We all believe ourselves to possess particular characteristics that define who we “are.” “I” am a nice person; “I” am a funny person. “I” like cats. “I” prefer small gatherings to big parties. Somehow all of these details and countless others sifted from years of self-observation and judgment, combine to form the person “I” consider myself to be. Based on these factors, we create our personal narratives- our stories- to assimilate into society’s convoluted matrix. From “our” stories we base our decisions and live according to the strict code of our “self.” Using this lexicon, there is no distinction between the “Ego” and the “Self.” We fall into our “self” roles so effortlessly simply because it is the socio-genetic material passed down to us, and what other choice do we have? Ultimately, what drives us to act and respond to stimuli, has more to do with who we perceive “ourselves” to be than anything else. It is because we see our “selves” as responsible, trustworthy, or good that we fulfill the duties presented to us; alternatively, it is because we see our “selves” as broken, sad, or damaged that we see failure in ourselves.
The ego is that which, according to Latin and ancient Greek, signifies “I,” and which, according to Sigmund Freud’s three-part breakdown of the psyche from Beyond the Pleasure Principle, represents that aspect, which is responsible for acting and mediating the processing and mediating of reality in relation to the other aspects of the psyche: the ID and the Superego. In this way, we come to know our “selves;” we view “who” we are as simply a compilation of ego processes, justifications for inconsistencies in the floor plan.Within our manufactured “ego” script lies expectations like: work so you can be successful, make money, and support your family, take care of your family, so your progeny can work, be successful, and make money, take vacation days, and DO NOTHING, so you will be rested for returning to work, to make money, and be successful.
If we are programmed, however inadvertently, to buy into this ideology of our ego’s/”self’s” need to acclimate to society’s expectations of propriety and essentially generate our identities and personal “subjectivities” around these cultural norms, why then, does every person on this planet, the awareness coming to a head in adolescence and cyclically repeating again and again until we die, feel, in some way, insecure about what they are doing and who they are? As far as modern science permits us, we are the only species to self-reflect in that way.
It is essential for human beings to maintain a healthy internal balance, or homeostasis, in order to survive. There is an inborn obligation of each cell in the body to function in a particular manner. Whilst each cell possesses a particular genetic purpose, they then join with other cells to become organs, and each organ, possessing its own unique duty, serves a particular purpose to maintain the delicate balance of our systems, thereby maintaing our “health,” and ultimately, keeping us alive. In many ways, it is incredible and extraordinary that every cell in our bodies works so microcosmically and the end result just happens to be so very macrocosmic!
How can the bits and pieces that make our bodies know exactly what they should be doing and do it without question, without expectation for results- very rarely do we thank our individual cells, “Hey, you there, cell 200,145 in my liver! Thanks for all your hard work and commitment to helping me filter out all the crap I put in me and making all that bile for me! I really appreciate it!” Yet we, the inhabitants of said bodies, composed of so many cells each with a specific job, so often commit to actions and repeatedly feel overwhelmed and disappointed, because what we expected is not what actually occurred? We very rarely thank our selves for all the hard work we are doing, and meanwhile, our cells’ intention is simple: give energy and work; the result is incidental.
What is our intention as human beings? Rather than through a process, we seek success and meaning through said process’ results. In every one of its forms: fiscal, social, romantic, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, society renders these options to our egos, and ideally, we must only choose which one to pursue and go out and get it. This process begins early. The question posed by every first grade teacher: “what do you want to be when you grow up? plagued my six year old mind and sent me into the samskara of “who am I and why?” years before adolescence reared its head.
At the time, my parents were co-presidents of a small but highly successful waste-paper brokerage company. Both of my sisters already knew what they wanted to be: my older sister, an artist, and my younger sister, who was then only four, a paleontologist. Most of what I was interested in doing at the time was making friends at my new school and trying not to get made fun of for being a smarty pants and having the remnants of a misdiagnosed speech impediment. I hardly cared for tomorrow, let alone fifteen years from tomorrow. The day my teacher asked that fateful question, was the day I came home crying buckets full of fearful and confused tears. Wasn’t just going to school enough? Did I have to be responsible for tomorrow as well? What I was certain of was that since my sisters already decided on their professions, I would be saddled with the obligation of inheriting the family business. The thought of wearing business suits, having meetings with men who smoked cigars and ate plates of lobster and steak and drank brown spicy smelling liquid out of big glass tumblers whilst talking about bales of corrugated was horrifying to me not because I did not fully understand it or appreciate the many luxuries and opportunities that financial success afforded myself and my family, but rather, because it would be my duty to step into that job so that my sisters might pursue the professions that spoke to their hearts. In the end, after much sadness, which lasted about a day in total but felt to my young self like an eternity, I accepted for the majority of my elementary school experience, that I would have to be my parents’ successor. I lived, went about my schooling, and in fifth grade when my father’s ulcerative colitis became so severe that my parents had to close their business and admit my father to the hospital- amidst the awareness of my father’s very fragile mortality- I breathed a sigh of relief. I had been liberated from my duty! Now as an 11 year old, I had been accepted into the elite circle! I could begin the process of answering the question posed by Marcia Sondergaard, my first grade teacher, the question every child faces eventually that yields lifetimes of difficulty, “what (and more importantly, who) do you want to be when you grow up?”
