There are two powerful drivers in human consciousness: the desire for Love, Light and growth, and the urge to give into fear, stagnation and complacency. The desire for love and growth is generated from your soul and higher self, the fear is generated by the ego or more precisely the negative ego. As a person drawn to this article, you are one who is genuinely interested in strenthening your ability to live in spiritual harmony and to achieve personal fulfilment. Unfortunately, these desires are not enough for the tendency to shoot ourselves in the foot is of equal power unless we know how to avoid the self-sabotaging effects of fear, self-doubt, self-righteousness, and interpersonal conflict.

The negative ego is the source of all such self-sabotage. It is the demon within and every time you are affected by it you will be unable to access the love, light and guidance of your higher self.

In truth, it is quite a buzz to catch this demon by the tail. Any self-sabotaging impulse is immediately squelched once you can identify its presence in your thinking and/or feeling. However, the negative ego is a catch-me-if-you-can thief of happiness, a con artist, and a master of disguise so that when you do catch it on one occasion, it will find an alternative route as soon as it can. It is for this reason that you need to make a point of observing and clearing it on a regular basis.

This article and the exercises at the end are designed to help you do so.

Take your time to absorb the information slowly, and do the exercises. If you do not find the time to do so, you will know your negative ego has got you!      

Understanding the Function of Ego

There is much misunderstanding about the function of ego. On the one hand, ego is a necessary aspect of being an incarnated human. The ego is that part of your mind that is able to distinguish your individual self as distinct from others, and separated from the material world. It helps to give your sense of unique identity.

On the other hand, however, the ego has been allowed by humanity to exceed its legitimate role. It has taken the recognition of separateness away from an appreciation and valuing of your uniqueness to dangerous, false and distressing conclusions. It makes your separateness a source of destructive competitiveness, comparison and pain.

When this happens, the healthy function of the ego turns sour: it has become negative. It then becomes the source of all your illusory fear and self-doubt. It dislikes any capacity you have for discerning truth from falsehood. The negative ego does not want you to think or feel for yourself, or accept and honour your true spiritual nature.

How Negative Ego Manifests Itself

The negative ego is a spiritual as well as a personal and social disease.

Spiritual dysfunction

At the level of spirit, we are all equal, all remarkable and all centred in the energy of love. We are drops of soul, unique drops of the creative force called by various names under the banner of God and Goddess. As an expression of soul, your human self is a one-off, never to be repeated entity, and can never be the clone of anyone else. In this sense, you are separated from others because you are, by definition, different from them. You are who you are.

The human journey is basically to ‘remember’ that you are Love, that you are uniquely valuable whatever your limitations seem to be. It is a journey to access the light, love and power of your soul energy so that you become an ever stronger and more loving expression of that soul.

However, the negative ego distorts your view of yourself.

It says that your unique nature is a sign that you are either so special you should not even bother to think of your limitations and negative impact, or so unworthy that you should not consider taking charge of life. In this guise it whispers, ‘Be happy with the crumbs that God, the Universe or more powerful other people throw your way. Personal power is not for you. You and your love are not good enough.’

If it can, it will give both these messages in the same instant. Its aim is to cut you off from your spiritual self and to sow as much discord as it can. It is, therefore, at the core of all inner doubt and interpersonal conflict.

Personal dysfunction

Because the negative ego is so pervasive, it will prevent you making any choice or decision that brings you closer to Love and to your higher self. It will tell you that maintaining your doubts, blame, self-destructive tendencies and anxiety is the best way to protect yourself from the dangers of life.

It will also stop you from acknowledging your strengths and gifts so that you do not pursue them or value them. It will often tell you that these gifts are trivial or mundane, it will be jealous of the power that others have, and it will make sure that the limitations you have are matters to be ashamed of, to hide, or deny.

It does not want you to have a balanced perspective on situations, or to be open-minded.

Social dysfunction

While most people associate negative ego with bigheadedness and arrogance, its more common social ploy is to tell you that you are less than others, and that for some reason you are really not good enough, never will be, and don’t even think about it in case you become a tall poppy and get cut down!

Naturally, negative ego is the core of all conflict in community. It is the basis of all the ‘isms’ that divide us. It is also feeds on any chronic limitation you might have in terms of health, money, or developing competence in certain skills. It relishes beliefs that tie you to a painful past.

