The Ego & Ego Death

why it isn't as scary as it sounds

The ego gets a bit of a bad rap so I want to dispel some misconceptions about what the "ego" is.

The purpose of the ego is to intercede on behalf of our most base desires (the Id) with our moralistic values (the SuperEgo). We need the ego to filter opportunities and decisions through our values, morals, boundaries, wants, needs, desires. Without any ego at all, we would have no container for the Middle Path - for pursuing meaningful education to fulfill our destiny & purpose in life. We need the ego to hold the space between our Both-And: our divinity and our humanity, our inner animal and inner god.

The purpose the ego serves in our everyday life is being able to show up - in the grocery store, with our fur and human babies, to cook dinner in response to hunger. The ego is a necessary and important part of our psyche.

Oftentimes when we remark someone is "egotistical", we actually mean they are ruled by an unintegrated shadow. It isn't really that they are "full of themselves" - it is that they are solely focused on their empty reflection, believing it has more substance than it does - in the same way Narcissus mistook his reflection for Echo's call.

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Misconceptions around Ego Death centre around our cultural misconceptions about death in general. Death is often seen as the "end" but death is a window - especially in the metaphorical sense when we "die" to certain seasons in life, to

Ego Death, then, is not about annihilation of ego, but bridging the space between the Id (raw instinct - perhaps, the shadow) and the SuperEgo (the moralistic judgement - perhaps, the inner critic or taskmaster) so the distance is not so sparse. Ego Death is an opportunity to let go of old ways of being, the ways we were conditioned to be and welcome authenticity.

The Ego naturally resists the shrinking of distance between Id and SuperEgo for the same reason we resist any endings - retirement, the natural end to a relationship. The role of the Ego diminishes as we become more authentic, our Id & SuperEgo become allies instead of enemies. While this is a positive move, just like the role of a good therapist is to work themselves out of a job, there is natural resistance to the end.

The Ego desperately wants to prove They are useful, instead of taking it as a compliment they’ve done their job so well, they’ve made themselves unnecessary. The way the Ego resists being “let go” by the psyche is through Ego Defences. These are three of the top choices our ego uses to defend against disposability:

• Repression is the Ego’s way of keeping threatening, alarming or disturbing thoughts from becoming conscious. These thoughts can be found in dreams, fantasies, fears. The Ego’s attempt to protect the psyche from difficult material is protective but by staving short-term hurt, the Ego is setting itself up for long-term harm.

• Projection is what we despise in others is what we despise in ourselves. It involves the assumption that others hold unacceptable thoughts, feelings and motives that the person themselves is immune to, such as believing others despise you when you truly despise them but feel shame for your hatred.

• Sublimation involves satisfying an Id impulse in a socially acceptable way, like playing sports to release aggression.

To connect consciously with Ego Death, consider:

1. How do you want to be known? Are you close to this legacy you want to leave?

2. What fears have you already let go of? What fears do you still need to work through? What theme sews these fears together?

3. What truth does your body want to share? What energy do you choose to connect with?

We have this incredible, rare opportunity to incarnate within the same physical form in the same lifetime. In other epochs in other civilizations, our consciousness would get wiped clean and we would start again in a new form. Ego Death is an invitation to release the ways of conditioning that were internalized before we could consent to these narratives. The Life on the other side of Ego Death is more authentic, more present way of Being but it is Unknown.

We can never imagine what it is like to become an adult when we are a child. We can never imagine becoming a parent before we become a parent. We can never imagine our career until we are in it. We are limited in our imagination by what we’ve experienced. We cannot conceptualize Life after Ego Death but the abyss we perceive is only the unknown of what we haven’t yet experienced - the abyss isn’t inherently bad.

Trusting in the Universe’s gift of life after Ego Death only requires trust in your Self because we are the microcosm of the macrocosm.

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