a lie

on ego and emotions.

August 13, 2024

How often do you think about being better than someone else? I rarely allow myself to think such thoughts. Egotistical thoughts are bad, right? I must necessarily be bad for thinking them, right?

A moment now to sit with ego. To meet ego with curiosity. To try to understand its function.

I recently sat with ego as I scrolled through my Notes feed on the Substack app. I’d just read a sentence from a piece that someone had re-stacked with effusive praise. I saw how many likes this note had gotten, and then went to the original post and saw how many subscribers this author has. And, to my ego, this sentence and the piece from which it came seemed fine, but kinda basic. Basic in what it had to say, and basic in how it was said. Why is this sentence being singled out? And why is this writer being praised so much? I could write something better than that! my ego exclaimed. As soon as I became conscious of these thoughts, I felt a wave of shame. What horrible thoughts to have. What a horrible person I must be. My next conscious thoughts were, I’m really not even that great of a writer. Every day I get on this app and read sentences that are so beautiful, so clear, so incisive, so true. I could never write that well. And there it was. Another wave of shame crashing up against my insides.

I'm better than them brought about shame. I'm worse than them made me feel the same.

These thoughts represent two sides of the coin that is our egoic mind. Our egoic mind is always either trying to tell us I'm better than them or I'm worse than them. This is how our ego communicates with us in order to try to keep us safe. That’s all that our ego is ever trying to do. It’s all that any part of us is ever trying to do.

In one breath, ego tries to keep me safe by telling me that I’m better than another writer. If I'm better, that means that I deserve to be praised. That means that I don’t deserve rejection. That means that I’m safe to take the risk of being a writer, in public and on purpose. If and when I do experience rejection or receive negative feedback, something must be wrong with them, not with me. Ego tells me in this breath that I’m only safe to take risks if I can know for certain that I’m better.   

In the next breath, ego tries to keep me safe by telling me that I'll never be as good as another writer. If I’m worse, that means that I will never be praised. That means that I will always be rejected. That means that I’m not safe to take the risk of being a writer, in public and on purpose. If and when I do experience rejection or receive negative feedback, something must be wrong with me, not with them. Ego tells me in this breath that I’m never safe to take risks, because I know for certain that I’m worse.

Hubris wants to protect me from my fear of rejection, and self-deprecation wants to do the same. Both are ego run amok. Two sides of ego using opposite tactics to try to protect me from the same fear. Two lies created by my mind under the false assumption that a lie will keep me safe.

We – and I don’t just mean humans when I say we – are dying under a geopolitical status quo that only exists because we have collectively bought into the lie of hierarchy, so much so that we recreate it in even our wildest dreams for what our life on Earth could look and feel like. We’re taught that we will always either be better or worse than others, higher or lower than others, have more or less than others, and that this is simply the nature of existence. And because we believe that this is the nature of existence, our ego will do everything it can to protect us from being, feeling, or fearing that we might become worse, lower, less than in comparison to someone else.

We were sold a lie that hierarchy is real, and then we created a whole world in its image.

Fans of The Wire, do you remember this scene from season 3, between Slim Charles and Avon? Avon has reached a point of deep exasperation, wondering if it’s worth it for the Barksdale crew to continue to fight to hold onto “a couple of fucking corners” that Marlo and his people are determined to control at all costs. Slim Charles, consummate soldier that he is, tells Avon that, once you’re in a war, it doesn’t matter how and why it started. It doesn’t even matter if the story you tell yourself and others about how and why it started is true. “If it’s a lie, then we fight on that lie,” he tells him. “But we gotta fight.” If you read those lines and immediately thought of the lie on which America was fighting at the time of this series’ airing, you’re not the only one.

