It’s time to know what the ego is. When the soul incarnates on the physical plane, a birth takes place in a human body, the parents give the child some name, which is the seed of the personality – the ego.
They begin to teach him in a certain environment, show certain social norms, rules by which one should live. They also more or less consciously transmit their own beliefs, which begin to shape the baby. This whole process is called programming. And this means that everyone around is trying to adapt the ideal soul to life in the physical world.
Ego grows with age. Over time, there is more familiarity with this created identity. A person identifies with this image to such an extent that he can protect it at any cost when the need arises. Whenever the feeling comes that the image of the world or of himself is threatened, he fights, because this illusion is himself. He will use any excuse to continue this existence. In the end, a moment comes when it is completely forgotten that a person is a soul. And sometimes the existence of the soul is even completely denied.
Gradually, the mission, life plan and goals are forgotten, as well as who the person is.
Meanwhile, the ego is just an expression of mental energy, that is, the work of the mind, the brain. It is not the likeness of a person. It is a product of the mind – a purely human creation. It relies on everything that happened in the past, loves control and feeds on fears. And its manifestation is emotions, that is why it is an illusion.
What is Ego?
Id is the most deeply rooted aspect of the human psyche, animal instinct. It is deep in the subconscious. Its goal is to avoid pain by immediately seeking satisfaction after pleasure. It is also the desire to spread the species and the fear of death.
Ego is the executive function of the personality, the rational part of the personality, the false personality is the image of oneself. This is what a person considers himself, one hundred percent truth about him and his image. What he considers most important.
According to Freud, it is absent from the very beginning of life. It does not develop until some time after birth, remaining dependent on genetic factors and environmental interactions. Its role is to reconcile task conflicts on the part of instincts, conscience and the external environment. Integration of the external and internal world. This prevents a person from acting in accordance with his basic urges. It also helps to strike a balance between moral and idealistic standards.
What does this mean? For example, when driving a car, someone suddenly bursts into the road, the ego does not allow you to get out of the car and hit this person for creating such stress. The ego operates both consciously and unconsciously.
Superego is a conscience, brakes and obstacles, as well as an idea of what a person should be in order to comply with social and parental values. Picture of the ideal I. Moral and ideals.
Why is ego an illusion?
The universe is a vast ocean of consciousness. Everyone at the deepest level of the psyche is a part of this ocean, a drop of water. The ego is the mechanism that creates the illusion of you as a drop as an individual, separate from the ocean, a separate consciousness that you call Me. This makes it difficult to see reality – the ocean. You have to go outside to see the ocean. The ego is deceiving by saying that you exist only materially. It makes you believe that the mind is building you, pressed into the flesh, blood and bones. This illusion is created precisely in the learning process.
The fundamental feature of ego is dualism, that is, the division of the world between man and the rest of the world. Man and other people, man and animals, man and the environment, man and everything else. No connection with others. The consequence of this is the belief that a person is better and more important than others, that his life is more valuable than the lives of others. There are no binding elements of fear in the present that could create a true identity.
How ego works
- Controls a person by adding importance and superiority by criticizing others;
- Exaggerates to give more recognition;
- Forces the use of control and fear;
- Uses the word “should” or the subjunctive to prove the existence of fear;
- Identifies itself with “have” and “do”;
- Proud of everything material;
- Constantly seeking applause, compliments and recognition;
- Can’t listen;
- Always justifies and defends himself, sees the problem in others and looks for the guilty;
- Can’t be at the moment, so still supports injuries;
- Feeds on the concept of good and evil;
- Responds to experiences of pain and pleasure;
- Compares with others;
- Uses gossip to ruin the reputation of others;
- Envy others;
- Produces self-pity;
- Builds happiness on someone else’s misfortune;
- Believes he can make others happy;
- Creates his own world.
Spiritually, the ego can be an obstacle on the path to enlightenment
The ego cannot see itself and understand what is really happening. Spiritual development consists in observing your own desires, aspirations and mechanisms and choosing only what you really want to achieve. There is a rejection of bad habits, beliefs and behavior with which a person has identified himself so far. He starts watching himself to find out when the ego appears.