Whichever form it takes, negative ego feeds on self-doubt and illusory fears. It enjoys promoting these through obsessive thinking and/or ungrounded emotional responses. It is the basis of blame and unexamined judgements about other people. It loves the spiritual laziness or fear that prevents a person observing truthfully the facts of the situation, and his or her own contribution to a problem.

Overcoming Negative Ego

Recognition

The main defence you have against negative ego is a commitment to identifying it. Here is a long list of the symptoms of its existence. Of course, these responses to difficulty are so common they are regarded as part of human 'nature'. However, in each case they are interfering with your ability to live in calm and love. They need to be dissolved.

• Blame
• Unwillingness to learn how to clear fears
• Guilt
• Jealousy
• Negative self-talk and self-criticism
• Shame
• Self-punishing or self-destructive behaviours
• Judgements against self or others including self-righteous views about your own attitudes and position in life
• Martyr
• Victimhood and chronic self-pity
• Closed-mindedness
• Defensiveness
• Lying or boasting to preserve your social status
• Prolonged failure to take any positive action that you know is good for your well-being
• Irresponsible risk-taking
• Trivialising problems
• Being ‘precious’ and entitled to special treatment because you are … (fill in)
• Stereotyping on the basis of political views, gender, age, class, education, sexual preference, culture etc.
• Failure to acknowledge the positives in your life, yourself or others.
• Refusal to evaluate if a course of action is genuinely working
• Chronic ‘Yes but’ responses to suggestions that would improve your life
• Spiritual complacency – I don’t need to grow anymore because I pretty much know it all.

Fear clearing

Clear your specific and chronic fears regularly because fear is the negative ego’s chief diet..

Know it always tells lies

The negative ego likes to make you think that it is so powerful it can knock your higher self’s guidance aside. It may do this by telling you lies that sound like truth but are in fact generalisations that suggest hopelessness, powerlessness and a miserable future: Examples: Your partner is an unmitigated horror, your kids are totally out of control, you will never get a good job, you will always be poor, sick or rejected.

Keep observing its changing forms

Once you have caught it out in one situation, the negative ego will quickly sniff out the next vulnerable spot. It will change form to suit its plans.

When I first ‘met’ my negative ego, it appeared in my mind as a Scrooge-like magician, sitting in front of a Bunsen burner with apothecary jars labelled with those attitudes that at the time undermined me: self-doubt, anxiety, panic, denial, fear of tall poppy syndrome, etc. Beside it was a filing cabinet with a sign: “Formulae for Suzie’s Every Mood”. Grinning, Scrooge poured drops from the currently appropriate jars into the red-hot crucible, which then emitted the most disgusting smell. This odour rose like steam into my conscious mind, setting me off in a fruitless search for the source of the poison. After I confronted Scrooge, the negative ego later returned as a fake angel, telling me that Scrooge had learned his lesson, and I need never worry again!

Identify the part your negative ego is playing every time you are in conflict

Negative egos like playing together. However, if you firmly refuse to let your own negative ego play a game of You lose/I win, the other party will have far less chance of engaging in a conflict. You will also be able to negotiate win/win solution.

Some Exercises for Identifying Negative Ego

1. Observe public figures trying to persuade you to their point of view. Do you see any of the symptoms of negative ego in their delivery or content of their message?
2. Check out some advertisements for their dependence on negative ego responses.
3. What strong ‘values’ do you hold? Do these values slip into negative ego insofar as you judge people who do not hold them?
4. Next time you have a disagreement with someone, listen to your inner attitude to the issue and your handling of it. Is it unkind to you or the other person?
5. Which of the symptoms mentioned in the checklist above do you most commonly experience?
6. What areas of your life cause you the most anxiety? What does your negative ego tell you about them?
7. If someone compliments you, do you honour the accuracy of that, or downplay it.
8. Draw a picture of what you imagine your negative ego might look like. Sketch a few thought bubbles to remind you of its common thoughts about you and your life.

If you would like genuinely effective inner techniques to dissolve the negative ego neural patterns, take out a Silver Membership of this site.  We are also ready to discuss this problem with you directly if you email suzie at our website address.

Current Reach Potential members should use the search function to choose which of the negative ego techniques is resonant with them at the time they need to dissolve this form of thinking.

Copyright 2018, revised 2023, Siramarti Publishing Pty Ltd

Author: Suzie St George