Coffee With Hilary and Les from State of Mind Hypnosis and Training Centre
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Coffee With Hilary and Les from State of Mind Hypnosis and Training Centre
Unmasking Ego Without Judgment: The Story We Tell Ourselves About Ourselves
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What if the ego isn't something to battle, but simply "the story we tell ourselves about ourselves"? In this thought-provoking exploration, Hilary and Les unpack how our self-narratives shape our entire experience of life—and how we can transform them.
Most of us swing like pendulums between harsh self-criticism and compensatory self-inflation, trapped in judgment patterns that close off possibilities. This judgment becomes the dream-state that lulls us to sleep, running the same 90,000 thoughts day after day. But what if we could wake up?
Drawing from ancient Greek philosophy through modern psychology, Hilary and Les reveal how the concept of ego has evolved while maintaining its essential nature as self-narrative. The Stoics viewed attachment to ego as a barrier to wisdom, with Epictetus noting, "It's not events that disturb us, but our opinions about them"—a perspective that resonates powerfully today.
What we commonly call "ego death" in spiritual circles isn't about destroying identity, but transcending separation—shifting focus from isolated individuality to our connection with the collective. True freedom comes not from eliminating the ego but rewriting it with intention, focusing on our inherent capacities to learn, grow, and create.
The path forward is surprisingly simple: begin by acknowledging your unique qualities and abilities. Challenge those habitual "I can't" thoughts. Even changing just 5% of your daily thought patterns can dramatically transform your experience of life. Remember that confidence isn't arrogance—it's knowing you can handle whatever life brings.
Ready to begin writing a new story? Visit psalmhypnosis.com to book a free one-hour journey meeting with Hilary or Les and discover how hypnosis can help you make your life what you want it to be.
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I'll offer the refrain, the refrain of the idea of ego. It's the story we tell ourselves about ourselves, and I think it's like a pendulum. We we swing back and forth from telling a really really negative story about ourselves to swinging back the other way and wanting to tell a really really positive story about ourselves, and back and forth is just the momentum of judgment. Welcome to Coffee with Hilary and Les. We are a couple of hypnotists who have created a podcast about freeing our minds from old ideas, old thoughts and old habits, those old things that interfere with our ability to make fresh new choices. It's time for us all to create the life of our dreams Rainy day, Lush and green. We are fully into well, the beginning of summer, I guess. Are you sure about that? Well, it's not like summer, where you're complaining about the heat, but it's very definitely green and growing and the gardens are really coming to life.
Speaker 2:Yes, for sure late spring.
Speaker 1:The birds, all the geese have had their babies, the swans had their babies. There's all these little babies out there. Yeah, they're not afraid of any more snow so'm not gonna be, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 2:So today we're talking about the ego, ego seemed like a good topic.
Speaker 1:it's uh it uh. Had a client yesterday where it seemed like the right thing to focus on and talk about, and I always say that my clients come to teach me things. That's the beauty of having clients. They come to me for help and hypnosis and they teach me so much about my own mind and my own personhood. And so we talked about ego and how ego itself as a concept has such negative connotations.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've really turned it into something you know. Yeah, we've really turned it into something you know, not something inquisitive and something to look at, but something to banish.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, and if anybody ever feels good about themselves, we say that they have a lot of ego. Yeah, yeah, I think that that needs to change.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:People need to feel good about themselves. They need to be able to look in the mirror and acknowledge that. You know, I'm a process and I'm getting better every day and that's my goal. You know that sort of expansive mindset to approach life and say you know, things are getting better and I can become more and I can learn more, and I can become more and I can learn more and I can do more. And that kind of broad approach to life is just so much more helpful and so much happier. Oh, I was ticked, and so it's really. I think it's a concept that, in understanding, you can understand how this focus on the self and a negative focus on the self or an unreasonably positive focus on the self, a grandiose kind of focus on the self you can see how that can be detrimental. Detrimental to getting along with others, detrimental in advancing your own interests, detrimental to really expanding your life so what would we call egomaniacs?
Speaker 1:just maniacs, or well, I think today the modern term we use is narcissist, but, um, you know, that's another one we could examine for a while. This, this terminology, because it gets thrown around a lot, and I think that you know, as as I, as I talked about yesterday and it's one of the things I talk about all the time with clients I think it's a big step in everyone's life when they can use a little Shakespeare. Shakespeare said nothing's ever good or bad, but thinking makes it so, and I think that we need to acknowledge our tendency to judge and our tendency to label things as good or bad, and that that's not always helpful.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Things themselves are pretty neutral.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And even what we might refer to as a negative thing is simply a lesson right A negative experience is a lesson.
Speaker 2:And how many negative things have happened in your life that, when you look back, like negative things have happened in your life. That, when you look back, if it hadn't have happened, you wouldn't be where you are now in this great space, right?
