One of the functions of our Ego is to defend ourselves and protect us. Ego defends and protects not only physically instead most of the time emotionally. In this modern world, we are living a much-protected life physically than our hunter-gatherer ancestors. So mostly this defense is happening towards Emotional Dangers and Emotional Attacks.
Most of you have one or few people around you who "judge" you, "label" you, "criticize" you or "blame" you. And oftentimes there is fighting, quarreling, heated arguments about everything and anything. There are people around you who will constantly breach your personal boundary and will not leave you alone. No matter what you do some people will never be happy with your efforts and will find something that you did wrong today or ever and may give you a complete list of all your sins since you are born. Usually, such people are either spouse, parent or close family member. Because if it was anyone else you would have walked away on the first attack and would have turned your back easily. But in close-knit family situations, it becomes very difficult and hence you develop this "Defensive Ego". No one is born with it, remember that.
Sometimes you yourself go on pretending as something else, someone else who you are not and in order to hide your weakness or your reality you stay On Guard, Defensive with people around you. You create a fake world, a world of lies around you and then you go on defending that world, that fake personality, those Lies that you constantly keep on telling others. Others around you may not have proofs to break the web of your lies, but they can sense it, they know it in many ways. All your efforts give birth to suspicion and are the breeding ground for Emotional Attacks.
Such situations make you feel "unsafe" with Yourself. You do not want to be alone, you want to keep busy, you get anxiety attacks, your personality becomes neurotic, highly reactional, you find ways to avoid Yourself! Here you are not running from others, from the world, but you are running from yourself. Even when you are busy in any activity you keep on chatting with yourself and constantly "defending" yourself even during your mental chatter. Whom are you defending yourself from?
YOU! Yes!
This defensiveness makes you concerned with the outside world and how you appear to others. It makes it harder to notice what goes on inside you, with your inner feelings. When you are thinking, you do not feel much of what goes on with your subtle feelings. You only notice feelings that are at the surface. Retreating into your thoughts thus becomes a way of avoiding unpleasant feelings. When this goes on for too long you stop feeling the feelings. Many people call themselves fully logical and rational and deny that feelings are a real part of them.
The result of all these defensive tactics and games is that you lose touch with yourself. You really don't know yourself. Consequently, you are unaware why you are doing what you are doing. This Defensive Ego makes it impossible to deal with our deeper feelings, and the result is that these feelings stay hidden and do not dissolve. They disappear into your "Unconscious", but do not cease to influence you.
Whenever you are fighting or quarreling and are being argumentative then "truth" goes out of the window, nobody is interested in understanding or even listening to the "truth". When Defensive Ego is playing against anyone then it is no longer about the "truth" it is ONLY about NOT FEELING HURT.
Most of you have one or few people around you who "judge" you, "label" you, "criticize" you or "blame" you. And oftentimes there is fighting, quarreling, heated arguments about everything and anything. There are people around you who will constantly breach your personal boundary and will not leave you alone. No matter what you do some people will never be happy with your efforts and will find something that you did wrong today or ever and may give you a complete list of all your sins since you are born. Usually, such people are either spouse, parent or close family member. Because if it was anyone else you would have walked away on the first attack and would have turned your back easily. But in close-knit family situations, it becomes very difficult and hence you develop this "Defensive Ego". No one is born with it, remember that.
Sometimes you yourself go on pretending as something else, someone else who you are not and in order to hide your weakness or your reality you stay On Guard, Defensive with people around you. You create a fake world, a world of lies around you and then you go on defending that world, that fake personality, those Lies that you constantly keep on telling others. Others around you may not have proofs to break the web of your lies, but they can sense it, they know it in many ways. All your efforts give birth to suspicion and are the breeding ground for Emotional Attacks.
Such situations make you feel "unsafe" with Yourself. You do not want to be alone, you want to keep busy, you get anxiety attacks, your personality becomes neurotic, highly reactional, you find ways to avoid Yourself! Here you are not running from others, from the world, but you are running from yourself. Even when you are busy in any activity you keep on chatting with yourself and constantly "defending" yourself even during your mental chatter. Whom are you defending yourself from?
YOU! Yes!
This defensiveness makes you concerned with the outside world and how you appear to others. It makes it harder to notice what goes on inside you, with your inner feelings. When you are thinking, you do not feel much of what goes on with your subtle feelings. You only notice feelings that are at the surface. Retreating into your thoughts thus becomes a way of avoiding unpleasant feelings. When this goes on for too long you stop feeling the feelings. Many people call themselves fully logical and rational and deny that feelings are a real part of them.
