Only the “Ego” gets hurt. If you are feeling hurt, and in pain, right now, you may feel angered to read that the part in you that’s feeling hurt is actually a “false self”. I am sorry, but I am a truth guy not a “feel good” guy.
I am interested in seeing the truth in every situation and I am in the least interested in trying to “soothe” the ego with kind words of sympathy or empathy.
It’s a paradox that when you look to see the truth in every situation, you permanently become free of all hurt and suffering, but if your primary motivation is just to feel good for the moment, then you are no different from a junkie who takes a shot for momentary relief.
When you are suffering it’s the best time to see the truth
They say that suffering is a great teacher if you allow it to teach you.
Instead of just looking for a “feel good” solution to push away the suffering, I would invite you to look deeply at what suffering really is.
Ask yourself – What in me is really suffering right now? You will notice that it’s not your hands, legs, nose or eyes, that are suffering. The actual suffering seems to come from a “psychological” construct rather than a physical construct.
The Ego is a psychological construct, it’s a story, it’s a false self, it’s an image created in the mind which is deluded into looking at itself as a “separate” entity.
The suffering or the emotional hurt is felt viscerally in the body. It feels like a congestion or contraction. In truth, suffering is just “resistance” created by a thought form (a negative thought) towards the flow of life. When you are feeling hurt you are usually harboring thoughts of resentment, anger, unfairness, inferiority, guilt or spite. All these thoughts are inherently rooted in negativity and are disconnected from the energy of life (which is always positive).
Only the “Ego” is capable of creating negative thoughts by interpreting reality in a negative manner. These negative thoughts (negative energy) are creating a “resistance” against the movement of life (positive energy) and this conflict is what is felt in the body as the clash between two energy movements.
The only way to be free of the pain, created by the emotional hurt, is to let go of the entity that is harboring hurt in the first place. Let go of the “Ego” that is feeling hurt, that is feeling unfairly treated, it’s only an interpretation of the mind.
The “Ego” does not want to let go of its negative thoughts, because it feels defeated in doing so, but it’s your choice – Do you want to suffer or would you rather let go of the Ego? Defeat for the Ego is an opening for your “true nature”.
Trying to soothe the Ego is just a temporary fix.
You can of course look for ways to soothe the Ego’s hurt – you can take drugs, take alcohol, watch TV, eat “happy” food, vent your anger, throw a tantrum, or whatever else feels like a quick fix solution to making the Ego feel good about itself again. Understand that this “Ego” will find reasons to get hurt again, and you will have to go through this same cycle all over again, the cycle of suffering.
The only way to get off the cycle of suffering is to stop entertaining the Ego and see that all hurt only stems from a “story” in the mind. Who you are, pure consciousness, is not hurt, it does not feel bad, it does not harbor anger. The energy that you are is pure positive energy.
The only way you can come back to your true nature, of being this pure positive energy, is to let go of the Ego. If the Ego gets hurt, it’s a good thing, allow it to get deconstructed. The Ego will always live in fear, and if you don’t let go of the Ego the experience of fear, and hurt, is what will dominate your consciousness.
Emotional hurt can create a hole in the Ego
There’s a blessing hidden in the emotional hurt that you are feeling right now. This hurt has the capacity to create a blow to the Ego which creates a “crack” in its hard shell.
This crack can be the opening through which your true nature, as pure positive energy, can shine through. Let the Ego crack open so that what lies beneath it can shine through. You will find yourself, as your true self, when the shell of Ego breaks open.
Many people have experienced the feeling of absolute peace and joy in the midst of great suffering, when the ego suddenly gave way and surrendered. They are not able to describe where the peace and joy came from because they don’t realize that it was always present below the hard shell created by the Ego. This peace and joy is the energy of life itself, of who you really are.
So welcome the emotional hurt and see it as a blessing in disguise to help you become free of your Ego shell.
I remember, some of my most joyful and peaceful moments have been in the midst of great emotional suffering. Thank you for this article, Sen. It also helps just to know that I haven’t really been hurt at all – only my ego, which is merely an illusion. I hope I can learn to fully let go, permanently, in time. Thank you for the wisdom.
If suffering is resistance therefore causing “pain”, is there ever a time when this pain is good – e.g. if your thinking is wrong/misguided or you’ve hurt someone and this “pain” serves to wake you up to this?
nvibes, in truth all experiences of life have a value, in that they can instigate growth and evolution. Suffering is one of the best teachers initially, when are mostly unconscious, in that nothing causes maturity/awakening faster than suffering created through a limited perception/thought that we are holding onto. But one doesn’t need suffering to keep growing, at one point you can get aligned with life to the extent where there is very little resistance in you towards its pull and hence you feel free of suffering in your being, what I call a state of inner wholeness.
So what do you recommend we do after a great emotional hurt that now feels out of control. I recently went through a tremendous experience where I knew I had to let go of a friendship in order to regain my life. However, after I made the move I constantly told myself that it was all my fault that the friendship didn’t work. I continued that thinking for weeks and finally let go of it. Now, however, I have negative thoughts about other things and not what actually caused the stress in the first place. For example, I know now that I will be more anxious the next day if I don’t sleep so, at night i get anxious and then….I don’t sleep. Silly stuff. I wanna feel better and am days away from getting an antidepressant med. In your opinion, can I overcome this without medication using your techniques? I want to be healed of this and not mask it but I am exhausted.
