The Ego and Enlightenment: Part 2 The Healthy Ego
Building a Healthy Ego
Building a healthy ego represents a quantum leap forward in evolution from the short leash of the negative ego. The creation of the negative ego is an unconscious response to the presence of toxic emotional content in our system. Its mission is to defend us from being repeatedly hurt. Its job is to prevent the accumulation of more toxic emotion in our system. Unfortunately, the cache of toxic emotion already stored in our psyche is highly magnetic and attracts more wounding experiences to us. With each new wound the negative ego becomes more defensive and brittle. Its ability to protect us from harm is an illusion. All it is capable of doing is sealing off the hurt in our system and discouraging us from healing our lives. If it succeeds in this directive it will shut us down, increasing its power as we lose ours.
The negative ego has three essential characteristics:
1. It is a response to unconscious toxicity.
2. At the core of every negative ego is an inner victim who feels justified in taking whatever action it deems appropriate to “get even” with its antagonist(s).
3. The presence of unconscious toxicity, the negative ego, and the inner victim separate us from our soul.
Separation From Our Soul
Separation from our soul has serious long term repercussions in our lives. If we are dominated by the negative ego we will not be whole or integrated. Instead we will be subject to repetitive wounding experiences. We will not have access to our real power. We will go through life not knowing who we really are or what our true purpose is. When we are in the grip of the negative ego our evolution is unconscious, slow, and glacial. We are lost and our life will be a failure.
The healthy ego is a conscious response to the predicament the negative ego has placed us in. The healthy ego is in the business of uncovering our unconscious toxicity and clearing it from our system. The healthy ego does not set itself up as the soul’s antagonist as the negative ego does. It is not interested in maintaining its own power at our expense. Rather the healthy ego actively seeks reunion with the soul.
Clearing Darkness from Our Soul
Contrary to what you might expect, the first step to creating a healthy ego is not doing yoga and meditation. It is turning within to confront the toxicity buried in our system. Make no mistake. We all have toxic material stored in our subconscious. Some of that material is from events in this life. Often, there is even more content from other lifetimes of which we are no longer conscious. We must clear it all. Every time we clear a layer of darkness and toxicity from our system we open more of our system to the Light of our soul and build a healthy ego. It is the Light of our Soul that redeems us, makes us whole and forms a healthy ego. As we clear our darkness, the inner victim disappears, the negative ego dies, and the long running nightmare of separation comes to an end.
Barbara was in her mid sixties when she came to me. Her husband had died five years earlier and while she felt that she was over his loss she felt stuck in her life. In her first telephone session I could see that there was still a lot of blocked grief in her heart and lungs. I sent the healing energy via the phone to her chest area. Within minutes she started sobbing and continued to cry for the entire session.
In our next session a deeper layer of her toxicity came up from her childhood. Her mother had been overbearing, cold, and critical. Barbara could never do anything right. She associated love with pleasing her mother. As an adult she became a chronic “pleaser.” She tried to please her husband and her three sons, thinking that was being loving. What it really was a subtle form of giving away her power and allowing herself to be controlled by them.
The Power of Saying No
As Barbara confronted the toxic nature of her relationship with her mother and began the process of clearing it from her psyche many surprising changes started to occur in her life. She found herself spontaneously standing up for herself and saying no to friends and family that had been used to manipulating her through criticism. She no longer cared about pleasing people, but doing what was in harmony with her true nature. Part of establishing that harmony was standing up and saying no to people who tried to use her. Saying no in this fashion is an attribute of a healthy ego.
By saying no Barbara took back her power, established her integrity, protected her budding relationship with her soul and developed a healthy ego.
Creating Strong Boundaries
When we clear our toxicity, as Barbara’s story suggests, we begin to develop strong boundaries that reflect our integrity. The creation of strong boundaries is an indication that our inner victim has been healed and a heathy ego has been installed. When Barbara stood up for herself she was no longer the victim reacting to being wounded again. Instead she was proactive, taking action to insure that she would not suffer further hurt.
The healthy ego is proactive, learning to stand in its own power and actively seeking greater contact with the Soul. As it grows into itself the healthy ego lets down its barriers, stops being defensive, and learns to love, something the negative ego as it is constructed is incapable of. We will not experience true freedom until we learn to love unconditionally.