Ep 42 A Compassionate Look at the Ego

If ever there was a tricky situation to be in, it’s got to be this one: Sometimes, we’re operating out of our conscious mind – things we know we’re thinking about. And sometimes, we’re operating out of our unconscious mind – things we haven’t yet become aware of. And yet, our unconscious selves are still affecting us! A tricky situation indeed.

Today we look gently at our lives from the perspective of the ego and we talk practically about what we do have control over and when it’s probably time to give ourselves a break. We hope you’ll join us.

Additional Resources
Quote: Ep 20: AA Meets Contemplative Spirituality
Book: The Cloud of Unknowing by Anonymous
Book: Awareness by Anthony DeMello
Book: Adam’s Return by Richard Rohr
TV Series: Call the Midwife on PBS 

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#Mindfulness
#SettingIntentions
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#DeflatedEgo

Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

ego, emotion, conscious mind, Carl Jung

Dominic Kaiser  00:06

Welcome to The Contemplative Life: Three pastors, friends and spiritual companions help us explore spirituality through a contemplative lens.

I'm Christina Roberts.
I'm Chris Roberts.
I'm Kristina Kaiser.  We're glad you joined us. 

Chris Roberts  00:24

Well, hello, it's great to be with you. Today we'll be talking about viewing our ego from a compassionate perspective. And I say that, and I want to offer two different paradigms. as we think about ego. The first paradigm, I think, is probably more prevalent. When we think about ego, it's this inflated sense of self. And it's often talked about in a negative way, rightly so. And the second paradigm is more from a psychological perspective. Carl Jung talks about the ego being the conscious self. It's the self that we think about, and it's our conscious mind. And one of the things that he talks about is delving into the unconscious mind, becoming more aware of our unconscious mind, and letting that permeate to the surface. And so as I offer those two different paradigms of the ego, what comes to mind today?

Kristina Kaiser  01:21

This is fascinating. I wonder, like I said, I'd love to kick it back to you for a minute and just have a sense of, how do you think you're experiencing the ego? And then and then maybe I will chat again. But which one of these do you most resonate with? 

Chris Roberts  01:36

Well, I think I resonate with both of them. I think having an understanding of ego as the conscious mind brings about an awareness of what you do think about. And so I think with that perspective, you can think about mindfulness. What are you actually thinking about, and then delve into, What do I need to think about? What does it look like to go inside?  I think about ego as a sort of a negative. We recently had someone on our podcast and we'll just call him Ken, you can go back to the episode where we interviewed Ken. And Ken defines the contemplative as growth that the ego can't take credit for. And I really liked that definition.

 I've delved into ego for many years now. And I first started to notice ego in the first paradigm, whenever I would be called into a meeting, or someone asked me, Hey, can I talk to you, and they wouldn't tell me what it was about. And so there was this nebulous thing out there. And my mind started thinking about, What did I do wrong? Or am I going to get it?  Or Am I going to get a promotion? And so my conscious mind started thinking about what ways Is this about me? And as I started to sort of reflect back, reflect on these experiences, the meetings were hardly ever about me.  They were about how the organization needs to get better at what we can do. And it was more of a team thing but I tended to make it about me.  That's the way in which I started to look at ego. So I would say, I think they're both helpful.

Kristina Kaiser  03:11

That's great. That's super helpful for me to kind of see how what I've been learning lately even fits into both of these paradigms. I was in a teaching (where some of you may know her or not), but her name is Jan Lundy and she runs a Spiritual Guidance Training Institute. But she did a compassionate talk as well on this notion of ego. And I found it very helpful particularly for some of the things that you're talking about . All these things are happening inside of me and my mind is reacting. And so she was saying, You flow in and out of these states all day long, that somehow this is what it means to be human. And apparently like we try to repress this sense of being human that, Oh, I got to get rid of these negative ones.  But she was more talking from an unbiased perspective, Can we get to a space of neutrality more often? Can we just kind of name it and observe it like this kind of a thing? 

So yeah, she was contesting the ego has one state of mind, and then maybe the spirit as another state of mind. And the Spirit stuff reminds me a lot of the fruits of the Spirit. But the whole teaching almost reminds me of The Cloud of Unknowing where like, down here we have fear, and you can progress all the way up through like love and joy and happiness and isolation and denial, like all these would be throughout the spectrum. I found it useful to be able to look at it from a compassionate perspective to be able to say, okay, even a really spiritual person who's working on this stuff a lot and maybe even isolates themselves and has all these disciplines still has this flow in their life… Of having a moment of being in fear, being an irritation, being scared. Whatever it is, we're all living through this and we flow through these moments throughout our day. Can I get in touch with that? Can I get aware of that? See when that's happening to me? 

Christina Roberts  05:10

Yeah, I think for me, I maybe struggle a little bit with the idea of ego and what is ego? And maybe part of that has to do, I understand the inflated sense of self that obviously nobody wants that in our lives. But I think, I wonder about the opposite.  Where there's not enough self coming to the table and what does it mean to shrink back so much? And so where does ego play into different conversations or situations? And so I think when I hear ego, while I totally understand the not wanting to over, I also just wonder, and maybe what you guys think about the under inflated ego or the I guess deflated would be the word for that?

