Get to Know Your Ego: Survival and Connection

I spend a lot of time talking about ego (what you might call your “personality,” what others have called your “shadow self”, or “judge”).

But it occurred to me I’ve never really taken the time to break down what the ego is, how it functions, and why it’s imperative we understand our egos if we truly want to be and live free.

Let’s start with just getting to know our egos a little bit.

What Comes Before Ego?

From the moment we’re birthed, we’re inundated with messages and clues about who others think we are, who they think we’re supposed to grow into, and how they think we’re supposed to behave while on this planet.

We internalize these messages without question because we’re completely beholden to those who’re caring for us. We’re “stuck” with them, as it were, until we’re old enough to function on our own.

And what we’re internalizing during these most innocent and formative years of our lives – from birth until adolescence – is almost always focused on the answers to two questions: How do I survive, and how do I connect?

Survival

This is probably the most fundamental question we answer for ourselves when we’re young.

How do I survive in this family? In this house? This neighborhood? The world?

If we live with dysfunctional family members (and, who hasn’t?), those survival “instincts” might be particularly destructive: This is when and how we learn to smash our own needs, lie to make others happy, stifle our tears, or run away.

We very quickly learn the “rules” of the adults who literally hold our lives in the palm of their hands.

Maybe to avoid getting hit or yelled at, we learned we mustn’t cry too loudly or long, or interrupt dad’s TV show or mom’s party, or ask for help when our brother or sister stole our toy.

Perhaps if we were hungry and needed food, we learned we needed to get it for ourselves because no one else would, and perhaps that meant we sometimes had to steal it from others so we wouldn’t starve, and then we needed to lie about where we got our food to protect it.

Or maybe we were taught that our siblings had needs deemed greater than ours, so we learned that our own desires were never something to care about or pursue.

Can you see how each early-life possibility could shape and form the personality and identity of the grown-up version of these children?   

• To survive, I must always be quiet, not show my emotions, not interrupt others, and never ask for help.

• To survive, I must take what others have and lie to protect it once I’ve got it.

• To survive, I can’t have my own needs and desires; I must put others’ needs first, always.

Connection

Second only to the primary need we have to answer the question, How do I survive?, is the answer to how we’re able to connect.

Connection is a vital piece of our survival puzzle. After all, if we’re not connected to the people in charge of our care, how will we get what we need to survive?

So if we have a mother who is perpetually angry, and loud with it, we may learn that to connect with her, we need to match her level of uncontrolled rage.

If our grandparents, who are our caretakers, are alcoholics, we may learn that to connect, we, too, need to abuse alcohol to feel close to them.

If we are sexually violated, we might learn that connection only occurs when our bodies are given into someone else’s control, or when we engage in sexual acts.

How might these experiences influence and shape the adults we become?

• To feel connected, I must be in rage, anger, disruption, and chaos. It’s only when enraged that others pay attention to me.

• To feel connected, I can’t be sober. It’s only when I’m sloshed that others pay attention to me.

• To feel connected, I must share my body with others. It’s only during sex that others pay attention to me.

How Ego is Formed

Over time, we become so identified with these core beliefs that we sincerely think they’re true. We think they’re indisputably what is. Our adult selves typically don’t realize these beliefs are now running our lives.

Like the static we can barely discern when someone pauses speaking on our favorite radio program, our beliefs about our survival and connection – I must lie to survive; I’m only connected when I’m enraged – end up influencing every decision we make, every action we take…and in the process they steal from us our authenticity, and our peace.

The answers we come up with to the questions of “How do I survive?” and “How do I connect?” become the voice in our head we think is our best friend.

That voice – the one whose cadence and timbre you know like the back of your hand – is your ego. And your ego is not you.

It’s imperative to really get this, and not just in a “Yeah, yeah, I know” kinda way:

You are not your thoughts.

Your thoughts are not you.

Take a good, long, deep breath, and repeat after me:

The things I think about myself are not necessarily true.

The beliefs I have about my life are not necessarily true.

Next Week: Get to Know Your Ego, part deux

Getting curious about your own ego is the very first step to unmasking it. And once it’s unmasked, you can observe it objectively, as an it, a thing. And if you can observe it, it must not be you.

How awesome is that? This thing you think is you, which is causing all sorts of unhappiness and stress, is something outside of yourself. Which means…

You have more power than you thought in cultivating the peace and clarity you crave.

Did you have a realization about one of your core beliefs regarding survival or connection after reading this post? I’d love to hear in the comments below!