The Somero Saga: ego

Earlier this spring I was reading a devotional book, and one of the prayers was about asking for God's abundance (Eph 3:20), and I realized that I've never believed that I deserved God's abundance, only other people did. I started to ponder how often a scarcity mindset seems to run the show, and that often it does so in an attempt to stay "humble" and not get "prideful". (I put them in quotations as these are beliefs and not actually true. We can be both at any given time. Remember the "two things are true" idea?!) But, after a few months of pondering, I came across a book that went into depth about the ego, and realized this is what was driving the train in many aspects of my life, and likely yours too. So, here is some thoughts in a nutshell. There's lots of varying ideas about it, and it can get kind of woo-woo really quick, so I'll just keep it to basic beliefs and actions based on those beliefs. Being honest with ourselves is pretty hard on this one too!!

Ego is the fearful, small-minded part that sees life as limited, scarce, competitive and hard to handle. It sounds like our own thoughts because it's internal. It sounds like a "voice of reason", good sense or self-preservation; but instead it is just us reliving our childhood fears and all those comments about us acting "too big for our britches". The thoughts in our minds now as an adult are remnants from words said to us when we were young and foolish, and are still ringing in our ears now that we are older and fully capable. This is our ego talking to us.

One thing that may be hard to tell is the difference between our ego and our conscience. They both seem morally righteous; but the difference is that our conscience leads us to healing, truth and steers us right, whereas the ego is all about fear of rejection. The ego kills our motivations and direction, while the conscience gives helpful guidance, promotes apologies and encourages the relationships. Conscience always adds, ego subtracts and robs us of energy.

Ego is defensive and suspicious, highly emotionally reactive and has an opinion about everything. Much energy is spent on reactions and fears. It can be very hard to see the difference from our true self when we've spent most of our lives building up our ego to create an identity. Now it's time to tear it back down, and reject some of these tightly held lifelong ideas. To study the actual evidence now vs. what we've been told about ourselves and still believe.

The Ego's "advice" for success:

Chase your tail- this produces nothing but suffering, encourages indecisiveness, worrying about what you did or didn't do, and subtracts from your ability to cope with a situation.
Use a cannon to kill a fly- anything worth doing must be done perfectly, putting pointless effort into meaningless things.
Put it off- makes even simple tasks seem overwhelming and draining, procrastination is the only way to avoid the endless demands.
Figure out who is to blame- "they did it" is the ego's mantra, it sucks you of your own strength because you're always busy blaming someone else. (even God gets blamed regularly)
Trust no one- better watch your back, cynicism and suspiciousness are the way to go. See everyone as the enemy.
Suspicion will make you secure- the more you suspect trouble, the more secure you'll be. If you are always looking for the ways that things could go wrong, you'll truly feel safe. Don't take anything at face value, life is a lot trickier than you think. Always fretting will drain and distract you from anything valuable.
Think scarcity- as the ego sees it, there's not enough to go around. Another person's gain is your loss. Other people will always "get there first" or "use up" the limited amount of success in this world, instead of being inspired or encouraged by those who are successful.
Survival of the fittest- you believe competition should be cutthroat. Helpful collaboration is only for weaklings. You should be able to do everything on your own. Independence is revered.
Believe you're the best there ever was- your ego assures you that you're the best there ever was. You're the greatest, the best and once you get going everyone will see that. Such an inflated ego will ensure you never get going because you truly suspect that you can never live up to those expectations.
Anything worth doing should be easy- nothing in life should demand too much sustained effort or be very hard. If a goal is that hard, and causes anxiety then you weren't supposed to do it. Success is only a lofty goal, not something that can actually be obtained.
Wallow in buyer's remorse- even if you're thrilled at first, the ego will make you suffer regret over your decisions. You'll wonder if you could have gotten a better interest rate, or you'll notice noises on your new car. Buyer's remorse only happens when you can't go back. The point here is maximum regret when you can do nothing about it. That's ego's destructive satisfaction.
Guilt is the highest moral state- the ego assures you of your goodness only if you keep feeling guilty about nothing in particular. It tells you that guilt, sacrifice and suffering are your ticket to moral superiority.
Too good to be true- the ego's last resort, when you are finally getting free and succeeding, is to make you suspicious of the very things you should be grabbing with both hands.
Psychic permission- this is a phony ego superpower that allows people to look into the future and know that their efforts towards their dreams will have a bad outcome. It predicts that your worst fears will come true. It is the only time many of us are willing to admit and stand behind our psychic powers.
Push yourself the extra inch- in an extremely subtle maneuver that can mean the difference between giving up and success, the ego suggests we push ourselves a little further than we really want to go at the moment. Then we will want to give up. To test this out, do something you really enjoy a little harder and a little longer than you really want to. This will mysteriously kill your enthusiasm after a few days and ironically you'll chalk it up to a lack of willpower and not the undermining ego.
Punish yourself- every time you make a mistake, the ego tells you to slam yourself hard. It's not about making a simple error, it's about being inferior. It somehow convinces you that your fundamental lack of self-worth will give you the incentive to succeed. That you can hate yourself into success. Of course this makes no sense, but in moments of weakness we may think it does.

[source...Who You Were Meant to Be]

There are many ways to make changes from this, which I won't delve into, but being aware is step number 1. Exposing it and calling it out for what it is in our brains, just like with shame. Don't be victim to it anymore but acknowledge it's sneakiness. You have to learn to separate your own ideas from the pessimistic hand-me-down ideas from others. Ego offers plausible alternatives and cautions against embarrassing mistakes, but instead it robs you of your energy and wastes time on meaningless things. Do not let yourself be absorbed by someone else's rules, restrictions and judgements. Each time you call out the ego, it loses power and your own strength increases. All in all, it's just a spoilsport trying to dismantle your happiness.

Number 2 would be getting used to using the words "I don't know". Come to peace with the unknown. The need to figure other people out, the need to make a judgement, the need to form an opinion. Just get used to saying, "I don't know, I just don't know". And it's ok to not know.