Ego

The Australian 70's Pop-Rock group sang that "Ego Is Not A Dirty Word" ( https://www.flashlyrics.com/lyrics/skyhooks/ego-is-not-a-dirty-word-08 ) and inspired a whole generation to cast off the shackles of shame fettering the uniqueness and individuality of so many.  For hundreds of years, popular culture had branded ego as sinful and dark, something horrid to kill off within ourselves at all costs.  I figure now that humanity needed those centuries to learn and grow, to become aware of the dangers of an unbridled and unaccompanied ego.  Ego is like a child and has stages of development, needing guidance, information, safety and understanding to grow up and excel.  Like everything though, there is a continuum, different extremes of everything.  I don't believe we are all meant to stop being our unique selves to create a beautiful world.  I believe it is that very uniqueness that creates the beauty we all chase in our lives.  Ego is part of who we all are and we can love Ego too, without becoming permanently narcissistic stage-hogging grandstanders or, as I tied to: martyrs who create hell on earth in an attempt to never exist at all.  In fact, in my opinion it is only through loving every part of who I am that I truly can avoid these types of behaviours.

I've spent most of my life hating my ego.  I own completely that fear is what drove my hate.  I had no concept of how to maintain, support or foster my ego.  I had what psychology would call an 'inferior ego' which means I thought everybody else was better than me, more important and beautiful than me.  I hated myself and silently congratulated myself internally for my superiority at being inferior, unaware that the whole world could see that in my words and actions.  My energy exuded it, it came out through the pores of my skin, the sound of my voice, my body language and my writing but I remained steadfastly unaware - until I met my inner child.  That was the beginning of a beautiful albeit painful end to the decades of abandonment, neglect and abuse I had unknowingly subjected my ego to.

When I connected with the first part of my ego that I could, I found a 9 year old girl who cried ALL the time.  Working with a wonderfully patient counsellor, I visualized that girl day after day for months, trying to find some way to comfort her.  It took all that time for me to even accept that crying 9 year old could be me.  I began to have some small mote of compassion for myself, something that I had seriously lacked until then in my suicidal drive to cease existing altogether.  Once I found compassion for my distraught 9 year old self, I was treated to the electric gorgeousness of my exuberant and happy-to-meet-me 5 year old self.  In that moment, I made a promise to never stop healing and growing and in the 10 years since, I have kept my vow.

Within a few months of connecting with my 5 year old self, I had met about 8 different versions of my child-ego and learned through transactional analysis why this was possible. Apparently when we are born, we begin to form our personality based on what we perceive and experience and, this creates our ego 'states', energies that we engage when relating to ourselves, others and everything in relation to ourselves.  Eric Berne created transactional analysis and surmised that we each have hundreds if not thousands of these energy or ego states.  Once I understood this, I began to ease up on myself a bit and just forget the word ego for a while as I got to know these different aspects of my own personality for the very first time.  It really helped me identify different energies within myself and get to know myself, something I had despaired of ever achieving before that.

Over the next few years, I created a system of internal communication which led me on an incredible journey of self-discovery.  While all this was happening, I also volunteered to walk alongside others as they walked the same part of the path and I studied so that I could lead groups as an individual collective.  Group work was amazingly helpful to learn skills to use on my own healing.  I eventually had connected with over 40 different aspects of my psyche or ego and I was able to adopt group work skills and ideas to use to my internal benefit too.  I found very small, young parts of myself that were hurting, vulnerable, innocent and playful and that I was never alone now that I had found them.  One day I asked them for advice on a problem because I had learned the wisdom the child parts of me hold but I suddenly saw children and I new I had to let the child parts of me be children.  I was 39 years old and I was asking a bunch of kids under 7 for advice!  I determined I would work it out on my own and let them just be kids but then I panicked - I had no idea what to do!  My own wisdom kicked in then as I realised that I must have more grownup adult facets to my psyche if I was 39 years old.  Every moment I've experienced still lies inside me somewhere and something told me to trust that I truly do have all I need.  I tentatively asked out loud "are there any adult parts of myself who can help me please?"  I felt silly but figured why not.  Imagine my amazement when I got an affirmative response!

So began a new and incredible journey of self-love.  I had a very fractured ego and had dissociated myself from it.  In getting to know all of those facets of the diamond that I am, I have learned to love myself unconditionally and begin to acknowledge,, associate, accept and honour my ego too.  There were times when I found it almost impossible to consider loving some of those facets of myself.  There were shadows inside me that I was terrified of, repulsed by and even malicious towards, I learned to love them too.  I learned to have the same love and compassion for every part of me that I do for the rest of humanity.  Ego is not a dirty word, it's like Skyhooks said.   I know now that if I want my Soul to be safe in this world, it is my Ego that will help me achieve that and only if I love my ego will I avoid the pitfalls of disempowering myself and others while I travel onwards.  Last year as I accepted that I have now got to the point where I feel safe and strong enough to be my truest, real self, just as I came into this world to be, all of those facets integrated and suddenly I lost contact.  They are all me and always will be, it's just different to me now.  I'm being all that instead of knowing all that.  It took a few months to recover from this 're-birth' and I still have moments where I feel like a tiny newborn but with me parenting myself in a fully nurturing way, I'm growing up again fast and, life is the most amazing gift I can imagine receiving.

I forgive myself for hating my ego and I feel very grateful for all that I have learned and experienced along the way.

At+Onement 

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