SOULutions Newsletter, June 2009

The Story of Your Ego: Understanding the
Origins of Your Ego

Every human being ever born is actually prematurely born. The size of our brains makes it necessary for human babies to come out of the womb sooner, more fragile and less developed than any other animal. 

When you were an infant you didn’t experience yourself as separate from the world. Your ego began to develop at 6 months and emerged between 16-18 months of age. You had a moment of realization that you are separate and have a separate will.

This awareness is the reason for the “no's" you practiced during the terrible twos.  Imagine you as a toddler and having that sudden realization that you're smaller than everyone else around you and your complete survival depend upon other people taking care of you. Your ego's first thought is "I am not enough" or "I don't have enough." Your ego's first emotion was fear. At the root of your ego are these two fearful thoughts.

Your ego's number one job is protection. It works from two basic instincts, the drive to survive and the motivation to become whole. The drive of the ego that was born and developed unconsciously is to help you survive through protecting or getting behaviors. Unfortunately, these strategies also prevent you from the wholeness that you seek. Many people want to awaken to a deeper, greater and fuller life -- a life I refer to in my SOULutions practice and workshops, as Radical Wholeness. 

The best way that I know to transform from unaware reactive ego rooted in the drive to survive to having an Aware Ego grounded in the motivation to become whole is to engage in the process of developing an Aware Ego. You can learn about the origins of this work in the classic: Embracing Your Many Selves by Dr. Hal Stone. Attend next Tuesday's Essence Circle on June 2. The topic is Developing An Aware Ego. If you want to experience the process, you can inquire about SOULutions Ego to Essence Transformational Process or the new Developing an Aware Ego six-session series.  

To read about the Spiritual Story of Your Ego, visit my BLOG.

In Wholeness,
Michael