The Ego: The container for the soul with Donna Kunde & Londina Cruz “Your ego is your embodiment and your self is your potentiality and that's what you listen to when you listen for the voice of inspiration and the voice of 'What am I here for? What can I possibly make of myself?” —-Joseph Campbell Although the Ego has been thought to be the enemy of the Soul, it actually helps us create and maintain our boundaries. Properly developed, the Ego grows but then empties itself in order to become the container for the Soul. Without a well built container, there can be no real psychological or spiritual development because there is no safe place to put it. Why has so much negative been said about the Ego? Why is it often linked with egotism? Why have so many wise people argued that we must renounce Ego to find true selves or to find spiritual enlightenment? Let’s dive a little deeper to uncover the answer! Simply put, we have misunderstood the nature of the Ego. Additionally, many Egos we encounter are not very developed. They are threatened by the process of individualization, by exploration of repressed thoughts and feelings and by any sense of intimacy. The primitive Ego is also egotistical. Ego’s job is to protect the psyche, which is a very vulnerable place. If it wants to stop action, it knows exactly how to do that. The easiest way to deal with the underdeveloped Ego’s terror at change is to observe it with detachment. The most effective way is to remember that the Ego is our ally and needs to be brought on board to work for us and not against us. The second reason the Ego has been misunderstood is that a mature Ego threatens many social institutions. As important as these institutions have been in developing the capacity to respond to the heroic call, the heroic life requires us to go beyond dependency. For some, this might mean leaving those institutions, and for most it means changing their relationships to them.

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