How to Overcome Self Doubt
Like the term “codependence” the word “ego” is often thrown around in conversation with many implied meanings. I’m sure you’ve heard people say, “He’s got a huge ego.” or “She’s so egotistical.” In these situations, most people are referring to someone thinking a lot of themselves or boasting about a personal accomplishment. Having a “big ego” is not considered a great thing in this context.
Before I started doing this work when I heard the term ego, I honestly thought of all the popular kids back in high school (you know, when I was there, which is what feels like a century ago.) I remember watching them all stand in a crowd and smirk when they looked over at us - I was definitely a nerd in high school, not going to lie. The smirk to me said they knew - they just knew how pretty and hot they were and how much they loved watching us watch them with jealousy. Can you relate at all? I am happy to report now, that the sitcom of my teenage years has been gracefully dissolved with the reality check that I made most of that up in my own head. If any of my classmates hear this, I can’t wait to see you at our 20 year reunion in… a few months. Wow.
The irony of that particular situation is that, while I stood on the side of the hallway and looked at them thinking, OMG, they’re so egotistical… The reality is that they weren’t the ones with an out of control ego. I was.
Let’s back up. Needless to say, these modern concepts of egotism do not paint a full picture of the ego. We ALL have an ego. We are born with it and it awakens in our mind in our childhood around the same time we develop language.
When we are young kids, our ego is quiet, which is a part of the innocence of children. Kids just are. They don’t think about the thoughts of others, the ramifications of their actions, or argue with themselves in their own heads. For example, when’s the last time you saw a one year old try to figure out if he was hungry or not? When’s the last time your four year old was confused about whether or not she was tired? When have you seen a two year old refrain from poking their hands in the mud because they’re worried their friends might comment on dirty fingernails?
It just doesn’t happen.
Then, something happens. Being in this world, our minds start to develop language and cognition, and one way or another, we get a tiny, mad, idea. This idea takes many forms but is always based on the single concept of separateness. Separateness is the basis of all doubt, fear, worry, and anxiety.
We are all conceived and born into a state of perfect authenticity and in alignment with our highest selves which is a state of love, and only through the ego’s tiny mad idea are we drawn into beliefs of separateness and fear. When I say separateness, I mean the belief that you are distinct from me. That you are separate and thus can be better than me, less than me, or so separate that I can fear you or what you think of me.
The metaphysical text, A Course in Miracles teaches that when we believe the ego’s false perceptions over love, we become separate from the state of alignment and love. All it takes is one tiny, mad idea for us to choose a state of fear instead of love.
Here’s an example from my own life of a tiny mad idea. When I was five years old, my family moved into a small community outside of Philadelphia. This community had a lot of large families who had been there for a long time (literally, nearly half of my first grade class was related to each other in some form). But my family was small and even outside of the community, I didn’t have cousins or aunts or uncles that I was close with. Based on comparing my classmates' family experiences to my own, I picked up the tiny, mad idea that I didn’t belong.
You know the craziest part about these tiny mad ideas? We can believe them forever. This crazy idea took me 25 years to identify and release. Until I started working with my coach, I was still living out of the belief that I didn’t belong.
Think of these tiny mad ideas like glasses with different colored lenses. As kids, we pick up a pair and put them on. Until we choose to take those glasses off, everything we see and do will be colored by that core belief. When I picked up the glasses with the lens of “I don’t belong” everything in my life became colored by that belief and it became impossible to separate what was real with that false idea. On top of it all, until I started working with my coach, I had no idea I even had glasses on, much less that I was wearing several pairs.
As adults, we often are not aware of the belief system glasses we are wearing as they quickly become a part of our subconscious way of being. Often we consciously experience our egos as that voice in our heads. You know that voice - that one that sounds like you? It never stops. It talks about everything, all the time, and makes zero sense.
Now, I want to make clear, you ARE NOT your ego. You are not that voice! The authentic, aligned part of you is the one LISTENING to that voice. The issue is that most of us in the western world have so closely identified with that little voice in our heads by the time we reach adulthood that we cannot distinguish it from ourselves, much less control it.
The belief that you are your mind is a delusion of the ego and often the source of most of our suffering in life. Your ego will always want to be right, it will always be defensive, and it will never want to take personal responsibility.
In his book Untethered Soul, Michael Singer writes on this topic, saying:
“There is nothing more important to truth growth than realizing that you are not the voice of the mind - you are the one who hears it. If you don’t understand this, you will try to figure out which of the many things the voice says is really you. People go through so many changes in the name of trying to find themselves. They want to discover which of these voices, which of these aspects of their personality, is who they really are. The answer is simple: none of them.”
The life you desire, the life where you have returned to that authentic expression of your most aligned self, can only be found by transcending your ego. The term “transcendence” may sound complicated or like something discussed in really old books that are falling apart. To demystify this concept, all transcendence means is to move beyond. To transcend the ego simply means witness that little voice without judgment and release it.
When we identify with the voice in our head, we emotionally react to what we are THINKING rather than what is actually real. In his book, The Power of Now, Ekart Tolle writes: “Often, a vicious cycle builds up between your thinking and the emotion: they feed each other. The thought pattern creates a magnified reflection of itself in the form of an emotion… By dwelling mentally on the situation, event or person that is the perceived cause of the emotion, the thought pattern feeds energy to the emotion which in turn energizes the thought pattern, and so on.``
So often in my life, I’ve felt caught in my head - completely stuck and unable to move on from going around and around on this sick merry-go-round of feeling - thought - feeling - thought. It wasn’t until I began doing this work was I able to stop the madness.
I actually have gone so far as to give this crazy voice in my head a name. Her name is sushi - yes, like Japanese food. Why did I pick sushi to name my voice? Mostly because of the fact that the thought of sticky rice and delicious fish is often completely opposite of anything of the nonsense going on in my head, and it helps to snap me out of believing whatever she is saying. I really encourage you to name your voice too. Pick something ridiculous. Something silly - maybe a movie reference, or something completely unrelated like I did. The sillier the better because it will help you pull yourself energetically away from what it’s saying as well as allow you to more easily witness it without judgment. I’ve heard people naming their voices “Sadness” from the Disney movie Inside Out, Drop Dead Fred, and even “Whomp whomp” after Charlie Brown’s parents.
Your ego probably won’t like being named - so if you feel resistance to this, trust me, it’s normal. That voice in your head is going to fight against anything that makes you believe that it isn’t you. It’s going to battle tooth and nail against calming down in any way, and will try to distract you or tell you all the reasons why this is a silly practice.
Do it anyway. Take the time to practice and identify that voice as it crops up in your day to day life. If you get hooked into the voice, try to take a step back and walk through these steps:
Remind yourself that you are not that voice.
Identify what the voice is saying and how those words are making you feel.
Check in with reality. Is what this voice saying real? And I’m talking in the flesh, black and white, real. (For example; what’s REAL is that I’m sitting here typing - what’s not real are the thoughts in my head judging the good or bad-ness of my typing skills).
Go to self love. Identify how you can support yourself in releasing the thoughts and emotions and get grounded again. Call a friend, go for a walk, just take some deep breaths… whatever it is. Do it now.
Go through these steps as many times as you need to in order to bring yourself back down. Sometimes it takes several attempts to identify those thoughts in your head, and that’s okay. It’s not about doing it perfectly, there is no perfect! It’s just about doing it.
What do you think about all of this? Has the voice in your head made you feel crazy before? Subscribe below or text me (number on homepage)! I would love to hear from you.
