Human Truth Bomb #4:Untamed ego will destroy your happiness!

Welcome to the B Spot! Come rejoice in being human! Join Brian Heller for his discussion about Human Truth Bomb #4: Untamed ego will destroy your happiness! Learn the ways that your ego will try to steal joy from your life and discover strategies to counteract this tendency.

Email questions, comments, concerns to bhellercounseling@gmail.com

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the B Spot, a place to talk about life that's almost there be, but not quite therapy again, not quite therapy. So if you are experiencing a serious mental health or substance abuse issue, please seek individual therapy from a licensed therapist. Now my name is Brian Heller and over the past 18 years, as a licensed therapist, I've noticed that issues like depression and anxiety and trouble with relationships, parenting challenges, teens,  screens, and many other symptoms of being human come up for us all in a variety of ways, so come rejoice in being human.

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I won't pretend to have all the answers, but I do understand some things and I feel compelled to share them with you.

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The B spot is also a place for you to bring your issues to be discussed. A counseling perspective when you don't have time or money to see a counselor. So come join me at the B spot and let's talk about it.

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Hey, everybody and welcome back to the B spot, the place that gives you almost therapy but not quite therapy. I want to remind you that if you would like to participate in this podcast, you can. If you've been listening and saying to yourself, you know, I really wish this guy would talk about this thing or that thing.

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Let me know what that thing is and I will give it some attention and I've likely had experiences that can be helpful to you or to other people. So if you have been dealing with something and want some additional support, insight, clarity.

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E-mail me at bhellercounseling@gmail.com and let's talk about it.

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Speaking of talking, today we are here to talk about human truth bomb #4, which is that ego unchecked will destroy you.

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Ego is a word that has been used by a lot of different people to describe a lot of different things, different characteristics, tendencies, processes.

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But when I say ego, I'm talking about that part of ourself that perceives ourself in relation to others.

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And that last part is important because that's what distinguishes it from pride.

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Thinking that I look good is terrific, but thinking that I look better than someone else is ego.

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So when you start talking about pride versus ego.

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Pride is feeling good about decisions that we make.

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And ego is comparing our decisions to others.

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So ego and pride get thrown in together a lot, but there are some slight differences in in what they mean, at least for this conversation. Ego is that part of us that allows us to rank ourselves when we are interacting with others, rank ourselves as either.

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Inferior or superior. But here's the tricky part.

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About that.

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Superiority and inferiority both come from fear. So if I am putting myself above or below some one, it's out of a place of fear, basically, that I'm not good enough and somehow they are. Or I can say they're not. And I can tell that I'm better than them. So at least I'm OK in that.

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In that regard, so ego allows us to rank and kind of stay in this constant state of fear of not being good.

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Ego is that part of us that wants credit, right? So when we do something nice, we hold the door for somebody's ego. Is that part that really wants that person to turn around and say, hey, thanks for holding the door, right. Ego is that part that when they don't do that, you turn to the person you're with and you say.

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And you believe I just got the door for that person and I didn't even say.

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Thank you. They don't.

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Need to to thank me in order.

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For me to get.

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Benefit from having done something nice for somebody else, but ego is telling me all the time that I need.

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That that I should get that from other people. People should know how to treat me based on how wonderful I am or how terrible I can make myself believe they are.

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Right. So it's easy to see how that can start to cause problems and we'll talk later about how ego plays itself out in relationships. But.

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One thing that is that happens in relationships and out of relationships is the need to teach lessons. The belief that it is up to us to explain some approach or reality to someone to make sure that they understand the lesson that's underneath it if I'm driving.

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And someone is driving poorly. Part of my reasoning and driving poorly than myself in response is that I want to teach them a lesson. I want to teach them that when they are in the left lane, they should not go slow.

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Right. So ego is that part of my brain that convinces me that I have the power to teach other people lessons, which is ironic because I realize I'm now doing a podcast where I'm trying to teach people lessons. But that's a little bit different. And so it's not quite the manifestation of ego. I guess we could definitely.

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Talk about ego in that, but.

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It's not really what drove me to do this. I don't think unless you go by the belief that ego drives us all to do everything. But let's just back away from that for the purposes of this podcast, ego is also responsible for.

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Our need to compare ourselves to other people.

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And this one's especially damaging because I've come to the conclusion that almost all of us are broken or damaged in some way, and somehow sometimes question our effectiveness at life, our understanding of things, our.

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Ability to do this thing called living and.

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We create those tapes that we talked about before and those tapes create the beliefs that we project onto other people, so comparisons allow us to assume that other people are better than we are. They have it figured out better. There's just something inherently better.

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About them, their ability to handle situation, to make a decision and you know those comparisons, they don't ever work out well.

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For us, that's because we know our whole story.

