What is Ego? What do we mean when we say that a person has a Big Ego?
We know the superficial level of behaviors including lack of empathy, acting superior or being highly critical of others, reacting defensively to any type of conflict with the need to always be right or to ‘get someone back’, self-centered attitude, and the strong desire for admiration and to be liked by everyone. But what is it really on a higher spiritual perspective when we say he/she has a big ego, or I don’t have an ego?
In my opinion, the ego is the unhealed part of ourselves. The truth is we all have it but we’re operating from different levels. It is either the psychologically unhealed or healed part of ourselves that determines how our ego affects our behaviors. On the negative side, it’s the fragments that had trauma, pain, misfortune, or plain immaturity that have not transformed or grown from them into the wisdom of self-awareness and wholeness. It is the part still stuck in past pain, misunderstanding and unawareness of our own actions. We are all operating at different levels of the transformation from hurt to healed.
Some spiritual teachers say that an unhealthy or big ego is the small mind. It’s settling for a lesser version of ourselves. The mind that has not expanded and gone into the depths of understanding who we really are. This is not a judgement of those who choose not to or have not yet chosen to transform. We are all given the chance to work on it every day and it can sometimes be a life-long process that not everyone is destined to go through. As a good friend recently told me, “Not everyone is here to evolve.” We are all on different journeys and the challenging work of looking at ourselves and healing from past pain is not in any way rainbows and puppy dogs. In fact, those who choose to do this type of work usually go through some hardships until they get to the other side. It is not meant for all of us.
Humans are more alike in many ways than we are different. Maybe when we see someone who we would say has a big ego, more compassion instead of judgement is needed. Maybe their wounds are bigger than ours or too big for them to have the capacity to heal at this time.
Ego can give us the opportunity to transform, if we choose it to.
