're either my best friend or my worst enemy.

It doesn't wanna think and feel.

The ego in this stage of development,

It's got too many things on its plate.

So it likes to be black and white,

Simple.

You're either good or bad.

The good guys wear the white hats and the bad guys wear the black hats.

There's something simple.

I just wanna figure it out easily.

I don't wanna think,

I don't wanna feel,

I don't want any gray area.

I just want things to be simple and black and white.

You're my best friend,

My worst enemy.

It's that kind of limited thinking of the adolescent ego.

But its focal point shifts because you're trying to figure out what you're gonna do with the rest of your life.

It shifts to,

Am I doing enough?

From am I good enough to am I doing enough?

Am I learning enough?

Am I achieving enough?

That becomes the teenage adolescent ego constantly on that hamster wheel,

Trying to keep up with the Joneses,

Keep up with other people,

Whatever.

Understanding that's important.

Recognizing that is the next stage of the teenage adolescent ego.

From,

I'd say,

Pre-pubescent,

Like 11,

12,

Around that age and through puberty,

All the way up until your body is fully grown up,

Which can be college or senior,

High school,

Depending.

Your body continues to grow,

But some people grow faster,

Others go slower.

That's the hamster wheel of,

Am I doing enough?

Am I learning enough?

Am I achieving enough?

The ego gets fixated,

Gets arrested and apprehended there.

The fourth stage is where most people end up because your body becomes a grownup.

You try to make your life work.

You don't understand how reality works.

You don't understand about energy and frequency and law of attraction.

You're just trying to move billiard balls around and make your life line up and take control and take action and make things happen.

That's valuable to a degree and to a point.

But a lot of that motivation is trying to be good enough because that ego still feels like it's not good enough or getting enough.

That's where people that can have a lot of money in their adult life,

But don't feel like they have enough.

It's never enough.

They have millions of dollars in the bank and they'll embezzle $100,

000,

Why?

It wasn't that enough that you have millions?

No,

It's never enough.

They're fixated on gotta get more,

Gotta get more.

You can be a 60-year-old retired person going through the cafeteria and making sure you get the biggest piece of pie.

I wanna make sure I'm getting enough.

I wanna make sure I'm getting enough.

These stages that get arrested don't necessarily follow the age.

You can function very self-centered as a grownup.

You can function competing with other people and comparing yourself constantly all throughout your life.

You're never at peace with yourself.

You've never fully accepted yourself.

You're always feeling not enough.

Here you become a grownup and you've tried and you're moving into your 30s,

Your 40s and you got the job and you followed all the rules and you got an education and you had kids and bought a house on the hill and you got everything,

All of the trappings,

Everything that you were told will make you happy.

And you followed all the rules and you got there one day and you're in your 40s,

You wake up in the middle of your life and you look around and you're like,

There's still something missing.

This isn't bringing me the joy and the happiness that I promised it would.

I don't know what that missing piece is and that's usually the midlife crisis.

And some people react to that in some pretty major ways.

It changes everything.

But the grownup then,

Often the grownup ego settles into mediocrity.

I tried to make my life work.

I wanted to be a baseball player,

Number one and I never got through the league or I injured myself or this happened and all my child adolescent dreams didn't come true.

I end up feeling like a failure,

Like life is meaningless and that I don't matter.

And unfortunately,

That stage of the ego is when you decide,

I guess I'm not enough.

I'm not lovable enough,

I'm not good enough.

And you just kind of exist to get through life,

To get through the week,

To pay the bills,

One after another.

And most people that are in that stage have to numb out to survive.

They have to drink alcohol or do drugs or overeat or over sex.

Anything to feel pleasure,

They get fixated on because they feel so empty inside.

And that's unfortunately where a lot of people,

Grownups end up without the benefit of discovering their spirituality.

But there's always the opportunity in the middle of life to understand who you truly are as a spiritual being.

It's always being presented to you,

Whether your ego is open to it or not is a different story.

But usually by the mid of life,

When you're feeling down and out and you're like going through life,

That's when most people turn towards their spirituality.

It's an awakening that takes place in the middle of life.

And that is what can allow you to move out of the trap of your ego's conundrum.

The ego means easing grace out of your life.

EGO,

Easing the grace,

What comes natural to you as a spiritual being,

Being confined to conform into this personality based on your race,

Your upbringing,

The education,

The conditioning of your family,

Your friends,

Your environment,

All that influence to create that world's disguise of your personality.

And you're so much more than that,

But that's part of who you are in this lifetime.

What is the spiritual challenge?

The spiritual challenge isn't to end up in a place where your ego feels it's not good enough,

Is it?

Where you just exist in mediocrity.

But the spirit awakens and you start a journey of remembering the truth of who you are.

Remember when I said you left God,

God is all that is to discover yourself.