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We know everything about us. We know every demented thought we've had, every stupid thing we've done, every bad, just that we know everything that we have done. So we have the whole story. And yet what we know from other people is what they project to us, what they show us. And people are wonderful actors, very good.

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Pretending to be one way while actually feeling another people put their best face on out in public. You see them? Gosh, they look confident and you think, Oh my God, they're so confident. Why am I not? Why I'm I'm not that confident.

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That can't be right.

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And don't get me started about social media, right? I remember seeing a study about Facebook said 80% of the photos show people smiling.

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And the problem with that is that nobody smiles 80% of the time and so you see these people smiling. And then there's this comparison right of this person is happier than me. This person is smarter than me. This person is better than me, more complete than me.

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So those comparisons end up leaving us.

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In a diminished position, we're not ever going to measure up to that, and so we end.

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Up feeling bad and.

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Ego is what allows us to have that fun.

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Ego also helps us hold grudges, holding any grudges lately, if you are they are ego based. But wait, this person did this thing and they don't. I'm sure that's probably very.

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But if you are holding on to a negative emotional response to that and re experiencing that over and over again, then you're holding a grudge for the purposes of your ego telling you that somehow that's going to make a difference that's going to teach a lesson. I'm going to hold this grudge and I'm I'm not going to call this person until they call me. That's going to teach them to call me more.

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Frequently ha going to teach them. No, you're not. You're going to experience a bunch of anxiety while you wait.

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For them to call if they ever call because you don't sound like much fun anyway.

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So ego it helps us hold grudges. Ego tells us that we can control the world.

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We can control all the things and all the people.

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And as hopefully you have learned, I know I have learned.

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We cannot control, we can barely control ourselves, and that is actually the only thing that we have influence on.

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As this series started with the power of thought, that's our control. But Ego tells us that if I'm driving, I can control the other drivers. I can apply pressure to make them want to move their car now. Maybe I can, but at what cost? Emotionally. Like, how's that feel?

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How does that feel for me? How does that?

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Feel for the other person controlling people. It gets even trickier and we'll we'll talk a little bit more about.

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That in a second but.

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Ego is what makes us want to make other people feel guilty. Ego is what makes us want to be liked. Ego has us going into situations hoping that people are going to feel positively about us, because if they don't, it affects.

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Our feelings about ourselves now as adults, most of us have gotten to the place where we are out of, you know, what's to give and are willing to just be ourselves and let the world adjust to that. But it takes a lot of work to get to that place.

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Ego tells us that we have to be liked and this can cause big problems for people for pleasers out there, pleasers are always trying to please everybody and to be liked and they don't leave enough left for themselves because of this desperate need to be liked by others, even by people we don't even like. But we still want them to like us one really helpful.

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Way to think about being liked is the one third rule. You can expect that in any given situation, about 1/3 of the people there are going to like.

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And about 1/3 of the people there are not going to like you and about 1/3 are going to really not know who you are. Couldn't pick you out of a lineup, don't really have an opinion. Now the people who like you, they're pretty much going to like you. No.

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Matter what they they.

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Just like your vibe, you know, unless you did something really stupid, they're going to continue to like.

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And the people who don't like you, well, they just don't like you. Now. It's not personal. They don't know you. But whatever it is that you represent to them, they don't like you, no matter how hard you try. You're not going to convince them to like you. Maybe one or two. But overall, it's going to be a a hard.

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Process for not much gain.

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Now, the people who don't have much of an opinion, you can sway them either way on any given day, whether you're being, you know, a positive influence or not, they may like you or dislike you and fall into one of those. But for the most part.

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It's about a one third rule now. That doesn't mean if you walk into a classroom of 30 people that's 10/10/10, it's not like that maybe all 30 in that class don't like you. And then maybe all 30 in another class will unlikely. But again, it's a, it's one third kind of across the board. So the beauty of this is that you realize you don't have.

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Control over whether people like you, ego wants to tell you that you do. If I treat this person this way, they'll like me if I just say this, they'll like me. No, they may pretend they may feel less negatively about you, but you can't make them like you.

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And you don't have to because there's already 1/3 of the people that do and you don't have to make them like you either. They just do, right. All you have to do is be you. So it takes away all the pressure of having to kind of monitor yourself and and be this way or be that way. You just be you. And a third of the people are going to like you a third of the people aren't. And whether they like you.

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Isn't based on you, it's based on them, so that's why you don't have any control over that. You just have control over you. So those are lots of different ways that ego shows itself and.

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Let's shift a little bit and talk about how ego shows up in relationships. One of the most apparent ways is needing to be right.

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So if you are in a relationship and you have a disagreement with your partner, which is likely because.

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Two people living together are going to have disagreements.

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Not allowing yourself to be wrong in situations or to have being wrong creates such an emotional disturbance for you that you become destructive or toxic. That is a manifestation of ego.