Man is a perfect being who enjoys the material body with its physical, emotional and mental dimensions.
It is not the person who suffers when you isolate your ego, which hates uncertainty and cannot stand the current state. To ease the pain, it tries to make him think that everything that is happening is a nightmare from which one can eventually wake up. It uses the sensation of the unreal as an anesthetic to relieve the pain. But this tool may soon stop working, and then what? The pain can become unbearable.
It is the ego that makes you believe in eternal life, in protection from all dangers, unpredictable events, and that no one in the family will get sick or die. Meanwhile, there are epidemics, as well as pain and suffering. All this is part of reality, which is forgotten along with the misleading.
Loss in the material perception of the world
Everything is transitory, including the ego. Nothing is permanent and real. Even the atoms that make up matter are in constant flux.
The only salvation is to understand that a person is a soul. He is a soul with a body. This is the real “I” – a conscious, initiating energy that exists outside the physical body. Light and love.
Until now, man has identified himself with his physical body and thus placed himself within certain limits.
You are a soul and you have a body that is used to move around the world. You need to see the soul in yourself and feel its infinity.
Alter ego
Natalia Agafonova, Rector of the West Ural Institute of Economics and Law, explains:
There are different opinions whether this is good or bad. It would seem that it is probably not very good when a person creates an alternative personality, however, this has a good side, because when we plan some ideal image of ourselves, we describe the best version of ourselves.
This is the fulcrum from which development itself begins, and on the path to success, as practice shows, people who do not just chase the fashion for conformity, but prescribe a real image the way they want to be – achieve a lot in their lives. Not only in terms of results, but also in terms of allocating their own resources.
This allows you to sometimes even beat yourself and turn off a successful self-presentation. In this case, the alter ego is a kind of beacon about how a person develops, what he wants to achieve. There is a very important point – this is the moment of preserving one’s resources, because this is precisely his image and goals. So the result will bring pleasure.
Depleted ego
Now it is fashionable to talk about emotional intelligence, emotional health. But very often, well, we miss an important point – to distinguish where the line already lies between fatigue and a violation of the emotional perception of the life of the world.
In fact, we are already talking about a secured ego. Where does it come from? In fact, this is the price of success. That is, when we drew an image of the best of ourselves and plunged into this pursuit, constantly competing with ourselves, and sewed into our lives the matrix just to make decisions, achieve the goal, regardless of obstacles, in spite of.
At this moment, even the most strong-willed, responsible and purposeful people begin to fail and get tired of constant decision-making. There is a trick here. If we can define emotional burnout in ourselves, then ego depletion is not so simple. If we are chasing the best version of ourselves, we do not give ourselves the right to get tired and take a break.
And the depletion of the ego is manifested in the fact that we give up our careers. We are changing profession because we already have an image. So we decided that we need to train endurance and constantly undermine ourselves to the best version. Someone does not stand up and breaks down, because the burnt-out egos begin to provoke. Decisions are impulsive. Or vice versa, to slow down the actions of a person so much that the result is no longer needed.
The exorbitant burden of responsibility of making hard decisions leads to the fact that people break down, miss deadlines, begin to blame themselves, and break down on their environment. And as a result, they destroy the world around them. The most desperate dare to downshifting. What to do to avoid this?
First, learn to do what you don’t have to do. Delegate at work and at home.
Second, alternate intense exercise with therapy days when you do simple, non-mental work. For example, this may include parsing documents into folders. Sort the notes, put them in the order convenient for you.
Third, stop chasing expertise. The resources of our brain, no matter how much we train it, will still be limited. Large cognitive loads lead not only to emotional burnout, but also to ego depletion burnout.
Recognize the expertise of others, enter into communication with them. You need to balance your life between work and personal space. Fill it with communication with loved ones, entertainment and other pleasures.