Kristina Kaiser  05:47

And do you see that in a personal experience? Are you observing that in the world?

Christina Roberts  05:52

I would say both. I mean, I think certainly sometimes being female, and not to make it about male, female. But sometimes that dynamic when I'm in meetings with primarily males, for females in the room, I think oftentimes there needs to be an invitation for more ego to maybe show up in those conversations. And where some of my male counterparts, who are very aware, want to, you know, be promoting shrinking the ego, which is wonderful, and getting more voices at the table. And at the same time, obviously, we don't want that overinflated. And so I just find some tension, which is where I'm thinking about this idea of ego and how that plays out.

Chris Roberts  06:25

Yeah, I think you bring up a good point where we talk about ego as something that manifests itself out in the world. So you can have an over manifested ego, and you can have an under manifested ego. And I think, you know, back to the male, female thing, we're not quite there yet, in our society where females have an equal place at the table and certain circles, I think that's true. But I wonder in the spirituality circles, I think there's some work that still needs to be done. As a male, someone who is given a voice and has been given, like, what do you think I've been able to state what I think, many, many times at the table. And so I think it's, it's been a great journey to learn about ego. And, you know, my thoughts and opinions, maybe don't need to be stated at this time. They're not that important. Let somebody else have the microphone for a little bit. So that's one way that I feel like I've helped promote under-appreciated voices. But I think I still have work to do, because one of my favorite sayings is: Ego is always on the bus, it’s just whether it's in the driver's seat or not. That's the question. I can’t, You can't get rid of your ego. It's always there. But it doesn't have to be in the driver's seat all the time.

Christina Roberts  07:47

Yeah. And I appreciate that. And I think even in circumstances again, Kristina, your question, is it me personally, certainly, there are many times where, if I'm about ready to do something, there's sometimes it's a question of, Am I doing this in service of the other? Or am I doing it somehow to inflate myself or to get myself noticed or to get an, “Ata girl” type of a thing? And so I think definitely, there's those pauses. And I don't know if that's what you're referring to, with this teaching of that awareness. And there are times when it is more appropriate for me to hold back on that because really, it's in service of me, it's not in service of the other and we can go without that particular thing being named. And it can just, I think, sometimes life or the Spirit can bring things about. It doesn't have to be me driving that necessarily, Chris, to your point about driving the bus. So yeah, I definitely think that, you know, that awareness piece certainly makes a lot of sense.

Kristina Kaiser  08:35

Yeah. As I'm listening to both of you, I'm realizing all these teachings that come into play. What do I have control over in my world? And what do I not have control over in my world? I would think back to a book I mentioned a while back,  Awareness by Anthony de Mello, and he is so in your face about it. Like, if you have an image of something.  I often have had that similar experience of feeling like I can't get a word in edgewise. What I'm saying doesn't feel like it matters. So what can I do in that situation? So if I try to channel that inner mystic, if you will, I suppose the only option that I have, but maybe this isn't true, but what's coming to mind is to get still enough to be able to say, What am I feeling right now? Am I feeling overlooked? Am I feeling embarrassed? Am I feeling under appreciated? And then be able to name that to say like, I feel, and this is a common story, I think for a lot of us, I feel under appreciated. I feel under-seen. I feel like my voice isn't heard. And it's interesting in this training that I was in, she talks about, she calls it the 90 second rule. So I don't think that that's a technical term, it's just what she's using. But she says like an emotion with the exception of maybe sadness, which sadness tends to last longer, and has a bell curve, if you will.   So it rises and you feel that however you feel that you feel that in your body.  You might feel like your heart is pounding. You might feel tension, but it rises and it comes to a peak. And then it wanes. The question is, How long does it take for us to have that emotion, get it to rise, and then get it to wane? And apparently you can become skilled enough to see emotions come and go in like 90 seconds.  I’m not there. I think I've practiced this lately, I’m at like 12 minutes, I don't think I could do 90 seconds. But this business of noticing something, naming it, breathing through it, or it occurs to me, like breathing might work for some people, or maybe it's journaling, or maybe it's going for a walk or something, but some kind of contemplative act. And then the emotion passes and walks on. That feels like the only thing that I have charge over in how this meeting is happening. I can maybe do very little about what's happening but internally is something that I can do something about. I don't know, what do you guys think?

