Tag Archives: how to help my ego
Ego Energy #63—The Best of Our Humanity
The Best of Our Humanity
Our Ego Energy is a mixture of three components—Power, Flexibility, and Vulnerability. The degree to which each is present or absent will impact the way we go about living our daily lives. In Ego Therapy: A Method for Healing Your Whole Self, we describe 125 different ego energies in an effort to help people find the ego energy they are living and determine if and where they need to undertake healing of their ego energy. From the perspective of Ego, Spirit & You, it is our intension to foster an awareness of all ego energies so we can ultimately live the great life we are meant to live! A life in which we are living the best of our humanity in concert with our Divinity.
This article is the one of a series to help you become more attuned to ego energy in the broader sense and to help you determine whether you or someone you know is displaying this ego energy. We believe that recognizing one’s ego energy places us an important step closer to understanding ourselves and each other which is integral to any healing which can occur—individually and societally—as well humanly and spiritually.
Ego Energy 63: Balanced Power—Balanced Flexibility—Balanced Vulnerability
This is the “ideal” ego energy. The one in which we are striking the healthiest balance within our ego’s power, flexibility, and vulnerability. A person with this ego energy has a healthy ability to interact with people. While being a follower or leader, depending on which is being called upon in a particular work, play, or social setting. We can approach relationships with loved ones in an interdependent manner. There are times when we can lean upon loved ones and lovingly depend on them for what they can offer to us or we can give to them. While, also being able to go it alone when necessary, without becoming distant or alienated from our loved ones. We can also love ourselves in healthy ways that allow us to love all others—known and unknown—as we manifest the Love, Life, and Energy—God Is, within our being.
We seek to achieve with all of the talents we have been given while undertaking our work with a sense of passion rather than burden. Within this effort we can see what we have learned along the journey and have been made better by it. We have no need to compare our journey with others, as such comparisons are meaningless. We have no need to build shrines to ourselves reflective of accomplishments for others to see. The service we are here to provide—human and Divine—has come into focus and we are realizing our life’s purpose.
The growth within the quality of our mind toward truth is healthy. It is within the flexibility of our ego energy that we can add, change, or remove thoughts, beliefs, values, and prejudices which belong or don’t belong there. The arbiter is always the willingness to be connected to truth rather than faulty beliefs. No matter how painful the reckoning may be. As we will ultimately be set free to live the greatest of lives by truth—human and Divine.
Our dealings with the inevitable personal, situational, societal, and technological changes that life will bring are in keeping with the understanding that life cannot and will not stand still. As the energy upon which it rests is dynamic rather than static. We work to manage change rather than avoiding, rejecting, or seeking to undo it. We embrace, honor, and follow worthy traditions which have wisdom to teach and serve us, while discarding faulty traditions that have been shown to be destructive and which were created to exploit people, wildlife, and the environment. We can also instigate needed change to address that which should not remain stagnant and unhealthy in our personal lives.
We can work with the adversity that comes in the form of failures, losses, and mistakes. Often, rooted in the imperfect nature of ourselves, others, and life which we have come to accept and learn from, rather than to avoid or reject. This work involves the ability to seek and understand relevant causes, owning what we must own in contributing to problems, and developing solutions which allow us to effectively solve problems and not just dealing with symptoms. The ultimate lesson having been learned that management of the problem is more important than the problem itself.
It is within this ego energy that we have the greatest opportunity to experience the abundance of genuine happiness that is available to us. We don’t accept substitutes for it in the form of pseudo-happiness. While understanding its ingredients include being at peace with oneself, others, and the world, being motivated by love rather than fear in one’s efforts, living in the present rather than being chained to the past or consumed with the future, and so on. Also, the gift of our other emotions including sadness, anger, fear, and guilt are playing their part in helping us to know when we are gaining distance from happiness or the direction we may need to take to get there.
The stressors and stress we encounter (e.g. financial, work, health, family, relationships, etc.) are being kept in perspective by our ability to understand and manage them. We react, rather than overreact or underreact, to their size, frequency, or seriousness, in ways that allow us to manage them, rather than letting them manage us and our lives. This includes the use of proven strategies, often rooted in the “wisdom of the ages” and the divine nature of our design such as healthy eating, exercise, rest, and recreation patterns, meditation, yoga, mindfulness practice, and cognitive therapy. Rather than quick fixes or approaches that often become unhealthy addictions including alcohol, drugs, over the counter medications, food, and cyber-related consumption.