It boils down to how free you are of your mind’s pull, when you have no space between your awareness and your mind’s negativity, you are bound to feel a prisoner to it. It’s basically wake up call towards gradually bring a balance between your being and your mind, by “being” I mean your awareness, to ensure that your awareness is not a slave to your mind’s pull. You can read this post – the space of being or the practice of relaxed awareness for more insights on how to go about bringing this balance.
How did you gain this wisdom Sen ?
Ram, wisdom is inherent to our nature as a being, it’s simply blocked when we are not open towards connecting with the reality of life (integrating its light and dark nature aspects) either out of fear of the unknown or because of holding on to a rigid outlook as a sense of identity. The attitude of openness, the comes from a state of allowing, is conducive to connecting with your inherent nature of wisdom.
I think you do a good job breaking down the dynamics of how the ego plays its part in emotional hurt. But I think we should be careful not to suggest that understanding this will lead us to a permanent ‘fix’, thus being immune to hurt feelings. Our brains are hard wired to have feelings of hurt so I personally don’t see that going away. But having an understanding about how to process those feelings and move them along will help us immensely. Again I think this article does a good job with that.
This piece is absolutely fantastic. You have really made me see this concept of ego clearly but also the way you have written it makes is actually applicable to daily life and has made me realise where I am going wrong in my own thinking. These are some serious words of wisdom and I am so glad I stumbled across this page. I have implemented your words into my normal thinking and hopeful this will make me a happier person from now on. Thank you!
Hi I have been hurt by the person I love and we have been in a long distance relationship but together for some of the year over six years. We love each other although there was no commitment made and we had two break ups. I have recently found out that he had been seeing someone else in the first break up and was still in email contact. He said we would not survive reading the emails but said they were meaningless. We are living together now but I cannot move past this even with counselling. I know I could if we broke up but we are both wanting it to work. How does your theory apply to this?
Thank you.
Andreas, What you can work on is finding a sense of space/freedom from the emotional/mental pull that you might feel in the relationship, so that it gives you an opening to see the relationship in an objective, or realistic, manner. Without this space of inner freedom it’s difficult to make a wise decision since you will be moving from a place of emotional pressure. You can read these posts – the space of being and finding inner freedom, for a perspective on what I mean by finding this inner space of freedom.
I hear everyone saying let g o. What exactly is it and how do u do it? I mean I have an issue I try not to think about it but my body I can feel the stress. Please clarify. Thank you
As soon as I read the title – I had to read the rest.
In pain for 4 weeks after my wife told me she wanted a divorce after 15 years of marriage.
We have gotten along great in the last 4 weeks, however, today + I asked her if there was any hope, perhaps a second chance and she said NO – Her mind was made up and she has been honest with me since she first notified me. She told me I was emotionally involved and that I would get over it.
I decided to research emotions and how to get over them. I found this post and it made my day. The shell has been cracked and the Pure Positive Energy is starting to flow.
EGO – DECONSTRUCTION in PROGRESS!!! :+)
Thank You Sen for YOUR TRUTHFULNESS
Greatly Appreciated
Brian
And how exactly do I let go of my ego?
I’ve been hurting and in pain for what seems like forever and this post, after reading it, finally made me stop crying.
I’m just a little confused and now I just want to know how to let go. PLEASE.
Thank you!
Victoria, it’s not about letting go of the ego but the force/momentum of imbalance created by an unconscious identification with the ego (when you feel helpless to your own ego), so that you can work with your ego from a place of balance. You can read this post – ego-force, brain momentum and emotional accumulation – for more insight on this.
Sen…what do you do if you are a reliable (I emphasize ‘reliable’), honest, mature, normal, good natured person and you are constantly battling toxic people and twlight zone experiences your WHOLE life? (and you have been uprooted your whole life, well-travleed, and have CONSTANTLY experienced the same) There is only so much a human being can take, right? We’re not androids, so being strong is one thing, but do YOU ever get down or hurt? How do YOU overcome it? And how do YOU explain the twlight zone experiences of life and the fickleness of human species?? Do you believe in bad luck at all??? If you don’t, I don’t think you’re being hoenst. LUCK is a part of life. Those who are happy – many have had hardly any problems in their lives. I KNOW this b/c they’ve told me. They’ve had it easy. What do you have to say about that??
Sen,
This is very good information and I usually don’t feed into nonsense when people start talking about the ego and how to get over being hurt because time has to heal all wounds, but for some odd reason what you said actually makes sense as if something a psychiatrist would say cause I’ve been crying for weeks over a bad break up since September and your right cause i keep replaying the situation over and over in my head like there is going to be a solution and i don’t wanna let go cause i will feel defeated but after reading that, i honestly think today is the day i just let go ……cause if you don’t let go of the hurt it will began to take over one’s mind and it can destroy you and make someone go crazy.
So thanks Sen , very helpful info! you should write a book. Great info!
Sen, this is awesome stuff!
My question is: How can I be very ambitious without my ego getting involved?