Balancing The Self: The Fine Line Between Too Much And Not Enough Self

This week's You-Ni-Verse podcast is all about the self. How do we know how much of ourselves is enough or how much is too much? Many spiritual teachings teach people to transcend the ego, but we do need our egos in order to get around in the world. We need them in order to reach our goals and realise our dreams in this life. But our relationships work best when the two selves are equally present. I discuss how to navigate showing up with our full selves but not trampling other selves.

Transcript

Hello and welcome.

This is Akasha Love.

I am a soul alchemist helping you to birth your true self in this lifetime.

Guided by my own soul and following my heart's wisdom,

I bring to you meditations,

Downloads,

Talks and music designed to support you on the journey deep into connecting with your soul and living a life which is fully grounded in and aligned with expressing your truth as authentically as possible.

So hello and welcome.

Today I wanted to speak about balancing the self.

So the fine line between too much and not enough self.

So this is all about balancing our ego.

So the ego has got a lot of bad rap over the years.

And if you may have misinterpreted that a lot of negativity towards the concept of the ego is the part of the self that wants something,

The part of the self that thinks about me and mine and my space and my desires and my house and my job and my family.

So this ego has gotten a bad rap over the years because of some,

Sometimes it can be misinterpreted in spiritual circles as a completely undesirable thing and something that we need to surgically remove,

Which is firstly not possible.

And secondly,

It would not be good because we'd be kind of a half a person.

So if we didn't have any egoic energy,

We'd be like a jellyfish in terms of our personality.

We'd be kind of floating through space with no will or desire of our own.

And maybe this works for a very rare few people,

But most people need to have a healthy and balanced ego in order to survive in the world as it is.

So our two extremes of too much ego and not enough is basically either too much ego is an arrogant,

Controlling,

Manipulative person or somebody who behaves in an arrogant,

Controlling,

Manipulative,

Dominating way.

And the opposite extreme is the kind of submissive extreme of the self where the characteristic behaviors are more like people pleasing,

Codependency,

So caretaking of others in relationships,

Not knowing where I start and you end not knowing the separation,

Not having clear boundaries,

Not really knowing what you want because you're so concerned with what others want and with meeting their needs because that's how you felt safe probably in childhood.

So that's the other extreme of this self spectrum.

So today I just wanted to introduce this idea of balancing the self so that you can just reflect a little bit on your own as to whether you need to perhaps have less self or more self in order to feel more imbalance and more in flow and more in harmony in your life and relationships.

So I thought of just a few examples here to demonstrate a little bit what I'm talking about.

So too much self would be behaviors like trying to take credit for others work,

Which is not your own.

So trying to big up yourself if you like in a way through whatever means possible.

This is obviously also deceptive and yeah,

It's obviously quite complicated behavior,

But it comes from a place of wanting to beef up your ego.

So a really good example of this was in a film I saw recently called,

I think it's called Big Eyes and it's about an artist,

Actually an artist couple where the woman was both of them were painters apparently the plot thickens and it turns out that one of them wasn't actually a painter in the end.

But the man,

They got married and the man started taking credit for the woman's work for her paintings of a lot of children with big eyes.

And he did this initially seemed quite unmeditated,

Not premeditated.

So he just felt that it was easier for him to help her sell her work if he pretended that they were his.

Obviously it's quite a big leap to make what,

Why did he need to pretend they were his in order to sell them.

But his desires in this interaction were for fame for himself and he was prepared to do whatever that took including trampling all over the artistic rights of his partner in order to achieve or to get this fame that he craved and recognition that he craved.

And spoiler alert switch this off if you'd like to watch the film.

It turned out he wasn't even a painter at all in the end he wasn't any kind of a painter and he would he had also passed off other people's work as his own.

So this is one quite good example of too much ego.

Obviously creating really big problematic situations in his life.

A not so dramatic example of too much self would be for example asking for a promotion when you know you are not the best person for a job in your work or your company.

So you're self aware enough to understand your skills and talents and you are able to see that there is someone else or some other people that would be more appropriate for this job but your ambition is just so strong that you put yourself up for that anyway and you will perhaps trample on others who are more qualified for this position in order to meet your needs for your egoic self to feel perhaps acclaimed or accomplished.

So the opposite of the too much self the not enough self.

An example of that would be the opposite so the same situation there's a promotion that's available in your work or your organization and even though you recognize you are a good person for this job you don't put your hand up or put yourself forward for the job just because you don't have quite enough self belief your self worth is not strong enough you're not able to stand up for yourself you've been perhaps taught by someone in your past that it's not an attractive behavior to stand up and say hey this is me this is this is mine I want this that it's better to be a wall flower and sort of hover in the background not put yourself forward women particularly may have been trained to behave in this way.

