Is your Ego your friend or foe ?

To answer this question, it is important first to have a common ground about the concept of the Ego.

"Ego", "personality", and "self" have different meanings in different schools of thought.

We did a whole post explaining the concept of the Ego from our point of view (check it by clicking here).

The short version, to put us all on the same page, is:

For us, the Ego is the interplay of the selves that live inside you.

This interplay of selves impacts all decisions, emotions and feelings we have. It also tends to hinder the expression of our essence (our Inner-child).

So, you can jump to the conclusion that the Ego is a "bad" thing. But it is not as simple as it appears at first sight.

The Ego is a part of our psyche that makes our identity as human beings. In some sense, it represents who we are and what we are.

However, there is more than the Ego inside you.

The Ego produces a sense of individuality and separation between the beings.

It is the "entity" within us that craves attention, love, recognition, belonging to a group, etc.

The Ego is also a mechanism of protection.
To understand this mechanism of protection, imagine:

• The Ego is the interplay of the selves;
• The hurt selves are usually loud;
• So, they tend to influence you to avoid situations that could hurt you.

This seems to be an excellent thing.

And in a few situations, it can even be helpful.

But in most cases, the Ego is "hearing" the reaction of selves to situations that don't make sense anymore:

• The Ego can be "hearing" an ancestral self that was trying to run away from a wild beast.
• The Ego can be reacting based on a traumatized self who didn't have access to chocolate when you were a child.
• The louder self is reacting because he was hurt by a simple phrase heard during childhood.
• The selves are responding based on past lives situations that don't make sense anymore.

I am oversimplifying this explanation because the keyword here is the interplay of the selves. In general, you react based on the net effect of the interplay of many selves.

And not based on only one or a few hurt selves.