Reverse Thinking

How the ego works

After my last article In You But More Than You (in which I gave away a Download IYBMTY ) I took an email from Harry who asks: 'What is Ego-Identification?'

Ego-identification means that you have over-identified with your Ego. You have lost your connection with Bodymind and you are living in Headmind - specifically in that part of Headmind where your ego is located.

Your ego is a false idea about what and who you are. It is an idea you took over from other people.

Babies don't have egos. But they start to get one as soon as they realise they have a name. As soon as you have a name you develop the delusion that you have an identity separate from other people. But, in reality, your sense of who you are is defined by your relationships with those same people - 'son', 'daughter', 'pupil', 'friend', victim', etc. Your ego is like a distorting mirror held up to you by the people around you. And when you start to 'see' yourself as others see you, you start trying to live up to the expectations that those others have formed about you.

For example, your parents and teachers speak about you as 'the shy one', 'the noisy one', 'the brainy one', 'the stupid one', 'the sporty one'. After persistent indoctrination you start to identify yourself by these concepts.

If the ego that was handed to you was all about having to be a high-achiever then your ego will condemn you to a life of failure because, no matter how clever, successful and hard-working you are, you will never match the ideal you have been set.

If your ego is based on the idea that you are stupid, ugly, or worthless then you are also condemned to a life of failure. Simply because each time you identify with your ego you will act according to expectations.

Like Jacques Lacan said: The Ego is based on frustration. No matter how hard you try, you will never live up to the engrained demands which it carries.

What is worse, the Ego will repress, dismiss or delete your your emotions, your basic needs and your personal genius in the misguided pursuit of ego-strokes - flattery, approval, status, power, or lurve.

Identifying with the Ego creates anxiety and dis-ease - the pre-symptomatic state in which Headmind splits from Bodymind and you are no longer living in your body, in the moment, acting spontaneously as your experience dictates. You become alienated from yourself, from others, and from life itself.

But there is a solution. Next up, I will be writing about how to discard your ego.

      'Wherever I climb, I am followed by a dog named 'Ego'.

       Nietzsche

In You But More Than You

As my regular readers will recall, I have written before about Awareness and its crucial importance in Reverse Therapy which, in turn, is partly influenced by Zen Buddhism.

Awareness is about living in Bodymind, in the moment, now. If you can learn to do that for at least part of the time every day then you are guaranteed to loosen yourself from the curse of Headmind-created obsessions, bananas, compulsions, worry and ego-identification.

I have recently been working on a tape for the use of my clients which, if used on a daily basis, is designed to help people stay in Bodymind more easily. The feedback so far has been good and I am releasing it for the use of my readers too.

It's called 'In You But More Than You'.

The idea behind the title is that connecting to Bodymind connects you to a lot of other things too.

Your personal genius

The power of now

Your God

You are welcome to email me with any feedback, good or bad.

To listen to the tape just click on the link below:

Download IYBMTY.WMA

Image by Eddi 07

How forgiveness rewires the brain

In a recent article on Brain Neuroplasticity I wrote about the Brain's capacity to grow and renew itself - provided we keep on learning and provide it with new new and powerful experiences to process.

Today I want to talk about how letting go of useless regret and bitterness enables Bodymind to spring clean the brain and restore emotional wellness.

Some writers think that resentment about past misfortunes is an emotion. I disagree: it is a Headmind state which keeps on replaying tapes from the past in a futile attempt to make sense of some terrible event so that Headmind can control and prevent its re-occurence.

For example, I used to have repeat nightmares about the treatment I received from other children - and from my 'teachers' - as the lone deaf boy at the elite grammar school I attended. Those lasted until well into my twenties. And - each time I recalled the abuse I would be filled with bitterness and thoughts of revenge. Although the Headmind intention might have been to put me on guard against bullying in future, it merely made me paranoid.

I had to learn forgiveness but I was put off by the idea that this meant learning to love people I knew very little about. Later on I learnt that the word 'forgiveness' had an entirely different meaning - even for Christ. What it actually means is something like 'set me free'. So, when Christ speaks - in Aramaic - of the forgiveness of sins, he means 'free us from the faults of others.'

So that's the most important clue we have: to 'forgive' really means to move on from upsetting memories and then focus on something better, more important, more rewarding, more empowering, in the present.

Now here's what happens to you when you focus on resentment:

• Your Conscious Mind calls up the movie
• You relive the emotions associated with that story (e.g. anger, fear, disgust)
• Because the movie belongs to the past, and the past is unchangeable, Headmind concludes that you are a victim of your emotions
• The Pre-frontal cortex in the forebrain, which interprets information about what happens to you, sends a red-alert signal to the Amygdala, in the Limbic system
• The Amygdala then triggers an alarm reaction in the sympathetic nervous system, the muscles, gut, skin and the immune system - which you experience as stress

What is worse, this stressful experience sensitizes the cells in the nervous system, the muscles, the gut and the immune system, which become more and more wired to prepare a response to trauma - to something that might have happened to you thirty years ago!

And here's what happens when you forgive:

• You stop watching old movies
• You engage more in the present and keep busy on activities that bring you reward
• Your Conscious Mind has less and less opportunity to replay the tape
• Headmind starts to lose the thought that you are a victim of your past
• As that happens the alarm circuit between the Pre-frontal cortex and the Amygdala grows weaker
• New, empowering, experiences create new connections between the cells in your brain, nervous system, muscles, gut, and immune system
• You become both happier and more resistant to disease

Image by littledan77