Ego is not an enemy. I've seen a million articles say, "Ego is the enemy," "Here's how to defeat your ego," . . . Viewing it this way is a horrible recipe for failure. If people say "The ego is the enemy," they're referring to it as being something different than a piece of you. I would want you to think that . . . if I want to control. you.
The ego is what we think we are. In the psychological sense, this term ego was popularized by Sigmund Freud and other psychologists, like Carl Jung, 1875-1961, and Jane Loevinger, 1918-2008. And at its core the ego serves as this executive of the psyche. So it's kind of mediating between our base desires, what Sigmund Freud called the Id. Then society's rules on top of that, which he called the superego, and then the real world if we can even say real anymore at this point. But it's the part of you that says, "I want this, but is it reasonable or is it acceptable for me to have that thing?" So the ego is kind of responsible for your sense of self, your self-esteem, self-worth, self-importance, but it's also the source of all of your negative self talk, your anxiety, worry, fear, lack of confidence, social behavior that you don't want.
PROBLEMS OF EGO
PROBLEM #1: EXCESSIVELY CRITICAL The first thing that's wrong with our ego is that it can be excessively critical, and it tends to laser focus on shortcomings and mistakes, and then it downplays your strengths and accomplishments, like "You didn't deserve that all the way. You didn't really deserve that." So this can lower self-esteem. It makes it difficult to approach strangers, start conversations, continue conversations with confidence, because we are behind our eyes.
PROBLEM #2: FEAR OF FAILURE
Ego hates failure because it sees failure as a threat to your identity because I define myself based on external things. So the ego is extremely good at comparing you to others, and it does this to evaluate your worth, your credibility, your confidence. It has to compare to other people.
PROBLEM #3: RELUCTANT TO TAKE RISKS
Next it makes you more reluctant to take a risk. so this prevents you from just stepping out of your comfort zone.
PROBLEM #4: OVEREMPHASIZING SOCIAL VALIDATION
It also overemphasizes social validation, so the ego seeks validation from all these external sources to protect itself. An insecure ego will employ these defense mechanisms, like rationalization, denial, projection, minimization, and this leads to insecurity and feelings of inadequacy. That's because we have unattainable standards from the media.
These stages of ego development give us a road map for how people from infancy all the way into adulthood and death evolved their thinking, their moral understanding, and just their overall self-awareness.
EGO DEVELOPMENT
The model I'm going to give you tonight comes from this woman named Jane Loevinger.
EGO LEVEL 1: PRE SOCIAL STAGE. If you just think of a baby who's just completely reliant on mom and dad, and at this point there's really no sense of "me." There's no sense of "I" yet. The baby is kind of just soaking in the world. It's dependent on caregivers essentially.
EGO LEVEL 2: IMPULSIVE STAGE
Just a couple of years old now, kids start to think "I am my own person." They finally have this weird realization. They're all about what they want right this second. If you give them what they want, you're the hero; if not, you get a temper tantrum from the kid.
EGO LEVEL 3: SELF-PROTECTED STAGE
Kids who are starting to control these wild impulses. But guess what? If something goes wrong, it's never their fault; it's always somebody else's. So this is a self-protective stage. This is the first stage where some people stop.
EGO LEVEL 4: THE CONFORMIST
Just picture school-age kids who really care about fitting in everything is black and white there's a right and wrong way to do things no I cannot wear those shoelaces I can't wear that hoodie I cannot do that at all and their friends opinions mean everything to them it's a big deal.
EGO LEVEL 5: SELF-AWARE
Most of us stop right here and this is where we start questioning things and we start seeing that life has all these weird Shades of Gray we're more self aware but we're still pretty tied to what Society expects from us.
EGO LEVEL 6: THE CONSCIENTIOUS STAGE
As we mature even more if we get to level six we start internalizing rules thinking deeply about our Behavior and that behaviors impact on other people and it's not just about avoiding punishment it's about doing what's right because we believe in it this is where I talk about off camera leadership how are you acting off camera when no one's there no one's looking?
EGO LEVEL 7: THE INDIVIDUALISTIC STAGE
To people who celebrate individuality they embrace differences but they're also getting pretty good at dealing with complex internal stuff going on in their mind and they're getting better at inter Conflict Management inner dialogue and these are the people who I would say, "Know themselves." So Level 7 is I would just describe as "knowing yourself."
EGO LEVEL 8: THE AUTONOMOUS STAGE
These folks have reached a point where they can see multiples perspective simultaneously. That's an important point here. Can you observe the conversation from a third party? But also, can I shift perspective to look over this solar system and see how insignificant I am? Can I physically be in a conversation and still be conscious that I'm literally spiraling another galaxy and we are on a collision course with a black hole as we speak?. And these people just accept that life is complex. You notice what's going away as the ego goes up? Judgment certainty is going away. Suffering is going away and especially in Level 8, the person regularly reflects on the lack of separation between themselves and other people. When they see someone else, they see that's me. That's what these people are feeling.
EGO LEVEL 9: THE INTEGRATED STAGE
This is unicorn territory. Very few people get to this. This is about wisdom and empathy and a deep inner sense of peace and most people who are coaches at Level 5 think even to themselves that they're at Level 9 and you know what keeps them at Level 5? The certainty of where they are on this chart. People at this stage have reconciled their inner conflicts and they truly understand themselves. They don't just know themselves, they understand themselves. That's the difference here. This is the first true point of fully, 100% living, not thinking, living in a way that they see no separation between themselves, trees or other people. And I mean trees.
EGO LEVEL 10: FLOWING
This is kind of a new idea that is still being explored imagine just being so in tune with the world that you're just flowing through life I think this is less than maybe 10 people on planet Earth it's just an experience they're experiencing every moment of their life no matter what happens.
SO HOW DO WE GET OUT OF THE EGO?
I want you to just understand the concept of "me" is a fraud. There is no separation from you and the outside world. Like, I'm not observing the Big Bang. I'm not observing the universe. I am a piece of that. The molecules that make up your body weren't created out of nothing. They've been here forever. Literally forever when the Big Bang happened, all of you, every molecule that makes up you, was there at that exact time. So I think the true pathway to finding the loss of ego is about keeping that in mind as often, as always, as close to always, as possible.