The result of all these defensive tactics and games is that you lose touch with yourself. You really don't know yourself. Consequently, you are unaware why you are doing what you are doing. This Defensive Ego makes it impossible to deal with our deeper feelings, and the result is that these feelings stay hidden and do not dissolve. They disappear into your "Unconscious", but do not cease to influence you.
Whenever you are fighting or quarreling and are being argumentative then "truth" goes out of the window, nobody is interested in understanding or even listening to the "truth". When Defensive Ego is playing against anyone then it is no longer about the "truth" it is ONLY about NOT FEELING HURT.
- Yes if someone is Blaming you, you don't want to feel Guilty!
- You are already convinced that the other person is wrong or lying or not understanding!
- This gives you a chance to Blame too!
All this you do because you do not want to "feel hurt". You do not want to feel Guilt, Shame. You do not want to be wrongly accused of anything so you go on protecting, defending your Self-Image.
You may be using one feeling to avoid another. When you get angry, but you don't want to act angrily towards other people then it gets really hard. Thoughts full of anger just keeps coming up. You are angry of course because you got emotionally hurt. The reason you cannot stop being angry is that because then you would have to feel the underlying unpleasant feelings that caused the anger in the first place and you do not want to do that.
You may be using one feeling to avoid another. When you get angry, but you don't want to act angrily towards other people then it gets really hard. Thoughts full of anger just keeps coming up. You are angry of course because you got emotionally hurt. The reason you cannot stop being angry is that because then you would have to feel the underlying unpleasant feelings that caused the anger in the first place and you do not want to do that.
Dealing with emotions like Guilt and Shame is difficult. Dealing with Emotional Hurt is difficult. Not impossible though. No one taught us how to deal with difficult emotional scenarios. No one taught us how to be true to ourselves so we do not have to protect any fake, false self-image.
The Cat in a Bird Cage - Defensive Intellectual Justification!
What is that one thing that stops us from freeing ourselves; FEAR. Fear of what? FEAR OF LOSS. Fear of Loss of what? A possibility of loss of people around us, loss of loved ones, loss of health, loss of wealth, loss of self-image, image as a father, mother, husband, wife, or whatever. You fear if you admit the mistake you will feel guilt, which you will anyways because you know deep down if you did anything wrong. You fear if you speak the truth, the other person will walk away from you which he/she may already be doing, it's just that You do not want to accept that Truth Yourself. You fear losing relationships that you have and you cannot survive without them, so you are ready to lose the relationship with yourself, which anyways will cost you everything someday! You want short term benefits, small gratifications. You feel you put the fire down today, will see what happens tomorrow, why speak the Truth and face the volcano. Well, there wasn't any volcano to start with, you created it by this fearful approach.
Your Fear keeps you chained to your Guilt, Shame, Emotional Hurt. You would rather be hurt than walk-away. You would rather be in Guilt & Shame than Forgiving Yourself. You would rather fight endlessly and inflict an emotional wound on yourself and others to protect your self-image by speaking tons of lies to yourself and others than Speaking Truth. It's like how a Pigeon closes his eyes and pretends that Cat is not there in front of him and will not eat him and he is safe! Is he really? This is how defensive ego forces you to live in Denial of Truth, Denial of Love, Denial of Life.
What is the opposite of Emotional Hurt? Self Love!
When you love yourself unconditionally and accept yourself the way you are, you stop pretending to be something else to yourself and to the world then you start to "Heal" and the emotional hurt goes away. When you "Forgive" yourself because you love yourself unconditionally, then you no longer feel guilt and shame. You forgive yourself understanding that "you were only human" to commit a mistake, you did not know any better, life did not give you any user manual to be wise before everything happens. Life is teaching lessons constantly that too through difficult ways, painful ways, emotional ways, so forgive your inner child and love yourself unconditionally.
When you are able to Forgive & Accept Yourself Unconditionally this "Defensive Ego" DIES! Remember I said above that "you were not born with it" then how did it got developed in you? Because somewhere in the journey of life, you stopped loving, accepting and forgiving yourself instead created a cage of Defensive Intellectual Justifications. See the picture above, the cat in a bird cage? Yes! That's what you have done to yourself. You have created intellectual justifications for all your situations, like why you the cat needs to be inside the bird cage? Or why you the colorful parrots need to hang around a bird cage which has a cat inside? :-)
It's never too late to get rid of this unwanted weight of defensive ego, one less baggage to carry!
Forgive yourself, Accept yourself and Be Courageous.
Being Shiva's Echoflections program is designed to help you get rid of Defensive Ego and take control of your Emotional Well-being.
Forgive yourself, Accept yourself and Be Courageous.
Being Shiva's Echoflections program is designed to help you get rid of Defensive Ego and take control of your Emotional Well-being.
~ Adiguru
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