Speaker 1:that's huge, isn't it right? Because because we do learn from having negative experiences if we want to, but we can also turn it into ego and that's what we were talking about yesterday, and I think it's really valuable to think about that. That idea that, uh well, let's, let's, I'll offer the refrain, the reframe of the idea of ego. It's the story we tell ourselves about ourselves. It's the story we tell ourselves about ourselves. The story we tell ourselves about ourselves.
Speaker 1:And I think it's like a pendulum we swing back and forth from telling a really, really negative story about ourselves.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:To swinging back the other way and wanting to tell a really really positive story about ourselves. Yeah, to swinging back the other way and wanting to tell a really really positive story about ourselves, and back and forth is just the momentum of judgment. This is good, this is bad.
Speaker 1:This is good, this is bad and I think to start with that idea, that judgment, that unnecessary next step, that going from preference to condemnation is part of why ego becomes a problem for people and why other people's egos become problems for them, I there's there's value in stepping back from judgment yeah but you did some looking. What's the? What's the history of the concept of ego?
Speaker 2:yeah. So I thought I initially, before I looked, that ego came from Greek stuff, greece Greek stuff. And then I looked it up on Google and it was just talking about Freud and I thought, no, it's got to be older than that. So what did we do? We went to the great AI and we looked it up. So it does go back in a way to greece, the greek word ego. It just means I right. But it wasn't. It wasn't what we make it today, this philosophical part of it that we use in psychology. So you know soccer to use, or what did you call him socrates?
Speaker 2:that's from socrates excellent socrates had this idea of know thyself, so sort of along the same, you know means, same lines, focused on virtue and self examination. Not this idea of ego is pride that we sort of make it out to be now as we've. We've sort of made it, made it the devil on your shoulder. Let's say Plato talked about logos being reason, thymus, if I'm saying these right spirit and emotion, epithyma, desire. And the balanced person is one where reason rules over other parts. So what we call ego today might show up in Plato's idea of thymus, the assertive, honor-seeking part of the soul. Plato's idea of thymos, the assertive, honor-seeking part of the soul, right Aristotle focused on rationality. Self-worth came from living virtuously, not self-importance. So again, you know, seeing the ego in all of that. The Stoics this was interesting saw ego as a barrier to wisdom, and that barrier is pride, opinion or attachment, and it urged detachment from external validation and emotional reactions. It valued humility and self-mastery. And this was interesting. A quote from Epictetus. Epictetus, epictetus.
Speaker 1:I'm thinking of it, Epictetus.
Speaker 2:It's not events that disturb us, but our opinions about them. And that sort of goes back to what we were talking about this morning about judgment. Right, it's how we look at events in our life and we judge them, Everything from you know a big event to a small event. You know someone cuts you off in the line at the grocery store or something I don't know, and we judge that as bad. Right. But again, like I said earlier, before we turn on the podcast, you know who knows we judge it as bad in that moment, but who knows where that might lead us moment. But who knows where that might lead us? Right, it might lead us to you know something great happening, that that we needed those extra few minutes waiting in line, right?
Speaker 1:just something to think about well, and it's just the difference judgment really closes off opportunity. Right, things are brought to us, sometimes in what we would interpret as positive ways, or sometimes as negative ways, and then, because we judge it as negative, we lose the opportunity that's inside it. You know, even being, you know, cut off by somebody in the grocery store, this could be your new best friend standing in front of you, and they might actually, you know, be be off, lost in their own thoughts about their own story. And I didn't even see you there. I think there's very seldom as anybody actually have a negative desire. Very seldom do people want to hurt other people. They're just trying to advance their own interests and get things going or whatever.
Speaker 1:So the point that I'm trying to make is that when events happen and we jump to judgment, we close off a whole world of growth that could be sitting there waiting for us. Within that and in fact it's very seldom can people look back on negative events in their lives. And if they look back on those negative events and say that was negative and my life was ruined because of it, then they've put a negative judgment on it and they didn't learn the lesson that was waiting there for them in that they didn't learn what they could have learned from that. And there are others who look at those events and say, oh geez, you know, like that, that I experienced that really negatively, but it taught me this and this and this, and because of that, my whole life has gone in a different trajectory and I've become really clear about new ideas and new purposes.
Speaker 1:And and it really is there are people who will tell you that you know that the horrible things I mean many of these motivational speakers that we all turn to right, they've had some negative event in their life that they turned into a positive and we admire them because we know how easy it is for the rest of us to say, holy crap, that was awful, you know that would have ruined me, right, but it's really.
