How to deal with an immense and very dense ego ?

[Lynnel]

Let's disregard the fact that "you" are the ego.

I've recently read ego is the enemy by Ryan Holiday and I recognized myself in almost every single thing.

I took a very honest look at myself and thought good lord it's a blessing I never achieved success as I would immediately crumble and my heavy dormant ego would go rampant. I seriously took a look at all the shit storm going on inside. It is...mindblowing.

There is so freaking much anger, manipulation, strategic manipulation, so many many lies to get this, to do that, to achieve this, so many white lies, so many weird ass sophisticated  strategies, so many fantasies of me being amazing, so much arrogance, so much of me being above people, getting this prize, getting this fame, being richer, feeling better than every single person who ever walked on earth and exercising divine vengeance on everyone who ever wronger me, a deep desire to hurt all those who have hurt me, so much armor, so much defenses, such a lack of authenticity, such a heavy egoic agenda, including fantasies of how I shall achieve my life purpose in such a magnificient ways that success will line up and I will feel so special and so amazing and girls will line up to fuck me and my life will get so much more amazing and I will be able to "connect" with people and feel so clever and amazing and have my own wikipedia page.

(Now I understand to some extent what Leo meant by you are the devil !!! There is so much shit going inside you do not want to look at ! It's a whole new world !!! => If I was good at photoshop I would make a whole new world meme )

And I had put "contribution"  as my second value !!!!! This is an amazing self-deception. I don't care about the contribution, I just want to accomplish my egoic agenda as fast as possible and my "life purpose" has become entirely corrupted to achieve that. What mastery work ? Ego wants this over in a week !

I could go on forever with this whole egoic shitstorm but that can quickly become sickening.

So, how can I unburden myself from this ?

I'll look into more shadow work, more trauma work but more concrete ressources would be helpful since I'm trying to clean my motivations regarding my life purpose and to gain more lightness and simplicity in my life. I don't wanna spend my whole life coping anymore and feeling like I'm trying to get by with a huge egoic backpack and intense armor disconnected from others and the world.

[Shin]

Quote

So, how can I unburden myself from this ?

What you're doing now, noticing it in you.
Also everytime someone screw you (in a non physical way),  suck it up and don't say anything, unless it's a steal or something like that.
If someone start a debate with you on a forum, same thing.

If you post something on a forum, you read again the post and if something is superflux and about you, erase it.
Even if it's not superflux, see if you could write it in a manner that doesn't make you look good, in a neutral manner.

Same thing in real life, if you are in a conversation and you want to feel good about yourself telling an anecdote, don't say it, unless it is relevant as fuck and can help in some way (be mindful that you are doing it because you could still deceive yourself).

Everytime you feel an emotion, try to be conscious of why you feel it, most of the time it will be because you feel good or bad about you, try to understand why.

I'm probably missing things here, but someone else will post it.

[Faceless]

Understand yourself and you undertand another. To understand why an ego/self is so dense being ‘conflict and suffering’ is to see that there is psychological turmoil taking place. When we see that this is the driving force behind what is reflected by ‘the self’ we see that state of dispair, anxiety, sorrow, and can meet what is projected with compassion. Instaead of reacting to it and fueling it. 

If there is honesty when you look at yourself, then there is honesty in a relationship with another.

Edited February 10, 2018 by Faceless

[Lynnel]

@Shin  I would ten to agree but I feel that practice would be some form of short term ego repression and not true growth.

Even if I can see the wisdom in not trying to be good and look good that's for freaking sure

But life is not as easy as just stopping doing it

[Shin]

1 minute ago, Lynnel said:

@Shin  I would ten to agree but I feel that practice would be some form of short term ego repression and not true growth.

Even if I can see the wisdom in not trying to be good and look good that's for freaking sure

But life is not as easy as just stopping doing it

Don't worry, it won't be as easy as you think  

You need to not do it and being conscious of it, that will make your ego (you) miserable.

[dorg]

1 hour ago, Lynnel said:

There is so freaking much anger, manipulation, strategic manipulation, so many many lies to get this, to do that, to achieve this, so many white lies, so many weird ass sophisticated  strategies, so many fantasies of me being amazing, so much arrogance, so much of me being above people, getting this prize, getting this fame, being richer, feeling better than every single person who ever walked on earth and exercising divine vengeance on everyone who ever wronger me, a deep desire to hurt all those who have hurt me, so much armor, so much defenses, such a lack of authenticity, such a heavy egoic agenda, including fantasies of how I shall achieve my life purpose in such a magnificient ways that success will line up and I will feel so special and so amazing and girls will line up to fuck me and my life will get so much more amazing and I will be able to "connect" with people and feel so clever and amazing and have my own wikipedia page.