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When you are talking about relationships between people, which I guess all relationships are, unless you count animals, it's important to get away from the idea of their even being a right and a wrong.

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While there are some things that are obviously wrong and some things that are pretty much all across the board rights, right?

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To help people.

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In relationships, perspectives aren't right or wrong, they're perspectives. And when you assert your perspective as right and your partner's perspective as well.

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Wrong. That's going to create problems because to them, their perspective is just as valid as your perspective is to you. It's their perspective. It is true to them and and so in relationships, it's about respecting that perspective.

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And coming to an agreement that meets the needs of both people, but needing to be right, you know, there is no right and that's an important thing to remember in relationships also how it shows up is.

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The willingness and ability to apologize, you know, it's we've all seen sitcoms or television shows where people joke about the inability to say the word sorry.

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You know, I'm so I just can't say it. And what that is purely is ego. If I say sorry, I am admitting to the world that I have made a mistake.

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That there was a moment in time where I didn't behave the way I should have behaved.

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And for some people, that is so threatening to their sense of self that they can't say the words and not only can't, they can't say the words, there are some people who can't even acknowledge that the thing happened.

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So many toxic relationships where there is.

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Tremendous conflict.

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And people go to bed and wake up the next day and one or both. Just pretend it never happened.

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Not going to go there. I'm not going to go back to this point in time to validate your perspective to let you know that you're not crazy, that I was wrong. Instead, I'm going to pretend it didn't happen. I'm going to gaslight you and interact with you in ways that make you question whether it actually.

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Happened, maybe I misunderstood. If he, if he had really said that, he would have been different this morning, but he would have been sorry. But he's not even act like anything happened, so maybe I just heard.

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Him wrong. I'm saying him there because.

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Many of the examples that have been brought to my attention have been hymns.

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Also in relationships, you know, going back to the idea of teaching lessons, you know, I think in relationships you can fall into this pattern of trying to silently teach lessons, silent revenge. You know, he left his cup on my side of the sink. Watch this. I'm going to leave my hair brush on his side of the sink and then make him have to move it. Playing those types of games.

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Is ego's way of trying to teach lessons without having to confront the issue directly and have a conversation.

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And as we all know, relationships need conversations in order for both people to.

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Get what they need out of a relationship. It's just not going to happen without finding the courage and having the opportunity to express your needs in relationships. It's really important as it is in life, to think about the outcome that you want and to make sure that your decisions.

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Line up with that outcome. Pay attention to what ego will try to do to you. That will work against the outcomes that you actually want.

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You know what ego will make you decide is important enough to mention or to argue about, or to criticize about, even though it provides no benefit, it doesn't serve you to do that. Ego can still make you think it's worth it in the moment because you have to teach this.

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Us and you have to make this point.

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That can really cause problems in relationships.

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The conversation about ego paints a pretty dark, bleak picture of ego. Ego is not all bad.

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Ego is why we are alive. Ego is fear.

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Right. And fear is what helps us survive our sense of self is not bad, and it doesn't have to be to, you know, destructive.

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To live with this part of ourselves.

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But it is important to understand what it is and to see how it plays out in the world.

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The effect on the world? I've been thinking a lot about. That is the formation of in Group and out group.

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It is ego driven, whether it's for protection or for aggression.

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It is driven by our belief that we are different.

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From other people, way more different than we are similar, and that those differences need to be respected and appreciated and that they determine the value of the different groups of people. My group is better than your group.

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It's not. Again, it's not all bad. It's helped us survive.

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But the place where my mind went on this topic was I started to wonder whether.

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I could attribute all violence to ego.

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And I'm still not sure about that.

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I think much violence is the result of ego and if you include fear and the need for survival.

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In that conversation, then.

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Ego seems to me to be responsible for all of the violence and aggression in the world.

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These beliefs that a nation or a person has to extend power to inflict itself upon another nation.

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Or a person.

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To teach a lesson.

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To push values.

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I would love to hear your feedback on that question. Do you think that all violence is the result of ego, and if so, what then? Because they're very many powerful people who have powerful egos that.

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Clearly get in the way of making decisions that are best for humanity.

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It's just an interesting thing to think about. Again, I'd love to know what you think.

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Thank you for joining me today at the B spot. I hope you have enjoyed our talk about human truth balm #4 talking about that ego that unchecked ego and the damage it can do.

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I want to remind you, you can reach out to me at b.hellercounseling@gmail.com and I would be glad to consider any issues you think are important. Join me next week for the last human truth bomb, human truth bomb #5.

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Which is talking about escape right? What goes up must come down. And if you're not there, you can't fix it.

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So that's going to be a a good talk. We'll get into talking about substance abuse and other escapes until our next session.

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Be well.