Dismantling the ego

What is the ego?

The ego is about our sense of self-importance, the story and the image of who we hold ourselves to be. Some of it on a conscious, but most of it sitting at a subconscious level.

It is that part of us that doesn’t like being less than anyone else in any situation, it is the beliefs we hold as rock solid and do not want questioned, it is the part of us that really struggles with not getting what we want.

There are countless definitions of the ego in the field of psychology with 3 categories referred to throughout as the id, ego and super ego. According to Freud these parts combine to create the complex behaviour of human beings.

For purposes of our discussion we’ll look at how the ego plays out in our lives, what’s wrong with high degrees of ego and what’s the difference between living life with a strong ego vs. a dismantled one.

Why is it important to talk about ego in the context of our emotional intelligence course? For many of us, ego can be our worst enemy.

How can ego show up in our lives? It makes us stubborn, less compassionate, pushes people away, stops us from growing, makes us difficult to work with, causes irrational behaviour, can make us competitive in an unhealthy way, being critical and greedy and can even block love from coming into our lives …

I heard a story a few years ago that for me, was the best explanation of ego I’ve ever heard … it went a little something like this …

A young woman was walking through a beautiful forest close to her home, along a creek’s edge, watching it polish the rocks and pebbles along its journey. The plants were lush and overgrown, the floor covered in moss and the sunlight piercing through the canopy of trees. She comes across a beautiful flower and decides she must have it; she plucks the flower and takes it home where she can put it in a vase on her dining room table for her and all her visitors to admire.

This is a simple, yet powerful story in understanding the nuance which is the ego.

Can we see the flower and appreciate its beauty, its smell, its presence, its very existence without feeling that we need to own it, use it as an object to tell the story of who we want to be perceived to be?

Can you think of the other countless examples in life that this applies to? A drive by a beautiful holiday home whilst on vacation is hard to enjoy without a little bit of blues along the lines of.. 'if only if it was mine'...

The ego loves based on ‘how you make me feel’, step outside the ego and you can love things simply for being, as they are.

We cannot master emotional intelligence without dedicating our lives to understanding the ego, how we see it play out in our lives and how to dismantle it .. this post is us merely dipping our toe into the ocean of what there is to learn on the subject of ego .. make a commitment to read as much as you can on the subject and drop me a line for a free consultation on our emotional intelligence course.