Our management of conflict is healthy. We seek to use it as a tool by which to teach and learn from others. The difference between constructive and destructive conflict is well known and we disengage from the latter. Its signs include personal attacks and insults where nothing can be taught or learned, the focus of the issue/conflict/argument has been lost, and the emphasis is on “winning” while some degree of the relationship—if not all of it—has been lost. We can agree to disagree when no meeting of the minds can occur and remain friendly, if not friends. Never losing sight of the importance of cultivating or maintaining the relationship. EMNS-0/None.
If the description from this article resonates for you or someone you know, you may want to read further in Ego Therapy as well as our other books EgoSpiritualism: Awakening to Your Human and Divine Self and The Two Voices Within: Balancing the Energies of Ego and Spirit to Enhance Your Life. All three books are available on the Shop page Here.
In peace and love,
Nick and Linda
Is Lower Ego Flexibility Damaging Your Relationships?
Lower ego flexibility within one’s ego energy often has a destructive impact upon close relationships—particularly closer ones involving family and friends. These are the people who live 24/7 with them and get no break from them. A person with lower ego flexibility thinks in a rigid, inflexible manner. They believe they “own” the truth and often perceive their task as getting others to know their truth and live by it. They show disrespect for the different thinking of others—publically and privately—while often equating difference with deficiency. This disrespect often creates distance in relationships in which people feel unable to speak their mind around this person. Unless they want to engage in conflict which is often destructive rather than constructive as the lower ego flexibility person doesn’t believe they have anything to learn from others. Particularly, if they are of a different race, gender, religious affiliation, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or age-group. The only way to be “close” to the lower ego flexibility person is to think like them which is the making of a phony, disingenuous relationship. The following excerpt from The Two Voices Within: Balancing the Energies of Ego and Spirit to Enhance Your Life presents the messages ego is telling the lower ego flexibility person, keeping them stuck in this energy. Messages they are listening to quite well but don’t realize it.
Ego’ Voice
You must believe absolutely in what you believe, think what you need to think, and know the truth for yourself and everyone. Your thinking is beyond questioning; you need never reflect upon it or seek the opinions of others. Your ideas, knowledge, attitudes, and interpretations are much closer to the truth. Neither you nor anyone else can question them. To question your thoughts would endanger you and threaten your survival. They are your foundation, and you stand firmly upon them. You are lost without them and would be unknown to yourself. You must reside in the safety of your thoughts, as they define you and everything. They are your guide as to how best to know, live, and survive in the world. You feel safest when others are also living according to your thoughts. You must find others who already live in this world—your world—and convert others who do not.
When necessary, you must help others to know the truth. You must always question their thinking and beliefs. They are the ones toiling in darkness, and you must help them to see the light. This light, your light, helps in resolving any and all earthly matters. You know best, and others must come to know what you know. Your light shines brightest, and you feel safest when others are coming to know your light. This affirms the truth upon which you stand. You must also view your conviction as a reflection of the truth upon which you stand. Your conviction validates your truth for yourself and others. Those with less conviction are weaker and are only standing upon belief.
You must listen weakly to others and to be suspicious of their thoughts. New, different, or unfamiliar thoughts are likely to weaken you, so you must keep them at a distance. You are safest when thinking within the realm of what you know or want to know. You must also help others to think like you in their thoughts, words, and deeds. A world in which others are united with you is a safer world for you to live in. You are protected within this unity.
You must not listen to those who are closest to you, even if their intentions are good. They may lead you astray and cause you to lose yourself. You must ask them to find themselves within your thoughts, as they reflect truth. This is how you best show them love, and you feel closest to them and safest in their company offering them this guidance. You must also ask them not to change after adopting your thoughts, as that would violate the relationship, which can only survive in commonality, agreement, and unity.
You can love yourself most when embracing your thoughts and less when embracing those others. The superiority of your thoughts leads you to think well of yourself. The weakness and inferiority of the thoughts of others causes you to think less of them and to hate them if need be. You must love yourself more and others less, as this will ensure your daily safety and survival. Others can join you if they are willing to embrace your thoughts. You can love them as yourself, as they pose no danger to you.
If the content from this blog resonates you may want to read further in The Two Voices Within (Chapter 3) to see if you are living any of the roles we discuss linked to lower ego flexibility energy (Authoritarian, Racist, Religious Extremist, Love Elitist, Sexist, Ethnocentrist, Political Extremist, or Paranoid Person). It is when living these roles some or most of the time that we are damaging relationships with others and ourselves. Complementary material for those who would like to heal and bring your lower ego flexibility into balance can be found in Ego Therapy: A Method for Healing Your Whole Self (Chapters 6 and 12) and EgoSpiritualism: Awakening to Your Human and Divine Self (Chapter 7). All three books in our trilogy are available as e-books on the Shop page here.
In peace and love,
Nick and Linda