The Purpose of the Ego

There are some who say the ego must be cut or annihilated. Remove the ‘I’ from your life and focus on living a life of service.  Life, we are told is about giving to others and there can be no room in this world for the concept of putting oneself first.

Perhaps there is some truth to the concept that we are put here to make this world a better place.  The problem is this belief gets twisted and neglects to recognise the starting point is with the self.  It is this myth about service to others that has lead us astray, and has been used to perpetuate beliefs that ‘if I think’ about others before myself I will be on the right path of goodness.  The setback with this belief is the service is usually mixed with guilt and fear, and an ego running on these emotions operates on memories.

In order to understand the role of the ego in your life, you must first understand its purpose. The ego is the human consciousness part of you.  It was designed to ensure your security and survival.  Unfortunately for many of us it has never relinquished its initial purpose.  Instead, for many the ego became the master script writer and because of it, everything becomes a drama based on past happenings.

Associated with the fight or flight section of the brain, the ego began its development the day you entered Planet Earth.  As a helpless little being you needed the ego was there to ensure your continued existence. Some behaviour was imprinted into your genetic makeup and was designed to protect the ‘I’ part of you; and make sure your needs were met.

As a baby you learned that if you cried when you were hungry, you received food.  If you cried a certain way, someone changed your diaper.  If you smiled, someone lovingly cuddled you. What you learned was that certain behaviours got your needs met.

As you grew older however you soon discovered that sometimes these behaviours did not result in what you wanted.  You cried and they left you crying.  So you cried harder, threw a conniption fit and perhaps they give into your demands or perhaps not.

When your needs and desires were not met, the ego devised patterns of behaviour to get what you wanted.  Through trial and error, and modeling the behaviours of those around you; you learned which behaviours worked for you. Some of these learned behaviours are ego patterns that are deeply rooted in fear and the underlying belief is that there is a threat to the ‘I’.

It is these behaviours that are locked into emotional states of being and are playing out in your life as:  manipulation, enmity, lying, tantrums, anger, jealousy, violence, indifference, frustration, hate, etc.  Many of these states of being are automatically triggered by an experience which is associated with a distant memory.  The memory may not have anything to do with the situation at hand but the ego only knows one course of action, protect the ‘I’.

As an adult, you experience an event and regardless of the situation, you unconsciously revert to a past emotional reaction.  The constant unconscious movement into these states of being have you reliving the same story over and over again.  The old programs the ego has developed to get your needs and desires met are stuck to emotional reactions and in many instances, you don’t even realize you are slipping into an old behaviour pattern.

We have all seen adults who resort to childish behaviours.  They have temper tantrums in the office.  Resort to lying when they have been caught with their hand in the cookie jar.  They use guilt and manipulation to get their way.  They bully.  All of these are ways that individuals who are now adults have learned to get their needs and desires met.  Somewhere in their development, the adults around them never taught them to factor love into the equation.  Instead these habits of response erupt into repeated behaviour patterns when the memory of previous circumstances brings these modes of behaviour to the surface.

Whether we like to admit it or not, we all slip into states of being that do not serve us.  There are however some among us who live their lives in loveless states of being.  They revert back to unconscious childish behaviour to get their needs and desires.  Often these individuals will project their anger and fears onto other individuals. There are times however when these individuals are mirroring back to you a loveless state of being that is within you.

In order to be the creator of your reality, you must factor love into the experience and deal with each moment as new.  It is when you do this that you take control of your vibration and move through states of being that you want to experience.   You will also attract to you more harmonious and balanced situations. 

So here is some feel good music from Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros...