How do you deal with ego backlash?

[leintdav000]

Hello everyone! Spring is here and I hope you're all doing well! Today I have a question pertaining to ego backlash... I'll briefly fill you in on where I'm at to create context for this discussion. I'm 19 and currently a freshman In college. I have a pretty basic self-development story: grew up in an abusive home, troubled adolescence, lived with a friend for a year during high school; then spent a year in solitude--online school--had a major spiritual awakening, and I've been on this journey ever since! I've made an immense amount of progress on this journey and I couldn't be more proud; however, I've observed that my ego is running a 3/4 month upward spiral, then a 1/2 week backlash crash, repeat pattern. 

 

For example, freshman year of college has been the most beautiful gift in my entire life! I feel like a new man. I walk confidently, speak confidently, tease, play, flirt, and joke around with people: I feel great! I can enter a party/ classroom, and start meeting people & flirting with girls; I've built an amazing community of friends and gathered a few epic sexual experiences, too. Then it all comes crashing down... For the next two weeks, deep trauma/ neurosis will rise to the surface and cloud my entire reality... Things like abandonment issues; imposter syndrome; fear of my iq, etc. I'll feel like everyone hates me; they're laughing at me; I'm a joke to everyone; I'm unlovable, hideous, cancer, etc. I won't even believe my friends like me. I'll completely withdrawal from the social sphere. It's like my entire reality will change before my eyes... After a week or two of this, bam, my psyche fill flip and I'll be good to go for another 3/4 months. 

 

I'm currently in a backlash phase... and it's hard! It's like my ego is projecting all these neurotic delusions into my reality. I'm aware enough to understand what's happening, but it's still debilitating. I can't even make eye contact with people.  How do you cope/ work around this? 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 3, 2019 by leintdav000

[Nahm]

17 minutes ago, leintdav000 said:

Hello everyone! Spring is here and I hope you're all doing well! Today I have a question pertaining to ego backlash... I'll briefly fill you in on where I'm at to create context for this discussion. I'm 19 and currently a freshman In college. I have a pretty basic self-development story: grew up in an abusive home, troubled adolescence, lived with a friend for a year during high school; then spent a year in solitude--online school--had a major spiritual awakening, and I've been on this journey ever since! I've made an immense amount of progress on this journey and I couldn't be more proud; however, I've observed that my ego is running a 3/4 month upward spiral, then a 1/2 week backlash crash, repeat pattern.

Welcome to the forum! Thanks for contributing. 

Just be willing to be attentive of when, and to what you are currently being inattentive.  Then be willing to be aware of how & why you slip into inattentive. Then, when it hits, feel prepared - you knew big love was coming; sit in a comfy chair and cry for days as needed. Don’t go into thought stories, don’t avoid emotions, don’t beat up on yourself, and don’t talk to anyone. You’ll only suck them in, or get sucked into, their thought stories. 

 

For example, freshman year of college has been the most beautiful gift in my entire life! I feel like a new man. I walk confidently, speak confidently, tease, play, flirt, and joke around with people: I feel great! I can enter a party/ classroom, and start meeting people & flirting with girls; I've built an amazing community of friends and gathered a few epic sexual experiences, too. Then it all comes crashing down... For the next two weeks, deep trauma/ neurosis will rise to the surface and cloud my entire reality... Things like abandonment issues; imposter syndrome; fear of my iq, etc. I'll feel like everyone hates me; they're laughing at me; I'm a joke to everyone; I'm unlovable, hideous, cancer, etc. I won't even believe my friends like me. I'll completely withdrawal from the social sphere. It's like my entire reality will change before my eyes... After a week or two of this, bam, my psyche fill flip and I'll be good to go for another 3/4 months. 

Realize right now you don’t have any use for ‘your’ thinking, and return to the present moment.     Or...

Make your ‘go to’ or, your home base, breathing relaxed & deep from your stomach always. Always being aware of the stomach breathing. Each day this is done minimizes overthinking.  Then, notice the pattern:  You see / hear something, (it’s contextualized), you feel an uncomfortable sensation, thought story launches, you (awareness) gets sucked into thought story / identifying with it via separate self, then you react from the thought story’ & separate self, the uncomfortable sensation intensifies, you notice you’ve been breathing from the lungs not the stomach.  

Notice how anger, rage, self doubt, fear, stress, tension, low esteem, anxiety, depression, frustration, impatience....always involve you thinking about somone else....or you beating up on yourself. (As if there were two of you;   a you, and then yourself...a “separate self”)

Notice how if you don’t involve someone else in your thought & sensation experience, and you don’t pretend there are two of you, then, that repeating pattern is going to change direction, very much for the better in terms of suffering. (But not at first)

Notice how the thought story suckers you (awareness) into the story, by using the past and or potential future of “you” (separate self / body mind / ego)...to get you identifying with the thought story. Notice how sneaky it is, in using anything & everything from the past to get you to identify with the past (tugging the “heart strings”), which gets you to identify with the thought story the mind is literally just spitballing, totally making up. At Eminem level, but not motivational and doesn’t even rhyme. 

Be aware of that pattern, and the level of sneakery. Might take 10 - 50 more repeats (?).     First there is the willingness to be aware of the patterns at play. That can be rough initially (Cry in chair) but over time / repeats, both the severity & the occurrences begin to decline, and daily mindfulness goes up. 

I'm currently in a backlash phase... and it's hard! It's like my ego is projecting all these neurotic delusions into my reality. I'm aware enough to understand what's happening, but it's still debilitating. I can't even make eye contact with people.  How do you cope/ work around this? 

Just do what you can to listen, relax, and don’t interfere (enter-fear).  Don’t make eye contact, sit alone. Don’t avoid any sensations, study them, learn everything you can, but watch that sneaky slippery slope. Take days off. Let out everything. Cry. Write about how you’re feeling on paper to get it out, but don’t get sucked in and don’t beat up on yourself. 

It’s worth this stage, hang in there. As much as you can, don’t feel that you need to really do anything though. Keep it light and easy. It may seem like a given there’s an earth below your feet when you walk wherever, but only if you are taking the entirety of reality for granted. Infinite intelligence is perfectly meeting and supporting every footstep you’ve Ever taken. It’s got this too. Relax. You know you, you’ll be ‘back at it’, so just Let Go and relax. 

 

 

 

 

[Sahil Pandit]

@leintdav000 shadow work is important.. as well as discovering the source of your neurosis'.

How are you feeling in your body? 

[Truth Addict]

@leintdav000

Hello, and welcome to the forum!

If you want the ego backlash to turn into happiness, surrender to it and comfort yourself, observe it happening to you, observe all the details you can observe (consciousness method).

If you want it to turn into success, prepare yourself with more discipline when not having the backlash. Train yourself to raise your baseline behaviours, and when the backlash comes, it will be less difficult for you to take back control (training method).

If you want both happiness and success, well that's a hell of a job to do.

But eventually, I think one will lead to the other, though it will take a lot of time.