Posts Tagged ‘Ego’
Friday, June 18th, 2010
 Ego often gets a bum rap. I was happy to see the video of Dr. Jill Bolte-Taylor, author of “My Stroke of Insight”, (see her video at the end of this post) a while back as she exemplifies why we need an ego and why is not a good idea to try to “get rid” of it.
First of all, unless you want to damage the left hemisphere of your brain (which was her challenge when she had the stroke), you are going to have a sense of “identity” which is what the ego is. It is the mental construct of the “false self”.
Ego is imbedded within your personality. Within the word personality is “persona”, which means, “mask”. It is not the real you, it is what I call the “Mental Me”; the story of who you THINK you are. This is in opposition to the “Magnificent Me” that most people apparently are not aware of.
The Magnificent Me is the Authentic Self, the Real Deal, not the memory you hold of yourself based on genetics (karma if you are so inclined), environment and simply the illogical mind of the child you once were. Most of our sense of limited identity starts in early childhood, which is when we are most susceptible and predisposed to believing the opinions of others and making up the meaning of our experiences.
It is not what happens to you; it is HOW you interpret the facts of your experience that determines the meaning that is assigned. This is what perception is in a nutshell. This would explain why one person can experience an event as horribly traumatic while for another it may just be “water off a duck’s back”.
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Tags: Confidence, Ego, Neuroscience, Self-Esteem, Spirituality, women empowerment
Posted in Practical Spirituality | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 26th, 2010
 Self-esteem is essential to living free of external “busy bodies” that want to tell you have to live. It is very important to love and accept yourself if you want freedom of expression and to live out a high level of your potential gifts and talents.
As long as you are “looking for love in all the wrong places” you will not find it. You must first begin within and then you will see it “with out” – out there in the world. Now ego gets a bad rap and a lot of people who are seeking spiritual principles are inclined to think that they need to get rid of it.
Another challenge I see in people seeking spiritual awareness is that they tend to judge almost everything in sight! Well, one spiritual truth that has made all the difference in my world is learning to stop judging people, including myself – actually, especially myself.
As I’ve come to embrace the “shadow” parts of my ego, forgive myself and “upgrade” the beliefs around these parts of my self, I’ve become more compassionate and loving towards others. Judgment is a tool to show us where we need to develop compassion in ourselves, for others and ourselves.
It is not about condoning behavior; it is about transmuting it. It is about changing the energy around the beliefs about the behavior as a reflection of who you THINK you are. You see, what you do is NOT the same as WHO you are.
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Tags: Confidence, Ego, Empowerment, Happiness, Self-Esteem, Self-Mastery
Posted in Confidence and Self-Esteem, Practical Spirituality | No Comments »
Thursday, May 20th, 2010
 Empowering behaviors and beliefs can seem paradoxical to us because for the most part, what we have been taught is actually contrary to leading a truly confident and empowered life.
What we learn is not only contrary; it’s often outright backwards. We think that how we think about ourselves is independent of how others think of us. In fact, we think that what others think about us is more significant than what we think about ourselves.
For example, from the time we are two, we are unconsciously taught to seek for love, security and self-esteem outside ourselves. This is where we first start “looking for love in all the wrong places”. We are taught that the opinions of others are more important than our own, and that our significance comes from our associations, titles and material possessions.
Considering that these are all external to our very Being, it is no wonder that we give our power away regularly. We even make the mistake of trying to “get” love from others when we don’t even give it to ourselves.
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Tags: Brain, Breakthrough Fear, Confidence, Ego, Empowerment, Self-Esteem
Posted in Brain, Empowerment | No Comments »
Friday, January 8th, 2010
 Empowerment is the buzz world for our day. “Oh yeah?” you may say. “How so? It looks like the world may be going to hell in a hand basket”. (I do occasionally hear these kinds of remarks).
I personally am so excited and hopeful that we are at a time of great awakening. We are awakening from the nightmare that we have created by being asleep to our Core, Who we really are.
There is the “Mental Me”, then there is the “Magnificent Me” (distinct difference so don’t let the ego trip you up here). Many people look at the current generation of young people and think that they are a “lost generation”.
Actually, each generation tends to say this about the prior generation to a degree anyway. The distinction though is that this generation does have access to a lot of information and technology that prior generations did not have.
There is much potential good to be had from this technology, yet of course, there is a lot of potential for destruction as well. I have put my faith on the side of the good, the Light, as while it is true that there is a dark side to humanity, there is also the presence of even greater Light – once you see and perceive it from within.
There are many out here who want to “save” this so called “lost generation”. Yes, we definitely need to do what we can to inspire and help others. This of course will naturally flow out of our own inner healing.
