There was a time that I thought I had to do life essentially on my own. Looking back I can see how ego driven I was but at the time I had no idea.
Ego is a mysterious thing that way, it takes a large amount of self awareness to know it’s taken over, and many times we don’t recognize it until long after the fact, if we recognize it at all.
My Uncle passed away last summer. This was the first time I have ever truly connected ego with grieving.
He was the first Uncle who had really consistently engaged in my life, even for a short time, and also the only one to consistently tell me he loved me. When I thought about how I lost “the only uncle who…”, I would spiral into emotional suffering.
When I focused on the gifts he had, the legacy he left, what I learned from him as a person, what I learned from watching him and his incredible spirit and emotional strength… my ego would quiet and my suffering would turn into feeling blessed.
I am learning that anytime I am focused on myself, it’s generally coming from my ego.
This sounds pretty elementary because it’s usually fairly easy to spot arrogance and we connect ego with arrogance, but ego runs so much deeper.
Ego is not always about how amazing we are… although my ego likes to walk down that road when things are going well, it’s usually humbled quite quickly. I thought I looked really good the day I wore my pants inside out. (You can read about that story here.)
It can also be about how bad things are, how we aren’t getting what we want, or maybe how we have to do everything ourselves.
It might be, “what will someone think of me”, or it could be “I would never do what that person did”, or it could come in the form of “what were you thinking?”
I have noticed that “deserving” is a word that is usually ego based. “I didn’t deserve this”, “I deserve better”, “you deserve that”… these thoughts create a slippery slope of attachment and expectations.
Ego comes from the stories we tell ourselves. The more we try to make something fit into our worldview as opposed to simply exploring it or accepting it, the more ego is involved.
Our ego holds us back. We might think we have to be someone important to do work that matters, and our ego tells us we don’t fit the bill. Or we might think we are the only one who can do a particular job, so we remain stuck somewhere when we are ready for growth.
We all have ego, nobody is exempt from it. It is typically rooted in fear and causes a lot of unnecessary suffering.
The key is recognizing when it has taken over, and shifting back into love, humility, and compassion, for ourselves and for others.
As I’ve lessened the grip of my ego in areas of my life, I have begun to realize that the only people who think they have to do life on their own, or that they even can, are ego based.
We need each other.
Without each other we are only stardust.