Ego, Identity, And The Story We Cling To

We question ego and identity as stories we rehearse, explore how comparison fuels isolation, and look for steady ways to live closer to an authentic self without burning everything down. From roles to programs to community, we test the edges of freedom and belonging.

• ego as a force born from comparison and aloneness
• identity as a story reinforced by roles and labels
• mixed identities and the shock of nonconformity
• when ambition helps and when it harms
• the myth of the “good life” and borrowed standards
• authenticity as connection rather than performance
• programs, parts and beliefs that confine choice
• can ego die and what “ego death” really means
• community fear conformity and discrediting the outsider
• small experiments to widen identity and find freedom

Chapters

• 0:00 Winter Scene And A Big Question
• 0:37 Do Dogs Have Ego
• 1:13 What Is Identity Made Of
• 3:07 Playing Roles And Mixed Identities
• 4:24 Change The Story Change The Self
• 5:15 Ego Versus Identity
• 6:25 Ego As Creator And Destroyer
• 7:38 Comparison Aloneness And The Script
• 10:03 Authentic Self And Connection
• 12:17 Programs Conformity And Control
• 14:21 Can Ego Die
• 16:15 Community Fear And Nonconformity
• 18:07 Finding Freedom In Small Acts
• 19:19 Unwinding Beliefs And Closing

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:07

We are on the line.

SPEAKER_00: 0:11

Ice covered paradise.

SPEAKER_02: 0:13

That's right.

SPEAKER_00: 0:13

Coated in ice. And I'm sure the days are getting longer. I just haven't noticed yet.

SPEAKER_02: 0:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 0:20

But the sky's getting light. We're all up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 0:24

Takes uh chewing on one of the thousand bones we got for Christmas.

SPEAKER_00: 0:31

Pretty content. Yeah. That's a good idea. Good good little uh segue there. I wonder if dogs have ego.

SPEAKER_02: 0:41

Well, ego just a human construct. Like, does it even exist?

SPEAKER_00: 0:47

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 0:53

Well, it's just a word, right?

SPEAKER_00: 0:56

Every word is just a human construct. Symbols of symbols. I suppose language is a construct.

SPEAKER_02: 1:03

Is ego what makes us human? Like, do monkeys have egos?

SPEAKER_00: 1:10

There you go. See, I wonder. I wonder. We were talking about identity and the way we see ourselves. Identity being also a construct. This person that I am. If someone was to say, Who are you? You know, what aspects of my being would I turn to to describe that? So many people would start with their job or start with their education if they're in education, or they would start with their retirement if they're in retirement. I'm not saying that's good or bad, but it's interesting that that's what we turn to. When we say, who are you? What's my identity? We might turn, if we're thinking positively, we might turn to our skills and abilities that we have worked on over decades. You know, we might use judgment words like good or bad. I'm good at this, I'm bad at that, I'm a good person, I'm a bad person. Those are you know a thousand themes along those lines. You know, uh how I how I identify myself as being unique in a world full of human beings, where no two are the same, like snowflakes, yet within a family, they can be very similar. You can even have twins. Yeah, we have an identity, and sometimes that identity serves us because we serve it, because we continue to feed into it, we stay focused on it, and that defines our life's actions. And sometimes it doesn't serve us because it feels like it confines us, it stops us when we examine why we say we can't do new exciting things. You know, we often just say to ourselves, I'm not that kind of person.

SPEAKER_02: 3:06

Yeah, yeah. A lot of people get stuck in their jobs, and well, I'm an accountant, I can't do that, or I'm a teacher, I can't do that.

SPEAKER_00: 3:17

It used to be one of those things that was a point of conversation all the time with my clients. When I was a lawyer and identified as a lawyer and played the part of the lawyer, today I play the part of the lawyer. You know, when the clients would find out that I was also a musician and that I was playing in a big band, and we had shows, you know, every month, um, they thought that was just incompatible. Like you couldn't be both. You can't be a lawyer and a musician. The the two ideas, the two identities didn't seem to be able to fit for them. And they would they would want to talk about it. And how do you do that? And those kinds of things. Um, because for others, when they look at us and we tell them what our identity is, they might react, you know, geez, you don't act that way, or geez, you don't seem like that kind of person, or that's that's not how I've come to know you. So it's kind of identity is also the kind of thing that we construct for each other based on what we we speak about.

SPEAKER_02: 4:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 4:22

And I guess the whole purpose of that podcast for me was, of course, to be helpful and be helpful into thinking that if you're loving your identity and it's a construct that you're just in love with, then go after it. And if it's if you're not loving your identity, then you're free to change it. Anything we create, we can recreate. Anything that we decide to build for ourselves, we can walk away from and build again. It's the beauty of time.

SPEAKER_02: 4:54

And I I think we spoke briefly about how the ego keeps us in that identity. It wants to attach itself to the identity so that it can feel alive. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00: 5:08

There's there's a great first question. You know, what's the difference between ego and identity? Which serves which? Does identity serve ego? In some ways, you can see how building an identity, getting uh deep into particular things, practices, uh, occupations can serve the ego, and the ego can serve the building of an identity. Yeah, but they don't seem to be the same thing, do they?