As hard as it is for my egoic mind to comprehend, my heart and body know that hierarchy is a lie based on false scarcity. We’ve lived under centuries of racial capitalism, imperialism, settler colonialism, white supremacy, cisheteropatriarchy – all of which would not exist without the foundational lie of hierarchy embedded within them. My heart and body know that we’re here on Earth to do so much more than enforce and bear the brunt of violent fabrications. There are people on all rungs of this ladder who are so willing and eager to destroy life – their own lives, even – in order to defend these lies. People on all rungs who defend these lies because they wouldn’t know who they are without them, because their egos are trying to protect them from the fear of that unknown. Look at the mental gymnastics we perform to try to justify how these systems kill us. Look at how often our final answer as to why these hierarchies exist is, “that’s just the way it is.” If these hierarchies really were that – universal laws – would we have to die to attempt to maintain them? Would we have to be at war with ourselves and each other over them, constantly fighting on those lies?  

Hierarchy is a lie based on false scarcity. But what’s not a lie is the blood that we shed, the blood with which we keep painting replicas of a dying world that ultimately will and must dissolve in the light of the truth. The violence necessary to constantly recreate and reinforce the lie has a very real impact on our bodies. And because the impact on our bodies is real, some part of us – our egoic mind, the part that’s trying so hard to protect us – tells us that the hierarchy must be real, too.

What feels real to me is this: all of us came here to be exactly who we are, to experience exactly what we’re here to experience, and to express exactly what we’re here to express. And there’s no better or worse involved in any of that. But so many of us are not able to do this. So many of us never come close to this because of the false hierarchies under which we live, and how we must consequently conceive of and protect ourselves in relation to them. A lot of us, me included, spend most of our lives trying to be someone other than who we came here to be. Trying to contort ourselves into shapes more reminiscent of the figures held above us, and less reminiscent of those below us. That’s the default setting of the nonsensical reality into which we were born and which we must try to survive. We find ourselves fighting on foundational lies about who we are, hurting ourselves and each other to make the lies make sense.   

When I look at someone that I believe, for whatever reason, is higher up on this false ladder than I am, I necessarily see myself as inferior. And that’s a lie. When I look at someone that I believe, for whatever reason, is lower down on this false ladder than I am, I necessarily see myself as superior. That’s a lie, too. When I try to write the way others do, my writing will be a lie. It will always ring false in comparison to that of people who are writing their truth. I could never write that “basic” sentence that I read and have it connect with people the way that that author’s words did, because that author was meant to write and share that sentence. I was not. And I could never write like those writers whose sentences I admire, because they were meant to write them. I was not.

I haven’t gotten into much astrology talk in this newsletter - shocking if you know me! - but I’ll pause here to say that I’m a sidereal astrology girlie who has studied Dayna Lynn Knuckles’ Divination for Liberation framework for several years now. I have zero earth placements in my sidereal chart. Only one air placement. A decent amount of fire. And a whole lot of water. Dayna tells us that each of the four elements represent tools that we either do or don’t have access to, tools that we either did or did not receive reinforcement to develop from our environment and caregivers. Fire placements in a birth chart mean that someone has developed the tool of using their will and conscious awareness. Air placements make use of ideas, symbols, and concepts. Earth placements deal with the material, physical, and tangible. And water works with the body and with relations. My dominant water sign placements equip me with the necessary tools to be in my body, to feel my feelings, to be affected by what I feel. When I compare myself to someone who has a lot of placements in earth signs - someone who grew to be resourceful and meticulous about the tangible, to conform to the materially evident reality regardless of feelings - I will believe the lie that I’m inadequate because I’m less resourceful, less meticulous, less able to conform. Earth, the element opposite water in the zodiac, is not in my toolbox. I will always feel inferior if I believe that it’s missing because I see that others have it. But that tool was never meant to be in my box. It’s not there because none of us are meant to possess every tool on our own. We’re meant to have what we need collectively through relationships. Between us all, we’ve got it all easily covered. But wow, will I suffer if I try to force myself to live like an earth sign. Wow, have I suffered trying to force myself to privilege the visible and tangible over the intuitive. Wow, am I healing by allowing myself to make primary use of my water by feeling emotions, sensations, and energies as they move through my body, by making those processes conscious, by believing the information that I receive from these modes of perception and sharing what I know.

