Ego Friendly

Ego Friendly brings a twist to the mainstream spiritual narrative by showing you how to befriend your ego and treat it as your ally, instead of “letting go of it.”

Have you heard about spiritual bypassing? The term was introduced by a Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist John Welwood. He used it to describe “a widespread tendency to

use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional

issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks.”

In other words, spiritual bypass happens when we think we’re working on ourselves while unconsciously avoiding our real issues. Trying to let go of the ego is often a prime example of this. It happens to people whose default attitude is self-depreciation, beating themselves up, and generally low self-esteem.

When a low view of yourself combines with the spiritual endeavor to “kill your ego,” it may lead to inflating, not curing your problems. When you see egolessness as something noble, you can easily confuse low self-esteem for a sign of spiritual growth. You sidestep the important psychological task of establishing a healthy sense of self in the first place.

Buddhist abbot Thanissaro Bhikkhu sees this as a shockingly common theme in Western culture:

“The Dalai Lama isn’t the only Asian Buddhist teacher surprised at the amount of self-hatred found in the West. Unfortunately, a lot of people with toxic super-egos have embraced the teaching on egolessness as the Buddha’s stamp of approval on the hatred they feel toward themselves.”

When self-depreciation is your baseline, the idea of “letting go of ego” only perpetuates it. That’s why, for many people raised in the West, this often results in spiritual bypassing — instead of helping them become better.

One consequence of having an ego is that it creates a “sense of separate self.” This gets a bad rap in the spiritual community as it’s associated with selfishness, not caring about others, and not being able to see that we’re all connected. For that reason again, the ego is portrayed as something to overcome. But this kind of forced selflessness is hardly ever helpful to anyone. To be able to perceive yourself as a valuable part of the collective, you have to first become intimately aware of your ego. You need to understand your likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses, that which motivates you and that which puts you off. The awareness of your ego enables you to pick relevant goals for yourself rather than trying to live someone else’s life. Further, your ego also can also reveal your boundaries in your relationships. Many people assume that they should always put others before themselves. They try to please everyone around, often at their own cost. They don’t…