The question of how one is to live is a question that is hardly new to humanity. Our culture’s motivation to push us towards a goal that is difficult to reach is not incorrect or inappropriate. It simply leaves out the essential piece that we, each of us, are already the goal, and perhaps the process to achieving that goal of our “selves” (not the “I” of the “ego” but something more organic, soon to be discussed!) is already accessible to us. This is paradoxically convoluted and incredibly simplistic. We have arrived at that which we seek from the moment we manifest as beings in this world, and we know who we are and how we are from the very beginning; perhaps the most prevalent aspect that prevents us from encountering this simple truth is a lack of trust and love for ourselves. The complicated result of weaving stories and tales about “who” we are, thereby creating expectations for what we ought to be yields endless judgment, dragging us further away from the fact that, we, as people, are our worst critics. Full of judgment, we lose faith and trust in ourselves.
During my last thai yoga massage training course this past summer, I found myself falling into a depression that was was catalyzed by giving and receiving some intensely profound bodywork. I picked fights with those closest around me and was often tearful. The emotions, without provocation, just spilled out of me like water from a loosed fire hydrant in the sticky hot New York summer. I was learning, processing past hurts, exploring the release of metta, loving kindness, at the hands of my fellow massage practitioners. A fellow classmate, Marianne, who had herself been having a difficult week due to problems navigating childcare for her children and the stresses of being a mother, wife, woman, and bodyworker, led me through a meditation prior to our final massage practical, in which she grounded me from the root of my spine all the way to the crown of my head. Sitting in front of me, as I held my hands in yoni mudra, she spoke softly, keeping my mind focused. Moment by moment, chakra by chakra, she spoke to me of: opening, releasing, allowing, and trusting in myself, “As you continue, know and trust that you already have the answer you are searching for, Amy.” This seemed so silly, almost patronizing in some aspects, but ultimately, it was what I needed to hear. A woman I had met only days prior, believed in my ability to overcome the deep sadness and depression I found myself in in that moment, believed that I was already doing it, unbeknownst to myself through trust and love. The essence of who “I” am, guided me through this hurt- it was not “me,” my ego/reality processor, but the whole self or essence of the being I am- from the beginning of this life, just simply, my true self had been obscured by my uncanny ability to weave stories around my identity and place judgments on it like a professional mean girl.
Jacques Lacan, a psychoanalyst and philosopher doing significant work in mid-twentieth century France, wrote in, “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the I,” that human beings encounter their separateness or “otherness” the moment they realize that they are a separate and unique being from their mothers; the narrative of their unique identity is created in the moment when the infant views him or her self head on in the mirror, seeing the reflection of themselves as suddenly separate and apart from the maternal source. This stage occurs, according to Lacan, between 8-16 months of age.
How young we are when our minds start weaving difficulties for us! Based on what Lacan wrote, one can infer that there is a moment, or series of moments, before each of us recognizes our separateness and uniqueness, where we are one, whole, a part of the beautiful fabric of the universe. From that moment when we envision our “I,” our stories,our separateness, or, rather, our egos, begin generating and fashioning the belief that we are not complete, that there is something to strive for, that we are not and never have been whole. As we continue our education through life, we negotiate the “person” we end up being, forever viewed by us a:s fractured, cracked, lacking, and constantly striving to reach the goal of returning to wholeness. Repeatedly we encounter failure, when the outcomes of our commitments do not meet the expectations we have set for them; “I worked so hard and did not get promoted;” “my boyfriend dumped me, and I thought he was the one;” “I just bought these jeans, and they’ve already gotten ripped!” This hurts us, because we see the end result as the priority. What is obscured in the process is that we already are whole- our self gets shrouded by the narrative we and those around us create, the illusion of drama that brings us to the ever chronic dialogue discussed above. The only way to begin the process of trusting and loving one’s self is to engage in an active and raw confrontation of the selfishness and fear inherent in each of us.
What happens if, we commit all of our energy to doing the process, whatever it is, and inso doing, encounter an awareness that the result is ancillary? Krsna explains to Arjuna, in Stephen Mitchell’s translation of The Bhagavad Gita, when Arjuna is faced with the inevitability of waging war against his family, fighting on both sides of the battlefield,
“[…]Abandoning all desires,
acting without craving, free
from all thoughts of “I” and “mine,”
that man finds inner peace 2.67-.71[…]
Do any actions you must do.
since action is better than inaction;
even the existence of your body
depends on necessary actions.
The whole world becomes a slave
to its own activity, Arjuna;
if you want to truly be free,
perform all actions as worship 3.7-.11 […]”
What is it we must do? When we sit down and make a list of all the things we do and why , the list and its reasonings are quite revealing. The reasons we do most of the things we do has more to do with expectations we and those around us set for ourselves- “someone is expecting me to bake that cake;” “I promised I would edit that paper,” or “my boss is expecting that I finish this project.”
What actions cultivate love and trust in ourselves? We know that working hard to get something has mixed results, that often, the result is not entirely the right thing for what we hoped; perhaps the method needs a fresh perspective. What happens if we detach ourselves from those expectations and simply focus on the task at hand? Separate the things you do for your survival and well-being from the things you do for your “ego’s” survival and well-being, and what is the result? What are the skin and bones must haves on our lists of things to do? How much of what you must do to survive and enhance your well-being cultivate love and trust? Whatever the answer to these questions are, if you give yourself the gift of a solid chunk of time to sit at a table with a piece of paper and pencil, to literally scrawl out every last possibility, perhaps the result will shine some light on the person “you” are and have always been.
Copyright 2012 Amy Hellman
Lilayoga- divine play of life 