The Joyful Attorney

Episode 72: Ego and Delusion

August 31, 2022 Laura Kelley, Esq. Season 1 Episode 72
The Joyful Attorney
Episode 72: Ego and Delusion
Show Notes Transcript

Your ego can protect you from the hardships of life. But make sure it doesn’t change your perception of reality. 

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Hello Colleagues, whenever or wherever you are. Welcome to the Joyful Attorney Podcast. I’m your host Professional Certified Coach and practicing attorney, Laura Kelley

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about ego and delusion. I think the two go hand-in-hand…but probably not in the way you may be thinking. 

When we think of a person who has a big ego, we may also think that person has delusions of grandeur. It’s typical narcissist behavior. Right? Just Imagine a mediocre white man who thinks he’s God’s gift to the world. There’s quite a lot of them out there and it’s not a good look. 

You may be thinking “what does ego and delusion have to do with me?”

Well, the example I just mentioned is an extreme one. But the truth is that we all suffer from ego and delusion. Indeed, this is our source of suffering. You don’t have to take my word for it. This is the essential teachings of the Buddha, Jesus Christ, and  many  modern spiritual teachers such as Eckhart Tolle and as we find out later on in the podcast, Keanu Reeves. 

The ego is our identity. It is the hard layer of spiritual chocolate that protects  our creamy, vulnerable center. We craft an ego that we present against the challenges and hardships of the outside world. It is our exoskeleton. Our ego is absolutely essential to being safe. 

I like to think of the ego in the same way as our pain receptors in our skin. Our pain receptors stop us biting through our own tongues while eating a burrito or holding on to a hot saucepan handle and keep our bodies safe. 

Without pain, we would wreck our body. We’ve all heard of people who for whatever reason do not feel physical pain and they end up with severe consequences including burns, broken bones, and so much more. 

On the other hand, some people are so sensitive to pain that they fear anything that may bring pain, and so they are very careful not to do anything that may lead to pain. 

Our ego is like this. Our ego’s role is to protect us from emotional threats. Our egos interact with each other to create society. A healthy ego establishes healthy boundaries and identities. But, especially for those of us who have experienced abuse and trauma, our egos turn into armor or even monsters. 

It’s in order to keep us safe, but sometimes that overactive ego ends up isolating us, being overly reactive with anger. And sometimes our ego can’t protect us from our pain and so we seek other ways of protecting ourselves with alcohol, drugs, food, and codependency. 

When we are out-of-balance with the ego, we are in delusion. What I mean by delusion is that we are not seeing reality as it is. We are perceiving reality through our very specific lens. We make assumptions that often do not comport with reality. 

My logic professor in college used to say “we operate on a very narrow shared consensus of reality.” 

The problem with delusion is that we have a tendency to believe that our reality is everyone’s reality…or it should be. It is often too uncomfortable to hold multiple truths at once. 

For example, as humans we crave certainty as one of our most important emotional needs. Yet, certainty is delusion. Nothing is certain. 

We may in fact exist in a computer simulation or be characters in the dreamscape of a giant cat on Alpha Centauri. And the truth is this thing we call certainty is actually just familiarity. Those of us who commute get into our cars every day certain that we will arrive at our destination. And yet there is absolutely no guarantee that will happen. 

Sadly, each day some people will not finish that journey, but nobody believes it will be them. Unless you drive in Miami like I do. In that case, every minute surviving on the roads is a blessing to be cherished.

I find that the ego craves certainty because this is what allows us to feel safe and secure. Acknowledging uncertainty can be exceedingly painful. Recognizing that my perception of reality may not be your perception of reality can make me feel like I am on unsteady footing. 

And sometimes accepting reality is really scary. I think we saw this with many people in the pandemic. Some refused to believe that COVID virus was real. It shook the foundations of our belief systems, namely that we are safe. 

It was easier and safe to believe that it was a government conspiracy. Yes, humans with rigid belief systems tend to reject science and evidence-based information, but it’s not because they are stupid. It’s because their minds literally cannot handle the pain of reality. 

This does not mean we condone rigid belief systems. But I do think it is helpful to understand them. And I think it’s worthwhile to recognize that this type of rigidity and delusion is at play in our own lives as well. Maybe not to that extent. 

Some of us have a core belief that we are fundamentally unworthy or not good enough. This untrue and false belief can sneak into our personal and professional lives in nefarious ways. It causes us extreme emotional pain. But this is a delusion. We were born fundamentally worthy and nothing can change that. 

When we start to accept reality for what it is and embrace uncertainty, we open ourselves up to the full experience of human existence. It takes a lot of courage. It takes the willingness to feel pain. It doesn’t actually increase your experience of pain, though. 

You see, pain is inevitable. If you cling to the delusion of certainty, you will still experience pain. When you embrace uncertainty and are willing to experience pain, a paradox opens. You experience more certainty and less pain. That’s because you become certain that nothing is certain and the willingness to feel pain makes it less acute. How’s that for a philosophical wormhole?!

So how do we embrace uncertainty? First, we must accept that our thoughts and beliefs are not absolute truth. Our thoughts and beliefs are created by our ego. Our thoughts and beliefs are literally our interpretations of the world. 

They are necessarily colored by our experiences. This means that they can never be objective or absolute truth. Understanding this allows us to see how other people have their own perceptions, perspectives and realities. We are not our thoughts. They are not their thoughts either. 

Second, we can recognize that our emotions, while giving us valuable information, are transient and temporary. We are not our emotions. 

When we embrace reality as a world of symbols, we are able to effortlessly dodge the bullets of emotional reactivity. Yes, I am thinking of the Matrix, hence Keanu Reeves at the top of the episode. 

We can start this process with courage, kindness and curiosity. 

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We are all undertaking an incredible journey of self-exploration together as a supportive, nurturing community, with weekly group coaching calls as well as 24/7 access to a wealth of material on thought work, mindfulness, time management, creating boundaries, defusing emotional triggers and so much more. 

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Until next time, stay joyful.