How do you interpret the word, ‘ego’?
It’s used in many ways, such as to refer to a ‘big ego’ and has been described as something harmful to be transcended or even destroyed.
When I typed “why is the ego” into Google, the first three options that showed up were:
why is the ego bad
why is the ego evil
why is the ego negative.
Here’s the way I see the ego:
(As a given, I respect your perspective if it is different to mine!)
To me, the ego, or personality, is a container for the Soul.
The ego/personality is what develops as our Soul comes into relationship with the family and culture we are born into.
The way I see it, so many of the things that are deemed ’negative’ (I would say ‘unhelpful’) are the result of particular cultural perspectives and experiences that become internalised, rather than being about the ego per se.
For example, not everyone with an ego/personality has a fundamental belief in, and experience of, separation.
There are many indigenous peoples who lived, and live, within a deep embedded sense of interconnectedness.
Belief in right and wrong, good and bad, is also not a fundamental aspect of the ego.
Jeremy Lent, in his book, “The Patterning instinct” talks about the original perception of the split between spirit and matter. and the belief in ‘good’ and ‘bad’ happened about 3.5k years ago.
There are cultures in the world who do not perceive people in this way.
Some cultures developed a belief more akin to yin/yang rather than good/bad.
As Marshall Rosenberg, founder of Nonviolent Communication said;
“Fortunately anthropologist Ruth Benedict has done a lot of research in this area. A good place to start is an article in “Psychology Today,” June 1970, entitled “Synergy—Patterns of the Good Culture”. She has written many books on the subject since the 1920s. She’s found them all over the world. When she started out she wasn’t sure she would find any. The tribe I have had some contact with is Orang Asilie tribe in Malaysia. I’ll never forget what my translator was saying before we got started. He was going over how he was going to translate. He pointed out his language has no verb to be, like [you are] good, bad, wrong, right. You can’t classified people if you take away the verb to be. How are you going to insult people? You take away ninety percent of my vocabulary! So I say what are you going to say if I say “You’re selfish”?
He responded, “It’s going to be hard. I’d translate it like this: Marshall says he sees you are taking care of your needs but not the needs of others.” He says, “In my language, you tell people what they are doing and what you like them to do differently, it would not occur to us to tell people what they are.” He then paused and he looked at me in all sincerity and said, “Why would you ever call a person a name?”
I said you have to know who to punish. Punishment is a totally foreign concept in these …. cultures. He looked at me and said, “If you have a plant and it isn’t growing the way you would like, do you punish it?” The whole idea of punishment is so ingrained in us that it is hard for us to imagine other options. It is totally foreign to people who haven’t been educated in domination systems culture. In many of these cultures they look at people who hurt others this way: they are not bad, they’ve just forgotten their nature. They put them in a circle and they remind them of their true nature, what it’s like to be real human beings. They’ve gotten alienated and they bring them back to life.”
So to me, so much of what is blamed on the ego, is actually the result of the key beliefs of the culture.
If we believe our ego is somehow ‘bad,’ then, since the majority of us develop an ego, then, we are saying as human beings we are ‘bad.’ And that really is the foundation of so many religious and spiritual beliefs – that our true nature is ‘evil,’ our bodies are ‘bad’ and that ’spirit’ is somewhere else than here, in our bodies, in ourselves, on this planet.
I prefer to see that human beings are innately Loving and Willing beings.
We may act in ways that are hurtful, and we may learn to judge, but in my way of seeing things, these are caused by Love-Hurts and Will-Hurts.
Love-Hurts are where our innate interconnectedness isn’t honoured, and where our Love-Needs such as closeness, connection, attunement, belonging and compassion aren’t met, and where our feelings of grief and loss in response to that are not lovingly heard.
Will-Hurts are where our uniqueness isn’t honoured, and where our Will-Needs such as choice, autonomy, agency, respect for our No and our Yes, and encouragement aren’t met, and where our feelings of frustration and outrage in response to that aren’t lovingly listened to.
The personality/ego that we develop is a container for our Soul, and the more accurately our Soul is truly seen, understood and nourished as we grow, the more the personality we develop is an accurate reflection of our Soul.
The less accurately our Soul is seen, because of the filters of our parents and our culture, including separation, judgment, shaming, coercion, and all the other oh-so-lovely things that are a part of the domination/colonised culture, the less our personality/ego is a clear reflection of our Soul.
The more there is a gap, the less we we feel a sense of authenticity, connection and agency in the world (Soul, Love and Will).
The wonderful thing is, that we can support our personality/ego to become a clearer reflection of our Soul; a less opaque and more transparent container.
When we are truly seen by others who are less conditioned by the domination/colonised culture, this process can happen – as our Love-Hurts from the younger parts of us are heard and we develop an increasingly accurate perception of ourselves, an increasingly compassionate inner dialogue, and we release the shaming and judgment we internalised growing up in this culture.
As our Will-Hurts are heard and our yeses and no’s are supported, we increasingly free up our willingness channel, which means we can make increasing choices and action based on our innate knowing rather than conditioning around ’should’ and ‘have to.”
In this process, then, the ego/personality becomes a clearer reflection of the Soul, and we become more identified with Love, we feel an increasing sense of compassion, interconnectedness and belonging.
We haven’t transcended our personality; we’ve supported it to reshape so it more accurately reflects who we really are.
As we increasingly identify with our Soul, with Love and Will, we can increasingly love all the parts of our personality, including the hurt younger parts, the parts that needed to internalise harsh ways of thinking and the processes that needed to come in so that we could belong, be safe and be loved.
As we become more identified with our Soul, we become more and more compassionate and grateful towards our personality, and all that it did for us as we were growing up in the family and culture that we did, rather than something that was ever ‘wrong’ or ‘bad.’
This process continues, as the locus of identity becomes increasingly based in the Soul (Love and Will), whilst we are able to function lovingly and powerfully in the world, thanks to our personality.
I wonder if this resonates with you?
xoxo