Speaker 1:It comes back to that idea that our ego is a story we tell ourselves about ourselves, and you can really see how it's very easy to turn that story against ourselves, right? It's really easy for us to start to see our lives as a series of negative events, which then means that somehow my life is no good and that, by implication, means I'm no good and that my future is dark, and it's really, you know, when you step back and say well, if my ego is the story I tell myself about myself, if I could eliminate this negative judgment that I fall into and just start talking about the positive things, start telling my story in a way that sounds pretty good, right?
Speaker 1:And not in some conceited, arrogant look at me. I'm all that in a bag of chips way. It's more of being honest about your progress and your development and your future as having infinite possibilities. The story we tell ourselves about ourselves, I think, creates limits on our future and it creates barriers to new choices, deciding to do different things. You know how many people say I can't do that or I could never do that or I could never do those kinds of things, and that's well. It's just not true, right? Any person can do anything if they want to put their mind to it, but it's really a decision based on their past to tell themselves I can't.
Speaker 1:I can't do that.
Speaker 2:In hypnosis we have a script that is Enhancement, basically, and it's about helping someone just feel like they can do things right, feel like they can go through their day feeling better and better every single day. You know, no matter what. Feeling better and better every single day, you know, no matter what. And it just made me think just now about how there's this whole movement of oh, we got to kill the ego, right. But I think over the years I used to think that and over the years I've started to think more and more about well, ego is sort of a little bit of a motivator, right, it motivates you. It's when it drives you, it's the one in this, you know, in the, in the driver, in the, in the car, and you're in the passenger seat. That's where it can get out of hand.
Speaker 2:But I think, little kids, unfortunately, we can kill their egos, right, we can push them down. And then you have clients coming in who need ego boosts. Right, we need to. We need to help to motivate them again, because they've been told that you know, oh, you can't do that, or don't let, don't let it go to your head, or like. I've heard a lot of things over the years about parents not giving too much praise, right, because we don't, they don't. They don't want their kids to think they're all that in a bag of chips, as we say, right? So I think ego is important, and maybe I'm getting off track here, but I think that it's good to have ego, but let it be in the passenger seat instead of the driver's seat instead of the driver's seat.
Speaker 1:Well, I think the natural tendency is to think of ego as either this really arrogant thing or this really self-destructive thing, right and and we don't see the middle ground at all, we don't see the possibilities of its. Well, first of all, we don't see that it's actually a neutral thing. It is in terms of spiritual advancement. We want to be less motivated by the individual and more and more motivated by the collective, in other words, to see ourselves as connected to everything and have that drive us. And so there's a real tendency in spiritual circles to sort of look at ego and label it as evil and negative. And I see how it's possible that an incredible focus on ourselves as as individuals really inhibits, really inhibits our, our collective advancement. But if we were to simplify it and I just really think that that's a very powerful refrain to say it's just the story I tell myself about myself, and that story could actually become really spiritual, right, I am a child of the universe.
Speaker 1:I am filled with unique insights and abilities and filled with lovability, filled with capacities to create. If that's the story that we're telling ourselves about ourselves, then that kind of story we can look at others and say that's the same story for them. You know, everyone around me is this kind of story.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so now what I want to do is add details to my story that enhance that, yeah, that build that inherent beauty that every human being has in them, that inherent creativity and curiosity that every human being has in them, and start their story there, rather than starting your story with your past yeah and mostly focused on the negative past yeah, I think about people that have had, uh, quite deep spiritual experiences, whether you know.
Speaker 2:They find that in meditation or through plant medicine, and they talk about having an ego death experience. And I wonder, you know, I think that's what we've called it. So people say that their ego died, but I more wonder if it's more of the death of judgment, the death of separation instead.
Speaker 1:Yeah, ego death is, I think, a great term when what it means is that I've become less focused on me and the way I interpret the world and become more focused on the power of the collective, the power of us together.
Speaker 1:You know the, the, the what do they call it? The result is greater than the sum of the parts. When human beings are collaborative, when human beings come together, it's amazing the stuff we do. And when human beings feel isolated, when human beings feel sort of disconnected, that's when they start to really dysfunction. And so this idea of being focused on me and my story and becoming focused on us and our story, I think that's a really great use of the concept of ego death and I also think it's like you know.
Speaker 1:I think about ego being an attachment, like that's a great word. You know, we become attached to our story. It's not just that we have a story, it's that it's my story and, regardless of what it is, it's my story. I've not just that we have a story, it's that it's my story and regardless of what it is, it's my story. I've gotten used to it. I've told it to myself a whole bunch of times. I now believe in it. Don't tell me that I'm wrong, don't tell me that I don't have this kind of negative story in me.
Speaker 1:And what happens in that attachment is. We tell that story to ourselves over and over and over and it becomes like a dream state. It becomes our focus. It's what's going on in our mind over and over and over. It's that idea where our mind has thoughts 90,000 a day. Most of them are the same as yesterday and we become really attached and driving those thoughts over and over and over.