--

So, how can I unburden myself from this ?

Just watch this happening. This separates you from this.

[Nahm]

@Lynnel This might seem to good to be true, but I think awareness alone would help you out a lot. You’re already doing the hard part, looking at it and seeking help.  I remember feeling as you describe, and it felt like I was on speed all the time. My mind was thinking about my past screw up and my potential future screw ups. Try just sitting quietly alone every morning for like 15 minutes. Keep returning your focus to breathing from your stomach. 

There’s a large list of things happening with the body and brain that are all curative, simply from doing that each morning. You just sort of don’t work on it, just let the self curing mechanism do it’s thing. Give it a few days, and you’ll really notice how things slow down and you feel more calm and peaceful. It might be hard to just sit in the morning. Thoughts about how much you have to get done, etc, arise. But I assure you, if you just sit through it and focus on stomach breathing, it’ll change all this for the better. 

[Shin]

9 minutes ago, Nahm said:

@Lynnel This might seem to good to be true, but I think awareness alone would help you out a lot.

The weird moment you know it's the solution to everything, but you know no one will believes you, and even if they do, they don't have the capacity.

 

[Nahm]

@Shin yes...and now I will take a moment to myself. At least I didn’t say meditation. Remember that phase, little while back? People would just slap the word Meditation on threads.

[Shin]

[electroBeam]

I think its fine to defend yourself in a conversation, as long as you're aware of the mechanics happening within yourself behind the scenes.

Ask these questions when your in the middle of an argument, defending yourself etc:

-> Why am I defending myself?

-> What am I afraid of if I don't defend myself?

-> How will this defence help (not me) the happiness of the world in general

-> If everyone did what I did, how would the world look? Or if everyone didn't have this defence mechanism how would the world look, be like?

 

Also treat the answers you get back from these questions very skeptically. Don't believe them, don't believe yourself, for sake of methodology, you are just as wrong as the next person, if say you were to ask a stranger on the street these questions.

 

Also I disagree with Shin's view where you should literally NOT do something. Its fine to defend yourself, infact you shouldn't feel bad about defending yourself. The point here isn't to make your life miserable, allow the ego to do what it wants, just be aware of how the ego works while its doing it. See this is why a lot of hardcore, empirically minded Christians and Buddhist people never reach enlightenment, because they treat themselves like computer programs and unconsciously suppress themselves from egoic pleasures in life like having sexual fantasies. You're not growing by supressing yourself, you're just putting more pressure on a balloon that's about to explode.  As Leo says, you don't have to surrender to other people's opinions, you just have to question YOURS.

Edited February 10, 2018 by electroBeam

[Timotheus]

@electroBeam ^+1

[adam747]

The stripping down of the ego is a long process for most... Spending time on the cushion in inquiry of "Who am I" is essential to break ego identification..

[YaNanNallari]

If you don't know how to think, don't think

[Shin]

19 hours ago, electroBeam said:

I.

Ahah, I've been so much of an asshole today that I'm starting to think I should follow your advice ...  

[h inandout]

I love you for this post.  I feel less lonely.  I am excited to see how you learn to attend your ego and shaddow over the long haul.

[Lynnel]

@Nahm  I have a daily kriya yoga practice and I start my day with awareness with some light stretches to become aware of the body.

I expected a more "cleaning" type practice to adapt

@Shin I know awareness is amazing and I most likely underestimate it but I don't think JUST increasing my level of awareness will do the trick. I feel like I need some "active cleaning process" if you wish. That's how my mind tends to function anyway. Maybe I need a spiritual doctor to assign more SDS for me ?  

@h inandout Thanks! This is proposterous. I was glad I got some validation - and I was also glad this thread got popular. This is proposterous if you think about how we can always turn anything to nourrish the ego in a positive way. At least I'm aware of it ! Either way I'll share any great tips if I ever find some. (I feel like kriya yoga works wonders for me).

Edited February 12, 2018 by Lynnel

[PsiloPutty]

Are you still thinking about a mushroom journey? I left you a long post in that thread from last week.   

[Joseph Maynor]

Stop trying to control.  You have no control.  Just rest as awareness and watch the movie play itself out.  What this story points to is just be reality, which is awareness, or Soul.  Soul just is God.  Awareness just is Reality.  Reality just is Awareness.

Edited February 14, 2018 by Joseph Maynor

[Dan Arnautu]

@Lynnel Pick up Practicing the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle and get to work.