Do things that feed your soul, not your ego, and you will be happy.
We all have egos, right? But do you know what your ego is sabotaging? It could be sabotaging your relationships, or that promotion you always wanted.
Having a big ego can be hard to admit, because most of us associate having a BIG ego with being, well, rude. But the thing is we all have an ego – but when we balance ego with soul, we find a happier, less competitive, more peaceful, more loving way of life.
How big is your ego?
Time for an honesty check… Let’s see if you have a BIG ego.
- Do you put people down in order to feel powerful?
- Do you think you are better than everyone else?
- Do you use your positional power to get things done?
- And, are you always critical of others work or achievements?
If you answered ‘yes’ to all of those questions, then the answer is ‘yes’ you have a super BIG ego. But, because YOU are the solution to all of your problems, because you put them there in the first place, YOU can do something about this.
Ego is usually a mask for a lack of self-love. It’s a kind of defensive mechanism. When we start to accept ourselves as the glorious messes, startling geniuses, loving creators and ‘works in progress’ that we all are, and I mean truly accept ourselves (warts and all) we can start to let go of the ‘ego’.
Loving yourself isn’t vanity, it is sanity…
Self-love is a fickle thing – it can come and go, but if you work on it, and even embrace those times when you stuff up, you can master self-love. Be your best friend, your confidant, spend time with yourself – learn to understand what makes you ’tick’ and understand that you are beautifully, uniquely you. A powerful human being equipped for life and everything it throws at you! When you begin to like yourself, you can start to love yourself, and believe in yourself.
In all honesty, if I was to ask you to rate yourself out of ten, how much do you love yourself, what would it be? And why?
Self-love is not selfish, self-love is knowing yourself and liking yourself anyway, and the really important thing about that, is all of those fulfilling relationships that you want – with your mother, your sister, your partner, your children … they will continue to allude you until you can love yourself. To fall in love with yourself is the first best kept secret to happiness… and yet most of us still keep searching for love elsewhere – external to ourselves, in the form of approval, compliments, achievements and recognition, and all this does is feed the ego. It does nothing to fulfil our soul.
Self-love is the greatest medicine…
And here’s why. Because your ego holds you back from the things you really want to say, the things that your heart is busting at the seams to sing, like, “I love you” “I miss you” or “I am sorry”. Ego gets in the way of you putting your emotions on display. Because you’re scared of rejection or disappointment. But when you truly love yourself and feel content with who you are, you know, instinctively, that to love … doesn’t need love in return, and you are perfectly wonderful the way you are, with or without the acceptance of others.
It’s hard to understand this, until you actually begin to live it. But once you do, you’ll find joy and delight in places you didn’t know it existed. You’ll be bursting with confidence and self-assuredness that are soul-fed and not driven by ego.
How to diminish the ego…
If you find it a little hard to connect with self-love there are things you can do to help diminish the ego. The first is to be ‘humble’ – which reminds me of a quote a teacher once taught me – ‘the meek shall rule the earth’.
It takes little steps …. for example, instead of thinking of yourself all the time, why not be of service to others, completely let go of your needs and wants, instead, be a beacon of light for others. Another really cool way to detox your ego is to go into everything with a ‘learning’ mindset, go into all interactions that you are going to learn something, very different from thinking that you know it all …. You’ll also benefit from opening up the learning receptors of your precious brain.
Or … how about, ‘seek to understand’. You can only do this by listening with your ears, eyes and heart. Ask more questions, so you can learn from others … not only will you undoubtedly learn something new, it will make others feel valued, heard and understood. Appreciation and encouragement go a long way for loving thy self. But people can also discern the difference between ‘authenticity’ and not. When you’re genuinely open to another person, they can feel the energy as positive.
Stay tuned for part two next week … more on the ego.