making friends with the ego
The ego is a layer of neurotic organisation.
We become capable of this at around five or six years old, which makes sense given that it’s the time our language capabilities begin to develop properly. As young children, we have almost no control over our experiences or how we relate to them, and it can simply be too difficult to digest what happens to us.
This is why we default to neurotic patterns of behavior: they give us a semblance of control over our place in the world.
One of the most neurotic behaviors we develop is the egoic mind that narrates and judges every single experience. It is so subtle that we barely notice it, and many people go their entire lives without realising it’s happening. Judging, commenting on, or analysing something gives us the illusion that we are doing something useful about a situation we actually have no control over.
At the very least, if we judge something as good or bad, or call someone a mean name in our head for what they did to us, we’ve placed them into a neat mental box. It gives us a sense of control and empowerment, even if it's completely our own construct.
This mechanism is helpful when we’re young and lack the tools and strategies to metabolize our experiences. Because the world is so overwhelming, we need some form of behavior that feels useful and makes us feel in control, even when the truth is that we are never actually in control.
By the time we enter adulthood, these neurotic patterns are outdated and no longer serve us as they once did. In fact, they frequently make our lives far more difficult, but they are so deeply ingrained by later life that they become hard to change.
Some people in their 20s, many in their 30s, and most by their 40s realise that these patterns are no longer serving them and choose to do something about it. We eventually realise that while we have minimal control over what happens to us (or even the emotions that arise as a result) but we do have control over how we relate to those feelings.
I have a "sitting practice" rather than meditation, because meditation is more about being than doing, and I think calling it meditation sometimes tricks us into thinking we’re performing a task. This morning, I realised that the ego is really just another layer of neurotic organisational structure developed to protect us from the chaotic world outside.
My initial response used to be fighting against this voice in my head that commented on and judged my every experience, never giving me a moment of peace no matter how hard I tried. But then I realised it was a part of me that had developed out of a desire to protect me and keep me safe. It gave my young, vulnerable self a tiny bit of agency through feelings of not being seen, heard, or understood in those formative years.
This egoic voice developed to keep me feeling safe, which it likely did for a long time, but it eventually grew into an out of control monster that filled every scrap of space. I became so accustomed to it that I forgot what the natural spaciousness of awareness even felt like, something I am only just starting to reconnect with this year. A decade of meditation laid the foundation for this, but it was the relational approach of Core Process Psychotherapy that truly opened the doorway to this more expansive level of awareness.
Today, I noticed my tendency to viciously attack this part of myself; this ego that had been selfishly preventing me from experiencing the blissful nature of awareness for all this time. But then I remembered that it was just trying to help me, and that it had helped me for many years.
So, I met it with gratitude, warmth, and love. I pictured the young child it helped feel safe, and I welcomed it with an open heart. It just appeared to melt into the background.
I was reminded that this voice is simply a tool. It serves a specific function in helping us navigate the physical world as humans, and it still has its place. Once we see it for what it is, we can meet it with compassion. When we stop resisting it, it loses its power over us, and finally, we can use it, rather than letting it use us.
This post is part of my writing to learn project, and brings together one perspective of Bruce Tift's "Already Free", and book/ audiobook I've been studying over the past six months.