I need to stop beginning my blog posts with the recurrent intro “recently”, but honestly, it is also telling. Much of these posts grow forth from what I am finding meaningful and life-giving in my current present. I hope to share that which has been useful to me in the hopes that it may resonate with others.
So – I suppose I’ll just say it – recently, I have been mulling over the notion of ego, and the various different ways in which attachment to a small sense of self constrains me through insecurities and pressures. For instance, when I am concerned about my own intelligence (or converse inadequacy), then I struggle to be as fully present on the others that I am interacting within. I find myself withdrawing into my own insularity, my mind working through these insecurities as the distance deepens between me and the person (or environment) in which I am.
I wish this did not happen. I find that it makes life feel more lonely – like I am the only thing that matters – and it also comes with a feeling of existential pressure – that somehow I must make the most of my singularly important existence. Unfortunately, this proves a vicious cycle. The more I fixate on these barbed hooks, the deeper they sink, and the further I move from a sense of connection and presence.
There are a lot of possible origins and explanatory frameworks for this underlying attachment to ego and significance (check back for a future blog post on attachment styles). Yet, what has drawn me in most is the way that these insecurities take root in the wounds of early childhood, that the young aspects of myself are those who fight for validation to assuage the pain of feeling inadequate. It is my exiled younger parts which are caught by the ego hook, digging into the illusion of self-importance to ignore the hurts of not feeling good enough.
So, if I am to truly try to escape from this wound-driven narcissistic loop, I must turn to the young parts of myself which are still clinging to this out-dated mode of coping. I have begun a dialogue with the various different incarnations of my younger self around the concept of impermanence and a collective self.
In practice, this involves working with my imagination to envision scenes where I teach the young parts of me about death, birth and the cosmic cycle. Yesterday, I envisioned showing a 7 year old version of myself a book about butterflies and the metamorphosis they undergo; how life is fleeting and ultimately we are all recycled back into the larger web.
When I did this, my young self felt less lonely. Suddenly, he was a part of a much, much larger system. He did not need to worry about proving himself — on the cosmic scale, such an impulse is almost laughable.
At the same time, I helped this young part to better understand that he could handle what he had been running from: hurt. I provided space for him to slowly feel that wound into which the ego hook had found a home. I allowed myself and him to just notice the pain, knowing that he (we) could handle it together. This is not an experience I had as a child. I did not know what to do with pain or sadness or anger, so I bought into the ego trap, trying to prove my worth by conforming to family and societal expectations. But if I decide that I do not have to run from these emotions, suddenly, I am free from the pressure of constantly needing to prove myself — and poof, the hook disappears.
Freed from this barb, I noticed that this young part of me felt an immense amount of love and connection. In quick succession, I transformed into several different animals and then snapped back into my human forms — but now, I was no longer alone in my small ego. I was connected to the entire world and all its’ inhabitants.
I wonder, what would happen if you turned inward and identified the young part of you – the part that is desperately hoping to prove it’s worth or has distanced from others because of past hurts – and explained the cycle of life, and the ultimate trap of our ego obsession. Maybe our freed young parts can meet together in some future, merged together into the much larger system.