Author: Liz Stratton
Hypnotherapist, Past Life/ Inter Life Therapist
Ego
The ego is misunderstood in society today. It is the one thing that people avoid looking at as too much ego is usually viewed as a bad thing. But ego is a natural part of us, and we all need ego strength, to enable us to feel confident, express our individuality and be resilient in life.
We comprehend the word through the ego, it allows us to absorb all the sensory information around us and form an awareness of our reality by putting it into a context that we can understand, using form and content.
However, the ego often takes over control of the creation of this framework and applies a perception to situations that is distorted or biased. This happens when the ego gets stuck in its expansion. For example, imagine your partner accidentally deletes your favourite programme that you have saved to watch. The content is – the programme is deleted, by accident. The ego may interpret this as “they did that on purpose”, or “they don’t care about me.”
Ego stages:
- Infantile ego – this is concerned with having enough and feeling safe, things that all children need. If your ego is stuck at this stage then you may be constantly looking at others, to see if they have more than you, more money, love, affection, and so on. You may also constantly look to others for approval and acceptance.
- Adolescent ego – this is concerned with feeling good enough. As an adolescent we seek rebellion, and this is important in formation of ego and image. But we need to rebel and be good enough as well. If your ego is stuck at this stage, you are constantly trying to show that you are better than others, intellectually, physically, materially, emotionally, and so on. You may also put others down, to help yourself to feel better.
- Young adult ego – this is concerned with learning and growth. We learn about the world and ourselves as we grow up and we grow as a person as we do, strengthening our image of ourselves. If you are stuck at this stage, you think you have to continually learn and grow and this can become an unhelpful pattern sometimes.
- Mature ego – this is when the ego grasps that it is enough or: “I am enough”. It is full acceptance of who you are, recognising all the different aspects of self. Many people never reach this phase as it is so easy to get stuck in any of the preceding stages.
We can work to mature our ego, to move it through the stages and understand where we are. It is important to note that the ego often confuses us and makes us feel bad for valuing ourselves, acting confidently, putting ourselves first or speaking our minds. Society has a big part to play in this as well, with the concept of altruism so widely celebrated.
To develop your ego and establish what stage it is at there are a few things you can do:
- Write down the different ways in which you feel that you are better than others.
- Reflect on your life and your processes, and explore times in which you blame others, deny responsibility, or justify your behaviour, to yourself and/or others. This is ego led behaviour so look at the situation that causes you to react in this way.
- Accept that this is part of being human and absolve yourself of self-blame.
- Look at what you do to avoid ego, times perhaps when you cut off your nose to spite your face, and what you do to reward ego, times when you feel you are being selfish, or others say that you are.
- Work on developing your ego in meditation, simply by asking for this to happen, with the help of your guides, higher self or whatever divine being you worship.
For more information or to book an appointment with Liz:
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 07769 331055
Concessions are available for students, low waged and OAPs.
