Overcoming Our Ego by Thai Nguyen l How to overcome our ego l What is ego l Human Psyche l Sigmund Freud and the Ego l Ego-Driven Choices

The 8 Crippling Manifestations

Transcend your ego...the ego is an illusion...

Many of us would, if we knew what on earth the ego was. Indeed it’s complex—trying to understand the totality of the human psyche. Plato and Aristotle divided it into three parts; so did Freud with the id, ego, and super-ego.

Modern psychologists describe the ego as the inner-narrator of our self-consciousness; umpiring our thoughts, feelings, and actions. Its judgments produce inner-conflict, and create identity crises for many. It’s the part of our mind that’s impulsive rather than logical, visceral rather than reasonable. When we argue with ourselves, we’re having a conflict with our ego.

Understanding the different ways the ego operates leads to overcoming it. Here are eight manifestations.

Materialism

The Vedics called it Ahaṃkāra; tying your self-worth together with objects: a car, a house, a piece of jewelry. Ahaṃ refers to the Self; kāra is "any created thing." When an object has more than a subtle ability to make you feel better or worse, you're caught in Ahaṃkāra, of ego-attachment.

Advertisers exploit the ego and make us believe we'll feel better buying their product. Ironically, it's low self-esteem that increases materialism. But it's reversible; increasing self-esteem through highlighting our immaterial qualities: our sense of humor, our drive, and passion, breaks the ego's materialistic bondage.

Find your value and identity apart from external objects, things that cannot be taken away from you.