Ego in disguise
In yoga teacher training, I have been thinking about the ego.Ego can play a pretty destructive role in yoga, because it constantly tells you to compare yourself with the other people in the class or with your own self-image. It tries to make you push farther than your body wants to, because then you'll look good, like a "real" (experienced, flexible) yoga practitioner. If you listen to it, you might get hurt by forcing a stretch too far.
If you are trying to learn to meditate, it tells you that you aren't doing it well enough, and it tells you so loudly and persistently that it becomes pretty difficult to quiet your mind. Then it says, "I was right, I told you so!"
Today I have been thinking about ego in other areas of life, and I noticed that it can come in sneaky forms. For example, ego can disguise itself as fear or weakness.
I noticed that thoughts of the form "I can't do that; I'd look like an idiot; what if I screw it up" - those thoughts look on the surface like fears, but what they actually are is ego talking.
Of course if I try something new, there is the possibility of screwing it up. And so what? The only danger is that my precious ego might get bruised. What, I'm such a princess that my self-image can't tolerate being seen by other people as less than perfect?
News flash, Ego... people MAY already have noticed that I'm not perfect (you think??) so sit down and shut up, because some other parts of me would like to use the brain space now...
posted by Jaime_sama @ 12:52 PM
3 Comments:
Ego's an interesting thing. It keeps forgetting that it's part of the whole system, and not the system in its entirety.
Jung reckoned that we need to build ego as our mediator between our core selves and the world, and that the job of an adult is to recognise that the ego has a healthy function to perform, and it can't do that if it's all hard and dense and doesn't realise it's not the whole self - hence the mid-life wotsit where we suddenly become vaguely aware on some level that our egos have got a bit out of control and we need to do something about it, and the less aware we are of the role ego plays, the more uncomfortable the mid-life hoo-ha becomes.
I'm with him. I disagree with my yoga teacher, who reckons you have to tell your ego who's master. I tend to the non-violent co-operative approach of working out what ego's supposed to do, what it is actually doing, why it's doing it, and how to get it to work with me rather than against me. This is not easy, though I think I'm making some small progress in getting ego on my side.
Now watch me prove I haven't...
I like your approach a lot. One thing I have been saying to Ms. Ego recently is that she needs to remember what "good yoga" is - that being "good at" yoga does not equal forcing the body into the pose that looks cool. "Good" yoga equals staying in touch with the body's feedback, and staying calm and focused. Ms. Ego is welcome to try to make our practice Better, as long as she remembers that that means.
Yes,yes - exactly that!
Thing is, I often forget this while in the moment. I am, though I says it as shouldn't, rather brilliant at knowing it in hindsight ;)
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