Mind vs Ego
Once I started to see how I wasn’t my mind, I also started vilifying the mind. I would see it as a bad thing since I could recognize that all my anxious thoughts and shameful beliefs stemmed from it.
But, I forgot about the benefits of a mind and how even though I was separating “myself” from it, I was still using it everyday.
That’s why I enjoy creating a partnership between the intuition and the mind since it uses the best of both - unconditional love and wisdom with action and movement.
The Mind (not brain because there are actually neurons throughout your body, like little “mini” brains) is a computer-like device that…
Stores information (ex: you’ve learned how to drive a car so that you don’t have to re-learn every time you drive)
Problem solves based on the information (ex: you burned your finger while cooking, your mind will tell you to put something cold on it since it remembers that coolness soothes a burning sensation)
Judges in order to make a separation between things (ex: this water is hot and that water is cold)
Takes action based on its thinking (ex: you have a thought of eating healthier so the mind gets a side salad instead of french fries at a restaurant)
These are all very helpful functions in order to live our daily lives. So when does it become unhealthy?
This is where the Ego comes in. The ego is simply us defining ourselves by the mind. It is the identification of “us” being the mind. When we become attached to the mind’s information, problems, judgements, and thinking.
Some examples:
The mind stores a memory from our childhood of being complimented on its academic ability (“you’re so smart!”). The ego swoops in and starts to define itself as “smart”.
Not a bad thing, right? But, what happens is that ego maintains its homeostasis by always being “smart” so when it finds itself in a situation where it is challenged, the ego will freak out since it doesn’t know how to identify itself anymore. The challenging environment isn’t seen as a fun new place to explore but rather a threat to its whole identity.
The mind is a great problem-solver based on information it has already learned. So then why is math for some seen as fun and for others terrible?
Go back to the storage of memories and pull out something the mind learned about you and math. If it was a positive memory, the ego will attach itself to that positivity. If it wasn’t so positive, the ego has a different story.
The mind makes a judgement to understand separation between one thing and another. It will look at a person and immediately see their skin/hair/eye color, height, weight, etc. The ego swoops right in.
It attaches to these judgements and makes more of its own - “people with X skin color are ______ compared to people with Y skin color.” We know how problematic this is and the result of these egoic judgements.
So the mind isn’t bad but when we start attaching ourselves to it and create our crazy little ego, a lot of drama, hate, and shame is created.
Whenever a drama, hate, or shame story comes up for me, simply bringing in a teeny tiny amount of space between IT and how I identify myself does wonders.
Love,
Nishi
