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Intentions and Ego
2 years ago
Let me level set first. I define ego as the cumulative experiences from your life and how you, almost algorithmically, respond to new ones.
With that in mind, your ego may not serve you. A meditative insight is that you have very little control over your thoughts. Try and predict what you may think next. Difficult? Impossible? Not surprising. Where do those thoughts come from? Well, I can confidently say they at least form from your ego.
Intentions I define as your goals. To be nicer, to draw, to perform, to climb a mountain, to stop a bad habit. I like to view intention separate from regular thoughts. It feels like you have some control over your intentions. Sometimes hard to act on those. I see intentions as types of desires. Desires are typically easy to identify. But sometimes not. Do I actually want to do that?
I believe it becomes harder to identify if something is a desire based on the building blocks of your ego. Think back to childhood. Was there something you wanted to do, but you were told ‘no’ or ‘that’s too dangerous’ or ‘people will think you’re weird’ or you literally got abused over it. Think about how you were at school and how people may have bashed your unique ideas, calling them stupid or weird. These ego feeding events creates blocks that keep you from feeling your desires. Or at least feeling good about them.
Once you get older, you accumulate more experiences. Hopefully some better and varied ones. As a kid you only have the limited experiences and just accept those as normal. Later you go “Oh, nobody actually does this, it was just my family”. Sometimes these events are good. You get champions that lift you up and create a pretty healthy mind later in life, but of course not everybody gets that.
Realize those bad experiences don’t have to be your guiding light. Witness yourself in the third person. Look at who is acting. “Why is he doing it like that?” “It never works out that way.” Look at yourself as if you are Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the hill. Yeah, he’s going to be doing that forever, but maybe he should do it different. Put some wheels and a motor on that rock. Take a step back from your ego (understandably easier said than done) and listen to your intentions. It’s going to feel wrong to ignore your ego. But with enough intentional practice of listening to intentions more and the ego less you build up your ego with good experiences. Eventually you act without acting. Your ego gets retrained on better experiences.
This shouldn’t be taken as full advice. I understand there are many other things that cause blocks, but the main point here is that thoughts are fueled by your ego and your ego may need a refreshing with new and better experiences. Nothing will change if you never take action. All easier said than done, but this is one of the lessons I have learned over the past year of healing and recovery attempting to reign my own mind in.
With that in mind, your ego may not serve you. A meditative insight is that you have very little control over your thoughts. Try and predict what you may think next. Difficult? Impossible? Not surprising. Where do those thoughts come from? Well, I can confidently say they at least form from your ego.
Intentions I define as your goals. To be nicer, to draw, to perform, to climb a mountain, to stop a bad habit. I like to view intention separate from regular thoughts. It feels like you have some control over your intentions. Sometimes hard to act on those. I see intentions as types of desires. Desires are typically easy to identify. But sometimes not. Do I actually want to do that?
I believe it becomes harder to identify if something is a desire based on the building blocks of your ego. Think back to childhood. Was there something you wanted to do, but you were told ‘no’ or ‘that’s too dangerous’ or ‘people will think you’re weird’ or you literally got abused over it. Think about how you were at school and how people may have bashed your unique ideas, calling them stupid or weird. These ego feeding events creates blocks that keep you from feeling your desires. Or at least feeling good about them.
Once you get older, you accumulate more experiences. Hopefully some better and varied ones. As a kid you only have the limited experiences and just accept those as normal. Later you go “Oh, nobody actually does this, it was just my family”. Sometimes these events are good. You get champions that lift you up and create a pretty healthy mind later in life, but of course not everybody gets that.
Realize those bad experiences don’t have to be your guiding light. Witness yourself in the third person. Look at who is acting. “Why is he doing it like that?” “It never works out that way.” Look at yourself as if you are Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the hill. Yeah, he’s going to be doing that forever, but maybe he should do it different. Put some wheels and a motor on that rock. Take a step back from your ego (understandably easier said than done) and listen to your intentions. It’s going to feel wrong to ignore your ego. But with enough intentional practice of listening to intentions more and the ego less you build up your ego with good experiences. Eventually you act without acting. Your ego gets retrained on better experiences.
This shouldn’t be taken as full advice. I understand there are many other things that cause blocks, but the main point here is that thoughts are fueled by your ego and your ego may need a refreshing with new and better experiences. Nothing will change if you never take action. All easier said than done, but this is one of the lessons I have learned over the past year of healing and recovery attempting to reign my own mind in.