So another example of not enough self would be not showing your work or not sharing your work whatever that work is so creative work artistic work writing music or just any work that you're deeply passionate about that comes from your heart but you are not you're doing it but you're not showing it because of that lingering fear that you're not quite good enough or not quite ready enough.

Another version of this would be to be constantly doing courses so constantly getting educated getting gaining higher degrees and diplomas because of this same underlying false belief that you're not quite ready enough yet and obviously some courses and diplomas are necessary for whatever careers we are seeking to engage in but there can be a point where you might find yourself actually putting off the work or career because you're constantly getting ready constantly getting more qualifications reassuring yourself that you're almost there but if this is really chronic it might just continue and you'll never actually start that job or career.

So also we can look at these two opposites of too much not enough self like in the area of sexuality so too much would be a very dominant person who is in that arena taking for themselves their own pleasure but not giving so much to the other person and the opposite would be the submissive person who's doing whatever they can so the same traits will show here that people pleasing to please the other person but not necessarily being satisfied themselves and not necessarily being able to ask for their needs to also be met in that encounter or that relationship.

So what to do to rebalance or to balance the self if you feel like you need either a little bit less self or a little bit more self so you need to step back a little bit and let others shine equally as you do and support others more or you need to step forward a little bit and allow yourself to shine equally just as much as others around you.

So you need to support yourself as much as perhaps you support the people around you in your life so if you're a people pleaser that equation may be unbalanced you may be constantly supporting and giving a hand and a leg up to your friends and colleagues but not giving that to yourself and not actually asking for the help that you offer freely to others not being able to ask other people for the help that you need.

So what to do about this?

I would suggest firstly just being as radically honest with yourself as you can so you may want to journal the answers to this question.

I feel so just journal your feelings about whether you are at either of these extremes of too much or not enough self and journal your really your truest feelings which will be clear to you in your relationships so we don't know we can't answer these questions about the self without being in relationship that's the only place that we really see how we are showing up.

So journal how your true deep feelings about how you feel in the different relationships in your life see whether you feel like you are able to speak your truth meet your needs ask for what you want while at the same time supporting others in doing the same or if you feel you're often perhaps others take advantage of you or you're often in a submissive position or you're dominated by someone or you're easily bullied.

So just journal this out as honestly as possible or you might be the bully you might be the dominator and the important thing here as always is no self judgment so loving kindness and attitude of radical acceptance to whatever it is that you see in yourself letting go of any guilt or shame or any kind of judgment at all knowing that all of these behaviors generally stem from our past from our families from our training at school or in early life depending on the kinds of relationships the kinds of really foundational relationships that we've had.

So from that journaling process you will probably discover how you really feel and what you need to do to balance how you're showing up and to balance your ego in your life and relationships and then I would suggest if you discover that you need to let's say turn up the volume on yourself so grow a bit of a stronger ego stand up for yourself more put your hand up for stuff more say no more perhaps wait before you agree to things check in with yourself more.

I would just try taking baby steps so try saying no when you might normally say yes but not really mean that yes and see how it feels and even though it might be very difficult because you might have a habitual pattern of agreeing to things that you really don't want to agree to so it might be very challenging at first it will be powerfully liberating just that first no and then move on to further steps like putting your hand up for that promotion or putting yourself out there more putting your work out there sharing your soul more than you normally would and again monitoring how it makes you feel this will always be the indication for you of whether you're moving in a healthier and unhealthy direction your feelings will tell you that you start to feel lighter happier more joyful then you're moving in the right direction and so the opposite if you find that you have too much your ego is too strong in your relating there's too much self there for your relationships to be balanced and harmonious then you might want to try to stepping back a little bit more you might want to try just being quiet more allowing others to speak more and see how that feels and perhaps also here in this case pushing yourself less so you might have you might have the same underlying cause as someone who has not enough self your underlying belief might be that you need to prove your worth and so you might push yourself into positions and scenarios that you don't really want necessarily to be in you might push yourself too far because you're being spurred on by this voice of not enough or not good enough underneath so you might want to try practice just stepping back a little bit and see again how that feels how whether it feels lighter joyful more relaxed this will always tell you whether you're on the right track so that's all I wanted to share today around this very big topic of balancing the self the fine line between too much and not enough self I would love to hear your comments questions around this topic so keep following the wisdom of your heart the whisperings of your soul because these will always lead you in the right direction.

Reviews

So lovely and insightful, thank you!!