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Week 2: Weapons of Happiness Destruction
What Are Your Weapons of Happiness Destruction?
Welcome to Week 2 of the Hero’s Journey to Personal Freedom 4-Week Program! Last week we explored what it means to be a hero. The start of the journey is really the courage to look inward — what is for many, a vast unknown, and unexplored territory. If we are to arrive at personal empowerment and freedom, we must explore what works in our lives and what hasn’t. I hope you took time to complete the homework assignment for Week 1, for this will give you a helpful visual of which areas in your life are working, which areas in you life need focus, and what lives in the gap between where you are and where you want to be.
This week we dive heroically into shedding light into shadow areas, specifically on our unhealthy expressions of ego.
The ego is the part of ourselves that makes us an individual, that makes us separate from what is around us.
The ego channels our free will, choice, and the ability to create our own individual lives. It is our sense of personal identity. The ego is necessary and an integral part of who we are.
While the ego feels separate and individual, spirituality—and increasingly, modern science—tells us that everything in the world is actually connected. We are all one. Both are true. We are all interconnected AND we are also individual and separate from one another while embodied. Ultimately, it is an illusion, both a helpful illusion and the source of all our suffering.
However, when the ego is disconnected from and out of balance with who we actually are, and mistakenly buys into that illusion of separateness, we begin to act as if we are alone, small, and powerless. We can feel fearful, lonely, rejected, abandoned. The ego then develops defenses against those uncomfortable feelings. At some point in our lives, these defensive strategies may have protected us from either a real or perceived threat. Now, they interfere with our ability to have fulfilled lives and relationships that can work.
In order to feel better, to feel less afraid, the ego will also try to gain power over others. How? By putting other people down, by being dishonest, by manipulating, and trying to control its outer circumstances. Sound familiar? Do you know people who do this? At some point we have all engaged in some of these behaviors, perhaps even unconsciously.
Wherever an unhealthy expression of the ego shows up, it creates hurt, damage, separation, and sabotages our happiness. Unhealthy expressions of the ego are the source of all our conflicts: personal, social, global. When we feel self-doubt, low self-worth, it is our unhealthy ego taking over. When we play small or turn away from our power and purpose, we are being held back by our ego.