What is ego?

Very often I hear my readers tell me that their True Emotion Mirror is just reacting out of ego. Very often, when spiritualists read something they don’t like or agree with, they believe the writer is still acting out of ego. I wouldn’t be so convinced, in fact, I believe it’s a very much an ego response in itself the way it’s used in spiritual circles. I want to clear up some misconceptions about what “ego” means and why it’s bad and why it isn’t as bad as you think.

In spiritual circles, ego can mean two things; being still in a I-based thinking, where you see yourself separate from other people. I believe that it is very much the goal of spiritual growth to FIND your true self, as in to find what your ego is made of. In spiritual texts it can also mean the same as it means in psychology, where it means pretty much the same as the original meaning of the word:

“Ego” is a Latin and Greek (ἑγώ) word meaning “I,” often used in English to mean the “self,” “identity,” or other related concepts. (Wikipedia)

Ego, in other words, means who you are in relation to and in context to other people. “I am this; you are that.” The ego is very much subject to public opinion on earlier soul-age levels, where the sense of self isn’t fully developed yet and can be fragile. When this sense of self is under threat, we get what we are talking about in spirituality: an ego response.

Your sense of self can be either strong – based on true and actual understanding and awareness of one’s true qualities and true skills, virtues and failures, or authentic self, or it can be weak – based on false ideas of who you are so that you have to develop an “inflated ego” meaning that you tell stories about yourself to yourself, convince yourself that they are true and want people around you to believe those stories to be real. If someone points out a lie in your ego story, that creates an ego response, the need to restore the false self-image any way you can.

In spirituality, we often hear the phrase “ridding yourself of ego,” which is a misleading expression. What you should say is to rid yourself from FALSE ego, the fictional story you tell yourself and people about yourself. “False ego” does not mean the body or anything physical. You are a combination of a mind, body and soul, and you are not supposed to rid yourself of any of the three, but unite all three into one amazing being. For as long as you are in a physical form, you are supposed to be physical. You cannot jump the queue and become an angelic being before you’ve learned to be human – if that is your goal. You are on the physical plane for a reason, and that reason is physicality, so you need to learn to embrace that flesh that you occupy, even if this was the last time you’ll ever choose a physical existence, while you’re here, you better make the most out of your time.

False ego, when under threat, makes you do stupid things. It makes you yell at people who you love. It makes you tell panicky lies you didn’t intend to tell. It makes you deflect blame and blame others instead of looking into your own behavior. It makes you point your finger at your lover and say: “He/she should change, not me.” A True ego, a strong, healthy ego, makes you look at yourself in an honest way, without putting yourself down but with confidence: “I am a pretty cool person, but I want to be even cooler. Is what that person said about me true? If it is true, I can evaluate whether I like that quality about myself and keep it, or would I rather work out the reason why I am that and change it if I don’t like it. If it’s not true, I can safely ignore it, because I know who I am and I don’t need to fake it.” Many men are usually very good at this. Successful men especially. Women are less often so open to self-criticism, and that is due to the way we’ve been brought up through history; we expect a free ride, a free meal, a lower bar and an easier access like we were in the same category of special needs people with a chromosome disorder called womanhood. If men don’t respect our need for special treatment, we get an ego-response and accuse them of all sorts of things that they are probably not guilty of.

Ego-boosts are what most women are looking for in spirituality; the right to say “I am better” “I know more” “I am enlightened”. This is the same thing women do to each other at night club restrooms and gym locker rooms: “No you look fabulous!” “Just pamper yourself, sister, you’ve earned it!” These are empty words designed to aid your brain to keep feeding your ego lies about yourself and the way you achieve good life. A person with a good self-esteem, as in a strong ego would shudder at these phrases because they mean nothing. Someone with a true wish to be better and to better themselves further rather than cover themselves with beautiful lies would much prefer an honest piece of advice: “You see your buttocks? They sag a bit – but don’t worry about it because when you do this exercise you can firm them up real quick. It’ll take you this, that and the other to achieve and if you need help give me a ring.” This would not be an unusual conversation amongst men (paraphrasing) but I have never heard this line of discussion amongst feminine women. Not once. Men love helping each other be better, women help each other to avoid work and feel okay about not improving themselves – that is false ego helping another false ego to exist; the less you do, the less I have to do, so if I can talk you into being less than what you could be and feel great about it then I don’t look as bad next to you as I would look if you took the time to improve yourself. (And clearly, physical fitness is simply an easy to understand example.)

A healthy, strong ego is something that a person should thrive for. It aligns with the opening of the Crown Chakra; self-awareness. Your crown chakra will remain shut for as long as you refuse to see flaw in yourself and prefer looking it in others. I must say that in my soul-conversation with my Miss Guides, the women’s ego is based on this idea: If I point out a MASSIVE flaw in their character, and if they can point out the smallest flaw in me,  even an unrelated one, they can discard what I told them COMPLETELY. A false ego will use ANY EXCUSE to avoid looking into the mirror, anything at all. A person with a healthy strong ego will take whatever criticism offered, even if it hurts, without looking to counter attack the person saying it as a defence mechanism even if they could point out flaws in them, and looks into themselves and go… Oh well. Yeah, I did that, fix it or leave it? Once they’ve looked into themselves, they can go back considering the character of others, should they been asked to like in my case (hoping to get the usual: “there’s nothing wrong with you, you are beautiful, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!” Why is it so important to not let anyone tell you otherwise? Because false ego cannot withstand close inspection!) It is healthy to sometimes wonder whether one is truly as magnificent as one likes to think.

False ego is something that takes everything that you want to hear and stores safely into your self-story “I am beautiful just the way I am, I don’t need to change, I am lovable the way I am, I deserve love.” A strong ego asks this: “I am beautiful, but can I be more so? Is there a way I can offer more to people by improving myself? I want to give love to someone, I wish I could give them more, what more can I do for the one I love?” This is not servitude, this is someone with so much to going for them that they can lavish love on people out of the excess that they have, and it never comes out of guilt or shame or need to “buy love”. A person with a terribly bad self-esteem would think they have to serve others and give more and be more in order to be lovable, they don’t feel joy of giving, they feel sad and defeated giving, like they had to earn their place in the lives of their people. It may look the same on the outside, but they are buying love instead of giving love without even thinking about whether they would lose out in the deal.

It is a developmental phase; First the self-esteem is terrible and you serve people thinking that if you give enough they’ll love you for it, then you go through the “I don’t need to give anything to anyone”, then, you move to the last phase where you feel so good about yourself that you want to give to others whatever falls as grumbles off your abundant, overflowing table. “I cannot use all this happiness; you take some!”

To rid yourself from false ego, start paying attention to the lies you tell yourself – you should then turn those lies into goals instead. The way you want to be seen is who you are meant to be – you keep that facade up while you work your way towards becoming what you say you are. You can become what you say – otherwise you’d fool nobody. This facade helps you to zero in on who you truly are – you just have to truly become it. Isn’t that funny? Don’t be afraid of slight discomfort in looking into the difference of who you are and what you want to be – it’s all good. There are several ways of doing this, you can just wonder, ponder and think or you could learn to use Tarot cards in your self-discovery, they are very good for the job – much better than hanging onto a hope they’d tell you when your true love is coming back to you. 😉 All you really need is the wish to truly become what you pretend to be, and the tools will be given to you, I promise.

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