If we take care of our own backyard and pull up our own weeds, we can have better soil to grow beauty in the garden of our own minds. Then of course we will be in a better position to help others as they tend to their own garden. Hence the answer is not in playing the role of “rescuer”.
“Physician, heal thyself” and then you can help others. Another thing I have noticed about this “lost generation” is there is also a rising up of a group that is outright visionary, courageous and powerful.
This group can tell the “older generation” a thing or two, that’s for sure. So before we start judging the youngsters to be so messed up and lost, maybe we should change our focus to adjust to notice those forces that are also rising up on the side of the Light of humanity.
Here is a very powerful video I came across on YouTube that is produced by someone from this “lost generation”, hence the video is also called, “The Lost Generation”.
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Tags: Confidence, Ego, Empowerment, Practical Spirituality, Self-Esteem
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Wednesday, December 30th, 2009
 Ego is a concept that I believe is very important to consider. What is ego? Ego is your personal sense of “I”, who you think you are and it is formed in an area of the brain that forms “autobiographical memory” – the story of who you think you are.
I’ve heard of many opinions regarding the ego, most of which are dismal. The ego is considered “bad” and something to get rid of by many. I used to wonder about this myself until I realized the role of ego in the “Game of Life”.
Neuroscience really helped to clarify it even further for me. Ego is that part of your perceptual system (Nervous System), that allows you to pretend and via the five senses unconsciously believe that you are separate from everyone else and the surrounding environment.
I say, “pretend” because even quantum physics is now teaching that at a sub-atomic level, everything is connected. There is no such thing as “empty space”. We are swimming in a sea of energy and yet we are like the fish in the ocean that asks “where is the water?” or “what water?”
We cannot sense it with our five senses but we do have more than the physical five senses. Ever heard of something called “intuition”?
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Tags: Confidence, Ego, Empowerment, Practical Spirituality, Self-Esteem
Posted in Cataracts of the Soul-Fear, Ego | 1 Comment »
Sunday, December 27th, 2009
 Ego often gets a lot of negative press. The word ego is derived from the Latin word for “I”. The key is not to confuse this “I” with the “True I”, the essence, the being of who you are. Ego is a mental construct of who you think you are and herein lays the problem.
Because our ego forms early in life, when we are operating with plenty of emotion yet lacking in logic, we often create these “Mental Me’ ego stories based on the logic of a 3-year-old. This would explain why to your conscious mind it makes no sense how a subconscious belief that you are not good enough, or a “bad girl”, is still running your life.
When these beliefs of identity are wired into our brain and nervous system, we did not have the mental maturity to use logic in the formation of the stories we created. If the teacher calls little Johnny a bad boy because he talked too much (according to the teacher’s standard), little Johnny cannot reason that the authority figure (the teacher) is having a bad hair day perhaps.
What the adult says about the child is only the adult’s opinion anyway. In reality, the child’s identity is not changed by the words of the adult. In reality, our being is independent of what we do.
You see, what you do, what you think, is NOT the same as who you are at your essence.
I have discovered for myself that as I started to heal the stories of the Mental Me, as I learned how to release the cellular memory of those stories, and even sometimes reframe them, my sense of identity, my self-image dramatically improved. Does this matter? You bet it does.
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Tags: Confidence, Ego, Empowerment, Self-Esteem
Posted in Ego | 5 Comments »
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009
 Spirituality for me has to be practical or else, it just does not make sense. Yes, I do often live by faith, but there is a difference between faith and believing a paradigm just because you were told to believe it. I’m grateful to be beyond the point in my life where I hang on to “tradition just because”.
If it does not empower me to live a healthy, happy and prosperous life – it just has to go. The ideas have outlived their welcome. There was a time in my life when I used to blame the devil for the drama in my life.
It was a funny thing; I wondered how was it that this devil knew all of my thoughts? How was it that it could “make” me do anything and how was it creating the drama in my life and fear thoughts? Here’s something interesting – spell devil backwards and notice what you get.
Devil is “Lived” spelled backwards. Well, knowing what I know now, I’d say I was living my life backwards all right. In fact I commonly lived with regret and worry all the time. Or, I was unforgiving and bitter about something from my past. I rarely lived in the present moment.
Here’s something else. Notice that “evil” is “live” backwards. I personally don’t see life as “the devil made me do it” anymore at all. In fact, the closest thing I see to some devil is a wounded ego. I don’t believe that the ego is the enemy; it is just that if your thoughts and your sense of self formed in the brain’s area of “autobiographical memory” is full of negative perceptions, you will wire your nervous system with negative self-talk.