You went through all the different kingdoms until you became human.

And in the human is when you started having choice and you started to grow consciously and making choices and decisions for yourself.

That was a journey of separating and forgetting by identifying with your ego,

By identifying with your parents.

You're separating from the source and forgetting the truth of who you are.

And then this opportunity in the middle of life,

You wake up and you start to recognize there's something more to me than just survival.

And that's where the spiritual journey can earnestly expand and often it does.

And then the ego can finally mature into its empowered destiny.

Because without a spiritual understanding of life and yourself,

Without awakening and understanding your ego is only a part of you,

Not all of you.

You no longer let it make your decisions for you.

You start taking your power back from that ego that has sabotaged you in the past.

And in order to do that,

You have to separate yourself from it by identifying with your soul and your spirit,

Your truer self.

And that's what the spiritual awakening is about.

And that takes place in the middle of your life for the most part.

Some people do it earlier,

Depending on their karma and their previous lifetimes.

But for the majority of people,

It happens in their forties and maybe fifties.

But then you have an opportunity to mature and heal the ego because you no longer are identifying yourself with it.

You've expanded and realized I have choice here.

My ego wants to do this,

But what am I gonna do?

And you develop principles and you have character and you listen to your intuition and you have creative ideas and you're tuned in and opened up to receive guidance from your soul and spirit.

So you open up to a whole new level.

And that's when you can begin to heal and mature the ego to become the adult ego.

Now I've defined the grownup ego,

Which ends up in resignation of,

I guess I'm never gonna live the dreams that I thought and I'm just gonna exist and just numb out and get through life.

The adult ego awakens with your spirituality intact and you're exploring the metaphysics of life.

And then you can recognize and realize the truth.

And then the ego can align with,

I am enough.

I am enough.

I'm secure enough,

Creative enough,

Connected enough,

Loving enough,

Expressive enough,

Creative enough,

Intuitive enough,

I am enough.

Not better than,

Not comparing yourself to other people,

Not competing,

Owning the truth of who you are.

And here's the beauty of all this.

Remember that feeling I told you about that the ego always ends up feeling,

I'm not enough.

It's true.

Your ego is not enough to make your life successful,

Happy,

Fulfilling,

Empowered.

You need a connection with your soul and spirit.

You need to know you are more than just your ego.

What you have and what you do and what education you have in life.

You are much more than all of that.

You are an eternal spiritual being.

And as you open up and recognize the truth of who you are,

That energy can heal and mature the ego.

And you can come into a position of self-acceptance to be aware of yourself as the little S,

The ego personality,

Which all of us have.

It's a necessary part of our journey,

But also the capital S,

The real self.

And each has its story.

The little story of the ego is,

Poor me,

I was a victim,

This is what happened.

And I had to overcome all these odds and struggle to prove I'm valuable.

That whole little story of the ego,

The martyrdom,

The self-pity,

The victim,

The blame,

The games,

What happened to me?

Life's unfair.

That's the little story.

And without a sense of who you truly are,

That's all you become.

And it's okay.

You don't have to wake up in this lifetime.

You'll have other opportunities to do it.

You're not given one chance.

You're giving as many chances as you need to find yourself and to return home.

But as the spiritual awakening takes place,

You can then start a journey of empowerment.

And your journey becomes the journey of remembering who you are and reuniting with your truth,

With the soul and spirit,

With your wisdom and intuition.

That becomes who you are.

And that is the grandest of the journey from these stages of development.

Am I getting enough?

Am I getting enough?

Self-centered.

Am I good enough?

Competing,

Comparing myself,

Always looking out and always ending up not feeling good enough because there's always somebody who does something better than you or looks better than you or has more money than you or whatever.

Am I doing enough?

Am I learning enough?

Achieving enough?

And on that hamster wheel until you just feel like I'm over it.

And that's when you go into the grownup.

Becomes resignated with just giving up on itself and feeling,

I guess I'm not good enough.

I'll just survive.

Appreciate what I have until the end and numb out to the pain of never finding who I truly am.

And there's those like you on a spiritual quest,

Those like you who are waking up and are remembering and are understanding their limited ego and know the games that it likes to play.

And as you understand the journey and the goal is to become enough knowing and feeling it,

Not just up here,

Not just saying the word,

Oh yeah,

I'm enough.

Empty,

Meaningless words.

You have to embody it and feel it and ground it into who you are.

That is the journey of the spirit and the soul and needing that ego to guide it through life,

To get grounded into physical life.

And to protect you,

The ego only takes in information from the five physical senses.

So it has to learn it from outside of itself.

It denies its intuition.

It denies its own sense of knowingness and inner wisdom.

It has to be told what to do.

It doesn't feel confident in who it is.

That is the journey.

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This is one of my best inspired talks from my higher self to you