When I’m in the practice of doing what I came here to do with the gifts that I have, and living in a way that supports the ability of others to do the same, there is no comparison. No other being on the planet can be and do and express what I came here to be and do and express. No other being is here to live the life that I'm here to live. How could anyone be better? How could anyone be worse? We all just are.

I'm breathing deeply as I write. I’m beginning to feel fear rise up inside of me as I imagine sharing these thoughts. My ego recognizes that I feel fear of rejection, and it’s trying to protect me from that fear by telling me to shut it down and keep these ramblings to myself. I pause and I breathe. I place a hand over my heart, offer myself a loving touch. I call fear by its name. I feel you, fear. And I call ego by its name, too. I hear you, ego. I hear the thoughts you’re creating in response to me feeling fear. I hear the story that you’re trying to tell me about the fact that I feel fear. I pause, I breathe, and I attend to my body. I get out of my brain and I soothe my body, hold my body, allow my body to recognize that, in this moment, we are safe and cared for and loved. I drop down and reconnect with my body, rather than staying up in my mind and letting myself be tossed about by the story that my ego is trying to tell me about fear. I use the tools of the body to soothe the body.

We often think that we’re feeling our feelings when what we’re actually doing is allowing our egos to run wild with stories about what it means that we’re feeling a feeling. We think about the fact that we feel a feeling, make meaning about ourselves and others because we feel a feeling. We stay up in the egoic mind, because we believe the lie that this is the part of us that keeps us safe. We can choose to stay up there, or we can actually be with and attend to the feeling. We can’t do both at once. As this piece is coming through me, and the fear of sharing it is present, I'm aware that the egoic mind is running. But my focus isn't there. My business isn't to attend to that right now. My business is to attend to my body with my body. I allow fear to be felt, and offer it what it's asking for.

Fear doesn’t actually need a bunch of stories created by the ego about me or others, stories about why I’m better or worse, right or wrong. Fear just wants to be held. Fear wants to be soothed. Fear wants to know it's not alone. Fear wants to know it's not going to be judged or shamed for being here. Fear wants to know I won’t ignore it, stuff it down, bury it under other, more pleasant feelings. Fear wants to know that, when it is present, I will be present with it.

And, no, I'm not going to tell fear that everything is magically going to be okay – that I will never experience rejection for what I choose to share as a writer, for how much of the truth of who I am I allow myself to express. That’s a lie. And that's not what fear needs right now. I meet fear with the truth, which is that I don't know. I don’t know how much rejection I may face, how painful these moments might feel. But what I do know is that I will not abandon myself, no matter what comes my way. What I do know is that I will feel my feelings, no matter how uncomfortable they may be. What I do know is that I will continue to unlearn the lies I fought on, no matter how much this process may set me apart from those who are desperately holding onto hierarchy and false scarcity. What I do know is that, as I unlearn the lies, I encode more and more of the truth in my body.

I'm breathing. I'm attending to fear.

I'm breathing. I'm letting fear know that it's not alone.

I'm breathing. I'm letting fear know that it's okay that it's here.

I’m breathing. I'm letting fear know that, for as long as it’s with me, I’m with it.

You may have been taught, as I was, that it’s a bad thing to hold onto our fears, our anger, our sadness. What if that’s a lie, too? What if holding onto these feelings is exactly what we’re meant to do? What if our fear, our anger, our sadness, desperately need us to hold onto them? What if holding onto them is actually all they need?

A lot of us are learning more about attachment styles these days. I experience myself moving into more secure attachment with others as I become more securely attached to myself. And secure attachment to myself means that any emotion that arises inside of me knows that I’m going to hold onto it. I'm not going to try to toss it, hide it, numb it, rebuke it. I'm just going to hold it in compassion, so that it can safely experience itself. The sooner I do that, the sooner those feelings can complete their energetic cycle and move through me. These energetic cycles are actually a lot shorter than we think. We’re told that holding onto feelings makes them last longer. The reality is that the energetic cycle of a feeling can't even begin if we're rejecting the feeling, if we’re telling ourselves stories about why the feeling shouldn’t be there. When the feeling is shoved in a corner, or stomped on, or buried, it takes that much longer to even get to the point when it feels safe to come up to be felt, when it trusts that you will pick it up and hold it, when it’s able to begin and eventually complete its cycle. If we hold the feelings that cry out to be held, they will always let us know when their cycle is complete and they’re ready to be released.

