November 18, 2019
Date
Ego! Can you deal with it?
The relationship with our own ego is fundamental for our
happiness. It is central to how we deal with everything in life. So many times
ego has been described as an enemy we are in a constant battle with or confused
with self-confidence. In fact, according to psychology it is a natural part of
us and we need to get to know it well in order to understand its function which
will help us have a more balanced approach to it and ultimately - have a
healthy relationship with our ego.
The structure of our
psyche
We can imagine the structure of our psyche as consisting of
three parts – the subconscious is on the bottom, then the ego comes and the
superego is on the top. The subconscious contains our instincts, the aggressive
and sexual impulses, as well as our suppressed memories. The superego contains
our ideal vision of ourselves. The ego is our identity – our behavior, our
relations with the world and it depends to a large extent on the way we balance
between the subconscious and the superego. We cannot ignore either of them.
That is why we as humans are such complex creatures – we are woven of
contradictory impulses, desires and needs. It is really hard but vital to find
and maintain a relative balance between them in a healthy way.
The natural need to
feel significant and valuable
Our ego is tightly connected with our need to feel significant, special and valuable. This a natural need for all of us. When in our childhood our parents express their love for us, treat us with respect and use the right approaches in our upbringing to help us build a solid, healthy sense of self-worth, we start feeling confident and valuable deep within ourselves.
The structure of our
psyche
We can imagine the structure of our psyche as consisting of
three parts – the subconscious is on the bottom, then the ego comes and the
superego is on the top. The subconscious contains our instincts, the aggressive
and sexual impulses, as well as our suppressed memories. The superego contains
our ideal vision of ourselves. The ego is our identity – our behavior, our
relations with the world and it depends to a large extent on the way we balance
between the subconscious and the superego. We cannot ignore either of them.
That is why we as humans are such complex creatures – we are woven of
contradictory impulses, desires and needs. It is really hard but vital to find
and maintain a relative balance between them in a healthy way.
The natural need to
feel significant and valuable
Our ego is tightly connected with our need to feel significant, special and valuable. This a natural need for all of us. When in our childhood our parents express their love for us, treat us with respect and use the right approaches in our upbringing to help us build a solid, healthy sense of self-worth, we start feeling confident and valuable deep within ourselves.
Psychologists have made a list of the usual defense mechanisms of the ego. You can check whether you or the people around you use any of these mechanisms in stressful situations:
Acting out–expressing an emotion or urge without being
aware of it
Compensation—offsetting your weaknesses by doing the
opposite, counterbalancing, making up for them
Denial—refusing to accept the obvious truth in an
unpleasant situation; insisting on the opposite; contradicting the evidence.
Displacement—channeling emotions onto another target rather
the one that produced it; transferring feelings onto somebody more
acceptable/closer/ less threatening
Distortion—substantial, grotesque alteration of events or
reality
Fantasy—escaping the reality by focusing inwards,
imagining revenge or your own death; excessive day dreaming
Humour—expressing otherwise unpleasant thoughts in a
humorous way for pleasure; making fun of bad situation
Hypochondriasis—complaining of unknown illnesses; constantly
worrying and talking about health issues as a reaction to negative feelings
towards others
Idealization—refusing to see the negatives in others;
praising something or someone; putting them on a pedestal
Identification—role modeling; taking on behavioral patterns
of another person; moulding oneself on other
Intellectualization—objectively explaining the events; using logic
to justify the situation
Introjection—relating to ideas; associating with objects
or other people so much they become part of you
Isolation—isolating the emotional and rational part of
the event; talking about traumatic experiences without displaying feelings
Passive aggression-—expressing your anger and frustration
indirectly to other people
Projection—imputing your own negative qualities,
emotions, behavioral motivations to others
Rationalization—giving false rational or logical reasons for
behavioral or situational outcomes, i.e. when you fail to get something, saying
that you did not even want it that much
Reaction Formation—reacting in an opposite way to the emotion,
reversing the feeling
Regression—acting childishly; throwing tantrums;
reverting to an earlier stage of development
Repression—preventing unpleasant ideas or memories to reach conscious awareness; blocking them
Suppression—pushing away unpleasant feelings to the unconscious, bottling up anxiety, keeping the traumatic feelings inside in order not to think about them.
Ego is like a
fearful child whom our soul, like a wise and loving parent, has to calm down
and direct
Ego is not our enemy. It is trying to protect our sense of
self-worth, albeit with unsuccessful and wrong methods, and defend the familiar
territory of our habitual behavioral models and way of thinking. It is afraid of changes even if these
changes are beneficial for us. However, we do not need to fight with our
ego. If we think of it as a fearful child, we need to be the wise,
understanding and correcting parent it needs. So the first step is to realize that we are not our ego. It is part of
us, but we are bigger than it. We are an entity of body, mind, spirit and
soul. Our soul contains our wisdom, or in other words - the internal, wise
parent that we become to ourselves if we really grow and reach maturity in our
way of thinking.
There are different ways in which we can substitute the old, outdated defense mechanisms of our ego with healthy attitudes, approaches and coping strategies. Psychological books, seminars, workshops and individual consultations with therapists, actually, anything that awakens our consciousness and helps us connect with our soul is good and beneficial to our development.
Daily self-observation and conversations with
other people who have started their journey of self-knowledge or have already
gained a lot of experience in it are like vital nutrition to our soul, success
as human beings and happiness. If you would like to learn more about some good
coping strategies as well as the ego of different types of people according to
their prevalent element Air, Fire or Earth
Author:Mariya V.Dimitrova