The Truth About Your Ego

It's scary to really truly understand you have an ego - a living breathing part of you with its own thoughts and feelings quite separate from yours. And you're both living in the same body.

It's like being locked in a dark closet with a total stranger.

Imagine the feeling. All your life you think you're alone in your closet. Then you discover there's a stranger in there with you.

Whoa! How did you not see it? How could someone else be in there with you all this time - and you not know?

So much easier to pretend there's no such thing as an ego. Or pretend it doesn't matter. That it has no impact.

But if you truly had only one 'part' of you - one aspect of your self - then you would never feel the need to talk to yourself. All would be quiet inside your head because there would be nobody else to talk to.

Most people believe they ARE their ego. With no difference between the self I and the ego I.

"I am my ego; my ego is me."

Not true. Ego is critical for your survival. But it's not you. It's one PART of you. You are more than your ego. Much more. Many people, however, *function* from their ego.

Ego is dumb and repetitive. Oh-so-cynical. Self-destructive. Bitter. Seething. Like a slow bubbling brew. When you function from your ego, tomorrow will be like yesterday. Yesterday will be like tomorrow. Predictable. Little surprise and a lot of pain and struggle.

Every human has an ego. Your ego was born when you were born, and it stays with you your entire life. You could not survive without it.

The purpose of the ego is to take the information from the world and deliver it to you. Like your mailman. Your job is to interpret and respond to that information.

Unfortunately, the pain and shame of childhood often throws the system off-balance. We decide we don't want to make decisions about what's happening to us. And we choose to not make choices. Instead, we try to force our egos to make the interpretations about life.

A small child, being punished, cannot possibly figure out why it's happening. The child cannot understand the connection between spilt milk and a scolding or a beating.

They can modify their behavior - they adapt to the abuse - but that's an entirely different story. They adapt even though they don’t understand.

But humans always seek meaning. A child will always seek to rationalize the pain inflicted upon it by those God-like beings called parents. Lacking an answer, the child turns to its ego.

"Why did they yell at me?"

The ego - even less equipped than the child - invariably comes back with the answer:

"Because there's something wrong with you."

It's the one answer that always makes sense. And thus the patterns are laid.

First, the pattern of asking the ego for answers. The pattern of forcing the ego to interpret the data it delivers. The pattern of making the ego be responsible for things it can't possibly be responsible for.

It's like making the mailman come into your house, sit down and open all your mail for you. And decide how to handle each letter. And pay all your bills.

Also comes the pattern of shaming the ego. Shame is like a hot potato. When somebody throws it onto you, your natural tendency is to throw it somewhere else. For a child, usually the only place to throw that shame is onto their ego.

"You're stupid. You're bad. You're wrong. You can't be fixed."

Now of course the child doesn't know it has an ego. It doesn't understand the practice of inner dialogue. It just knows that it feels bad, and it wants to do something with those feelings. About the only place for a child to dump it's shame is on it's own ego.

The ego, though, has its own thoughts and feelings, its own desires, its own imagination . It has a mind of its own.

And it can easily start to hate you at an early age. You force it to do your job of thinking and feeling and evaluating. You force it to come up with answers. You force it to be responsible for your life. Your force it to take on your shame, your pain, and your self-hate.

You abuse your ego as you were abused. Well guess what happens when you dump and dump and dump on somebody?

They start hating you and they want to get you back anyway they can. Have you ever seen a picture of a person with a little angel on one shoulder and a little devil on the other?

That little devil on your shoulder is your ego.

It started out as an ally, but most likely it's now your enemy. And it's always whispering in your ear. It's the little voice telling you this is all nonsense. The little voice always trying to distract you away from what's real. The voice that always wants you to judge without evaluating. The voice that tells you you're either better than or less than. But never equal.

The voice that tells you "you really are a victim". And then gives you 45 reasons why.

Stop for a second right now, close your eyes, and ask yourself: "Do I have an ego?"

And just listen to the answer.

That's what your ego sounds like.