The more that I hold onto my feelings when they arise, and trust that the holding itself is what will help them to recede and release, the more my body trusts me. The more my body trusts me, the more securely attached I become within myself. The more trust I have within my own body, the better able I am to hold others as they feel their feelings. And the more securely attached I can become to those around me.

“Trust the people,” adrienne maree brown offers us in her list of the principles of Emergent Strategy. “If you trust the people, they become trustworthy.” Yes. And a large part of how we learn to trust the people, how we the people learn to become more trustworthy, is to ensure that we develop the self-trust that comes with knowing that we are safe within ourselves to feel a difficult feeling as it comes up and runs its course. We’ve been fed the lie that we can’t trust ourselves to hold and feel our own feelings. And this makes it so much harder for us to collectively hold and feel the terror, rage, and grief to which our bodies and our Earth demand that we attend. As more and more of us recognize that we won’t survive if we continue to fight on these lies, we’re less and less able to ignore our feelings about it all. The powers that be bank on their ability to keep offering us more modes of consumption to numb these feelings. More modes of consumption to which our egos can then attach themselves, to create stories about where we land on the ladder based on what we do or don’t have, do or don’t consume. When we reject what capitalism sells us in an effort to keep us from feeling, when we learn that we can trust ourselves to feel, we get closer to trusting each other enough to take collective risks toward shining the light of truth upon the lie.

I’m finding my way to less numbing and more trust in my capacity to hold feelings. I can now thank the difficult feelings that are asking to be felt. I can thank the shame and fear that arise when I scroll the app and my ego goes into comparison mode, as I recognize that they’re offering me opportunities to practice holding and trusting myself. I can even thank ego. I know that it’s trying to protect me from the shame and fear that it perceives as threatening to my livelihood. I can thank ego, and I can let it know that I’m not ashamed of feeling shame anymore, not afraid of feeling fear anymore, not sad about feeling sadness, not angry about feeling anger, not distressed about feeling distress. The lies that ego created to try to protect me from those feelings are not necessary anymore, because I’m safe within myself.

Ego is the part of our being that makes us believe that the lie of hierarchy is real. It then tries to make meaning of the lie, and it projects that meaning onto ourselves and others. Ego-driven choices attempt to protect us from ever having to experience feeling less than. This is all ultimately an attempt to grasp at some false control, in those moments when the truth is that we simply don’t know. Those moments when all we can do is take risks in the direction of care, connection, and creation. Risks that offer us opportunities to unlearn more lies, uncover more truth, experience more trust within ourselves and among each other. Risks that will necessarily require us to feel.

Being human is an inherently risk-filled experience, and no amount of avoiding our feelings about those risks will eliminate them. No amount of living in the lies of our egoic mind will give us the control that we think we desire. And, yes, I mean it when I say that control is what we think we desire. Our minds tell us that we want control, but our bodies know that what we really need to survive is connection. Connection with ourselves and others is where true safety lies. Ego tells us that we can have control, and thereby safety, by believing the lie of hierarchy and doing what we can to end up on top. Connection tells us that hierarchy is a lie of false scarcity, and that our reciprocal relationships are the mode through which we can be all of who we are and have all of what we need.

What risks would you take if your body trusted that, whatever happens, you will connect with and not abandon yourself? What risks would we take collectively if our bodies trusted that, whatever happens, we will connect with and not abandon each other? What lies has ego told you about being better or worse, higher or lower, in order to protect you from a difficult feeling? What can you offer those difficult feelings by holding them? And who can hold you as you hold them?