Chris Roberts  11:00

Well, I liked what you sort of started with the idea of control, what do we have control over? And I think one thing that has just been super helpful for me is Richard Rohr has a book called Adam's Return.  It talks about these initiation rites and stuff, and how that's missing in our society. And it's really a book for males and females, but it's really speaking to the issue of males and males are on this trajectory of ascent, like climbing, climbing, climbing, which is all stroking the ego. And he says, there is, there's really no way to sort of learn to check your ego unless there becomes a descent. Descending into yourself, or, you know, life happens, the death of a loved one, or a hardship, i fertility, whatever, whatever arises in life that causes you to descend. That's really the only thing that can help you. Take a look at ego. And so you know, some of the things that he says, I think there's five principles, but one of them is that life is not about you. And you are not in control, your life is being done to you. And I think these are important concepts to understanding how to maybe think about yourself, how to look at ego, and to realize, your life isn't about you.  Your life is being done to you. And I think we're not in control. And I think it takes some experience out of control-ness to help us take a look at things like that. 

Christina Roberts  12:46

 And yet I think too, is that life is being done unto you…certainly that happens. And I would say from my perspective, that then we then get to choose how we show up at that moment or with that circumstance that's unfolding. And so I do think that is also an important piece to name that, as it's being done unto us, we do have agency as well, in those different moments.

Kristina Kaiser  13:06

Yeah, and I feel like some of what we're talking about, too, is this classic, contemplative thing of setting an intention. Okay, I know this is going to happen in my life. What's the intention that I want to set ahead of time for when I'm in that space?  I've been trying to do that and I have found even in my own experience, I probably need to share my intention with somebody, it's not enough for me to have set up an internal intention. Sometimes I don't have enough willpower to see it through. I need accountability. I need other people to be with me and be like, remember, we set up this plan, we had an idea that we were going to try together? 

Christina Roberts  13:44

I think it's interesting to even Kristina hearing you name almost like an intention of forward looking intention. You also mentioned a little bit earlier, kind of “in the moment,” that 90 seconds to 12 minute response to the emotion, I think I tend to be more of a slower processor. And so I'm not so great in the moment, but after the fact, that is when I tend to do the reflective piece and maybe thinking about it.  And maybe in the moment I realized I have to set ego aside or lean into ego or whatever that means, but then after the fact, like okay, what was that about and what was coming up in me?  And then having time to kind of work through those things. I think that helps me to show up a little bit differently the next time and to work through some of those inner workings of the ego.

Kristina Kaiser  14:26

I love it because I'm with you.  As soon as the moment is too charged, it can be helpful. And in fact, my new app talks about this too. Sometimes an emotion is too intense and so you employ a distraction with the intention to come back to it. I find that amazing that you know, my new app is also talking about these things, but that it's the same thing that you're saying right now right? Like I can't do it right now I need to set it aside and handle it later. And I am also coming back to this one little point that I flitted through before… Just how useful it is to be able to say to oneself, This is just what it means to be human, I'm going to float in and out of this state of mind all the time. And I'm going to have this dominant force that I'm not really enjoying sometimes. That's life.

Chris Roberts  15:15

I like the idea of making micro adjustments, as we have these different encounters in life. And maybe having some time to reflect on that encounter didn't go like I wanted it to go. How can I make a micro adjustment to show up and be more present to myself? How am I being in the world and being more present to others? So I like that idea of making these micro adjustments as we're going through this thing called life. 

What a great conversation we had today. I really enjoyed talking about ego and what it means to be contemplative and be compassionate towards ourselves. 

Well, it is time for us to move into the part of our podcast where we talk about what we are into, what are we into today?

Christina Roberts  16:07

Well, I am into the TV series, Call The Midwife. And like the title suggests, it's about midwives in Poplar, England, kind of serving the poorest of the poor in that district. And I remember when the season first started thinking, How in the world are they going to have a bunch of stories about babies being born? But they're on season 10 now, and it is a beautiful, beautiful series, I learn so much. It is a combination of these midwives that live with nuns and Sisters serving in the East End of London, post World War Two and I really love the series.  So I am into Call the Midwife.

Kristina Kaiser  16:43

How exciting. You find such interesting shows. I love it. I am into daffodil bulb planting. So I don't know if you guys can remember, but way back last spring, I noticed that look at all these daffodils that came up and our property was new to us. We didn't have any daffodils. So I am remedying that I have bought all these daffodil balls and scattered them throughout the various places. And hopefully if magic does its thing, if science does its thing, in the spring, we'll have all these beautiful yellow flowers that pop up. So that was what I’m into.

Chris Roberts  17:18

Well, I am into late night conversations with my children. Most parents know that at some point in their children's life, they stopped talking to their parents about different things and are into their friends. And you know, getting them to have a conversation with you is like pulling teeth. And I've been looking for opportunities to be present to my children. And it tends to be whenever I am saying good night to them. All of a sudden they have these life defining questions. And I can either be present to them and their question or I can say I'm tired, I want to go to bed. And I found incredible joy in their questions. And so I've been enjoying late night pontificating on the meaning of life with my two oldest children. And so I'm into late night conversations with my kids. 

Well, thank you so much for joining us. It was a pleasure to be with you. If you're looking to go deeper in your spiritual journey, we invite you to check out the spiritual direction page on our website which includes even more practical information about what spiritual direction and companioning is all about. Until next week, let’s have a great week.