Speaker 1:And to me that's what we mean when we say we awaken. That is a process. Thinking the same thoughts over and over and over puts you to sleep. It puts you deep inside that little world you've created and the rest of the real world that's out there waiting for you is lost. You've become completely asleep to the world. And this is where I like the term waking up. I've woken up to the possibilities that if I use my mind in a way that builds me, that I can tell a whole new story, that in fact, I can stop this story I've been telling myself. Right now, I'm just not going to tell it to myself anymore. I am now going to consider what my story might be.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And this is where you start to change what you think every day. You know, joe Dispenza is really great at this stuff. It's really his focus, right the idea of telling yourself a different story so that you open the possibilities for a very different life. If you can't change your thoughts, you're not going to change your life. You've got to change how you think about your life to be able to make changes in your life.
Speaker 1:So you know, to me it's that when the ego becomes dark and centralized and becomes a story we tell ourselves, without variation, that is inherently negative and inherently limited, we get trapped in it and when we break out of it, the ego death and the waking up into the infinite possibilities that are really there for you and you begin to tell yourself a different story. You know, I have talents, I have abilities, I have my own curiosity, I have my own interests, I have people who love me and who I love. I have years ahead of me. Maybe, if it's even, if it's only days, even it's only minutes, I have time ahead of me to recreate my story.
Speaker 2:That's the beginning of a whole other kind of life yeah, and even if you know you don't have to take those 60,000 to 90,000 thoughts a day and and turn every single one on its head, imagine what it would be like just to take 5% of those thoughts and and try to make a change, and you know. At first I can understand why it might be scary, right? Because, well, what does it mean about me if I, we don't want to be wrong? Right, think about humans. We don't want to be wrong. We want our story, our reality to be what we judge as right.
Speaker 2:Right, that's why you see people fighting about things all over the internet and face-to-face. Sometimes it's this idea that I want to be the right person, I don't want to be the wrong person. And so to change that and to think well, maybe there is another way of thinking, maybe there's another way. I mean, how many times have we thought, oh, I really want to try that, I want to. Maybe, I want to do that. But then that thought comes up well, wait a minute, no, I, that's stupid, or no, I can't do that. Right, where did those thoughts come from? I bet you, at one, two years old, if you wanted to try something, you've got your hands into it right, you did it and and we just have these, these thoughts that you know we talk about this all the time.
Speaker 1:They aren't our own, hmm, yeah, we receive all kinds of interpretations from others. You know, I think of it just as simply as the difference between reading a book and writing a book. When I'm reading a book, that story is the story that I'm in and I'm going to pursue that story and I'm going to pursue that story. But it's a wholly different idea to write a book. So to think in terms of yourself, as my ego is telling me this same story over and over and over, and I'm attached to it, I'm clinging to it. For better or worse, it is me and then saying no, no, no, no, no, I can write a different story. Starting right now, I can write a different story. So imagine yourself sitting down and trying to write the story you're going to tell yourself about yourself. And start off. It's a simple, simple exercise. Take a piece of paper and start to list the good things about you, the healthy, wonderful, loving, expressive things about you, the uniqueness and talents that you bring to bear on the world around you. Start to write the story about this character right. Finish the sentence I am now something positive, I am something wonderful, I do things that are really good about what you do. Start to rewrite that story in your mind and see how that feels, because you're going to generate some really wild feelings.
Speaker 1:This is not an exercise in trying to create a negative, positive ego, an arrogant ego. That's not. The positive Confidence comes from knowing that you can handle what life has to offer. So what are the characteristics about you? And one of the characteristics that are is about everybody. Everyone learns, everyone has the capacity to learn and grow, and everyone has the capacity to create Right. To create right and so to be focused on that stuff very future oriented stuff, so that our story is being written in the context of the future, not the context of the past. Ego is just a story we tell ourselves about ourselves.
Speaker 2:It's time to tell a better story yeah, yeah, my brain is just swirling, my mind is swirling.
Speaker 1:So you know, I'm so lucky that you folks out there come and see me for hypnosis. You teach me so much about myself and you remind me of all those really important things for myself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, fascinating. All right, I'm just like my thoughts are swirling, like I said. But yeah, we'll continue this discussion later. See you later. We hope you enjoyed today's podcast and that maybe it helped even a little. If you have any questions, we would love you to send them along in an email to info at psalmhypnosiscom. Thank you for being part of the State of Mind community. For more information about hypnosis and the various online or in-person services we provide, please visit our website, wwwpsalmhypnosiscom. The link will be in the notes below. While you are there, why don't you book a free one-hour journey, meeting with Hilary or Les to learn more about what hypnosis is and how you might use it to make your life what you want it to be? Bye for now. Talk to you tomorrow, thank you.
