What is the ego?

 

The ego is the "i". It's your sense of self. It is created based on environments, teachings and patterns. 

The ego is who we believe ourselves to be.  

It's made up of stories that we have created based on lived experiences, usually in childhood. 

For example, as a child, you may have loved dancing, but if one of your caregivers (parents), told you that it's boring, dismisses you or ignores your enthusiasm, you will have felt pain and rejection. After experiencing this trauma, your ego will adapt and learn that you will not receive love if you are into dancing. Creating a story of "I don't like dancing". 

You may still love dancing, but your ego (the way you show up) will know to not display your love of dance around family because it leads to pain and rejection.

As children, we learn to show up in the world in the way that we are accepted and shown love in the family. 

For some people this is through achievement, academia or providing. We learn that this is what makes us loveable. 

Our ego is there to protect us. It creates stories to prevent us from feeling the pain we felt in our early experiences (traumas) - e.g. when our caregiver invalidated our love of dance.  

It can often hold us back though. Our ego makes us think that we ARE our thoughts. But that's not true.

The ego made us believe that we don't like dancing, and we're ot very good at it. But that doesn't mean you can't shimmy yourself down to a class and one day perform in the West End. 

The ego likes to feel safe, and by safe, I mean familiar. It likes things to be predictable. The ego doesn't want to evolve or grow, it seeks to preserve the identity of who we are, even if that identity no longer serves us.

Just by noticing your thoughts, you can begin to challenge them. You will know that your thoughts are not your reality and that you can be whoever you want, despite what your ego tells you. 

Understanding our ego allows us to make choices beyond defensive, automatic reactions. It allows us to not personalise other people's behaviour (because it never was about us, even though our ego will convince us that it was). 

Let's dive deeper into ego work soon. Follow me on Instagram to stay tuned. 

 Kate xx

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 I post regularly on here and Instagram with self-love, body positivity and recipe ideas so that you can bloom into your best self, with me.