Your ego, or “false sense of self” just needs to have its stories re-written, so to speak. These thoughts/beliefs literally get wired into your body at a cellular level. Well, when your negative wounded ego storyteller gets going, you start thinking negative thoughts and acting on them.
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Tags: Confidence, Ego, Self-Esteem, Spirituality
Posted in Ego, Practical Spirituality | 14 Comments »
Saturday, December 19th, 2009
 When I use the word self-esteem, I am referring to self-image and the way that one feels about their own worth and value. I am of the firm belief that healthy self-esteem matters and is not the same as arrogance or narcissism.
I believe arrogance is a telltale sign of insecurity. It is the ego’s way to covering up and hiding inner fear of inadequacy. One may as well have a neon sign on their forehead that says “I am hiding my pain and shame” when they mistreat others in a rude and condescending fashion.
What I have found to be true within my own life is that the more I come to love and accept myself, the less judgmental and more compassionate that I become with others. What we do is not the same as who we are.
When we behave in a way that is harmful to others, of course there should be a penalty (even if the law doesn’t apply the penalty, karma takes its toll). It’s a matter of reaping and sowing. I am not of the school that karma is “punishment”.
It is really about getting back what you put out. So, when we plant seeds of love, we will reap a harvest of love – eventually. Now realize that some of what we reap is not obvious in its origin.
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Tags: Confidence, Ego, Emotional Healing, Emotional Pain, Empowerment, Self-Esteem
Posted in Cataracts of the Soul-Fear, Confidence and Self-Esteem | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
 Ego used to be a term that I rarely heard except when someone was referring to arrogance as in “you have a big ego”. It was ambiguous at best. I find it interesting that I can actually now use that term in relation to neuroscience. “How so?” you may ask. Can you keep an open mind?
“In times of change the learners will inherit the earth while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists” ~Eric Hoffer
Ego in Latin is translated “I”. It is the false “I” however, as it is the sense of self that is tied to the area of the brain that forms the “autobiographical memory”, or the story of who you THINK you are.
In my soon to be released book, “Empower Up and Play Big: Winning at Life From the Inside Out!” I refer to it as the “Mental Me”. It is the mental construct of your self-image. I have come to understand that it really is a “false self“, so to speak.
The “real you”, what I call the “Magnificent Me”, is the awareness, the consciousness, the spirit, or what quantum physics refers to as the “observer”. The one that can see the thought, sense the thought apart from the thought. The real you has all types of potential gifts and talents that you have not even begun to develop. Not to get too convoluted here, this is the take home message: YOU are not your thoughts.
Thoughts are things, literally. Thought is energy strictly speaking. What you do with this energy as it flow through your perceptual system will ultimately determine the action you take which will lead you to your life’s destination. Now, if you have created an ego that has a low self-image and low self-esteem, an autobiographical memory that says you are not good enough or whatever, this is what will run your life and cause suffering.
The good news is, the more aware you become of HOW your powerful brain/mind/spirit work together and start to operate your life consciously, the more you will be able to take the misperceptions of your EGO and turn it into Enormous Growth Opportunities.
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Tags: Brain, Confidence, Ego, Empowerment, Self-Esteem
Posted in Ego | 4 Comments »
Thursday, December 10th, 2009
 Transformation literally means to rise above form, or transcend “form”. Form is what you are seeing in your world at the moment. And here is what I’ve discovered: what I see was formed by my perceptions. How I see life ultimately determines my experience of life.
My perceptual system is unique to me in many ways. My thoughts, emotions and feelings create the vision and energy that forms how I experience life. I know that most people still believe that we are hapless victims of circumstances. I used to.
It has been so freeing to realize that this is just not the case. While I cannot control everything in my world, I can control how I react to a great degree. Here’s an as yet little known point that is powerful – how aware are you that the physical world starts within the quantum field of all that is?
In practical terms, everything is energy and then the invisible, tiny particles of waves and particles “gel” into form according to our consciousness. Or, another way to look at it is what we expect to see because of how we perceive life, repeatedly shows up in our experience. It becomes a “self-fulfilling prophecy. While science shows there is no such thing as empty space and that the “observer” affects the movement of the quantum field, there is much controversy over “what is consciousness”?
Tags: Brain, Confidence, Ego, Empowermet, Happiness
Posted in Empowerment | 3 Comments »
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Ego often gets a bum rap. I was happy to see the video of Dr. Jill Bolte-Taylor, author of “My Stroke of Insight”, (see her video at the end of this post) a while back as she exemplifies why we need an ego and why is not a good idea to try to “get rid” of it.
