In my last post I spoke about what is ego and what role it plays in our lives. The conclusion I drew, based on the books I’ve read, was that ego is this voice in our heads, that makes all the decisions as we go about our day. It is something, that is supposed to protect you and to mediate in between the two minds or two thinking systems, that exist in every human being. When faced with any situation (challenge, decision, question) in life, you always have a choice about how you are going to react. You can either listen to your basic reptilian instincts or to your moral voice. But who is to say which way is right or wrong? Which one should you listen to more often?
For people, who aspire to live conscious and self-aware lives, informing yourself about the way your mind works and how or why you make certain decisions is a good point to start with. If you made it so far, congratulations – it will only get worse, but it will definitely be entertaining. So back to the questions from the previous paragraph – there are several ways to answer them. At this point it is more than appropriate to introduce the concept of different egos – it can be big, strong or weak. In essence you want to strive for a strong ego, which means that you are more adaptive and will have an easier time living in a society. A big ego, on the other hand, means having an overblown view of yourself. But a big ego is not strong, it results from overcompensating to manage a weak ego, according to psychiatrist Dr. Tracey Marks. Your ego develops in the first three years of your life. Your view of the world is formed by your early interactions. You form a vibrant healthy view of the world and yourself, if you have early relationships that affirm you with acceptance, empathy and validation. A baby can feel affirmed by any person, who participates in their life at this stage. Similarly, negative experiences in this point of your life can chip away at your ego strength, but the net result is the sum of your experiences. Your ego strength is how well your mind is able to fulfil the normal ego functions that help you self-regulate and adapt to prosperity, adversity and change.
A new concept to further crack down this topic are ego functions. Some examples include: abstract thinking, perception and reality testing, censorship, social judgment, affect tolerance, impulse control, defence mechanisms for coping and internal conflict resolution. If you have a strong ego, you have self-confidence, high frustration tolerance, you can postpone gratification, you can compromise and forgo your own desires and wishes for the greater good, when necessary. Retrospectively, some examples of a weak ego include: being impulsive, needing immediate gratification, emotional instability in the form of outbursts and explosions, feeling inferior and then needing to exert superiority over others in order to elevate yourself, having distorted reality perceptions and having a fragile sense of self. Knowing this information look back at your own life as well as of those who surround you and try to find these examples. Once you’ve identified the type of a person you’re dealing with, it's a lot easier to find common language or the root of unsatisfying relationships in your life. Once again it proves my point that you can not take anything in life personally – everything people do or say is a direct reflection of their own relationship with themselves.
You cannot change other people, unless they are willing to change themselves, but you can definitely work on yourself. In case you recognized ego weakness affecting some aspects of your personality, there are some steps you can take in order to strengthen yourself. First, engage in activities that increase your insight like therapy or journaling. There is this stigma around going to therapy, which I absolutely can not comprehend, but if you ask me – everyone should go to therapy, at least once in their life. And speaking about writing – you see how it’s working out for me. I’m trying.
A second suggestion is to engage in self-care activities like setting limits with people, eliminating negative people and situations from your life. Take care of your body with proper rest, exercise and diet – the typical eat-pray-love rhetoric, but apparently there is something to it.
There are endless sources like books, articles or videos about ego, which absolutely fascinate me. Big part of being an adult is unlearning a lot of trauma you were taught by people, who didn’t know what they were doing either. I am grateful for this opportunity to be able to share my thoughts and passion with you. I hope that this post can ease your life at least a little bit or open a door of curiosity for you, which you didn’t know existed. Please share your thoughts with me about this, I am always happy to hear any type of feedback!
Love,
Faja
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