SPEAKER_02: 5:43

Well, I don't think so. I I've got written down there, it's the the ego can be a creator and a destroyer. In many ways, I see the ego as something that helps motivate us in the beginning of things that we do, anything that we do. And then there's all sorts of things that can come up along the way, like, well, what why is the mo why is the ego pushing us to do this? Is it actually something we want to do? And then it can go too far and be the destroyer, pushing and pushing and pushing to hold on to that identity, let's say. So it sort of gets us into the identity, and then it, you know, we can we hear people talk about keeping the ego in check.

SPEAKER_00: 6:36

What would that mean? She's going to town on that poem. Yeah. What would that mean, keeping the ego in check?

SPEAKER_02: 6:46

Well, let's I'll I'll take myself for an example. So in the last podcast, I spoke about how my ego sort of got me in trouble. I don't know if trouble is the right word, but it led me down a path of sort of climbing the ladder, wanting to the wanting to be the best of the best in my field, wanting is the word like notoriety.

SPEAKER_00: 7:11

Yep, I suppose.

SPEAKER_02: 7:13

I yeah, and and that got me into some hot water emotionally and and physically. And so when I let that whole life go, my ego didn't die per se, but it when I went down the road of becoming a hypnotist, anything that I did as a hypnotist, I always was checking it, like, okay, do I really, do I really want to do this? Or why am I doing this? Yeah, I I would add to my hypnosis training in many different ways. Lots of little things. And I would always be asking myself, am I doing this for the right reasons? Am I just doing this so that I can say I'm so and so? That's that's where you know it would get me in trouble.

SPEAKER_00: 8:09

So we were sort of at the crossroads of talking about the positive and negative aspects of what ego is. And it really depends on how you define it. And I think there's some interesting ways to approach it. And I think two big ideas. The the first big idea is that ego arises when we begin to compare ourselves to others. It's that comparison that that triggers an almost defensive approach to who you think you have become. And there's a sense of aloneness in ego, but it's up to me. This is what I've created. I'm all alone. And then with that comes that sense of, you know, that that story we tell ourselves. And that's why I always, you know, start off. I don't like seeing ego as positive or negative. I like to see it for what it is. Um, it's a force that arises from our sense of being alone, that there's just us. It's me against the world. Look what I've accomplished against such odds.

SPEAKER_01: 9:18

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00: 9:20

And it it's built on a bit of a false premise, the false story that we tell our kids and then tell ourselves, and then tell others, and reinforce that there's a particular good way to live and a particular bad way to live. And the particular good way to live results with you with lots of stuff and a big home and long vacations and nice clothes and a fancy car, and that's doing it right. And anything else is not. And that too is a bit of a lie. So it's really interesting how we we construct these things that lead us to a force within us that's built on a false interpretation of who and what you are. And then you can use that positively to keep you moving forward as motivation to build your identity, but you can also use it as a bit of a blunt tool against others, comparing yourself and sounding, you know, we often criticize people that they show a lot of ego when we we get a sense that they're kind of full of themselves. I think that people fall into that trap because they truly believe they're alone, that it's them against the world. And they lose sense of how how they became who they are, how involved others were, how you know we are social beings, and and we can't not be social beings. It's you can't survive in our world without being part of a tribe of some kind in some way, multiple tribes, really.

SPEAKER_02: 11:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 11:10

And I think that that's where we we sort of separate on the road from defining identity to defining ego. There just there's some ideas, I think, that lead us to that that ultimate observation, which is an ego or an identity is a story we tell ourselves about ourselves. It's generally filled with blame. It's somebody else's fault that I'm not further down the road, that I'm not more than what I am, that I didn't achieve that, that I didn't get the opportunity. And then the the claiming of pride, you know, look what I did in spite of the odds, look what I've accomplished in spite of my situation, right? You know, I wasn't one of those that had privilege. And look what I have accomplished. It's it's very much a comparison with a sense of being alone.

SPEAKER_02: 12:08

I wonder how many people and I I want to stress here, like we we have our egos, you know, and we have our identities. And we're just we just like the thought of unpacking this and looking at it and and testing it ourselves, you know. I think I it's obviously different for everybody, but I think everyone at some level must ask themselves if they're truly happy at some point, even just this little smidgen, right? So the person the person with the fancy car, fancy house, and big job. I bet just somewhere they they they feel they might have that little smidgen of feeling of, well, am I really happy with all this? You know, and whether that takes from achieving all that a few moments or months or years, I guess maybe that's where the ego comes into to play. Where the ego could say, you know, well, don't look at that, don't don't think about that because you deserve this, or you, you know, and not saying that a nice house and a nice car and a good job is bad. Like that's definitely not the case. I think it's how you how you attach yourself to it is the difference. How you view yourself in relation to other people because of it is a difference. And so I think those are the things to sort of look at and and and not saying that you have to get rid of the car and get rid of the house and get rid of everything in order to look at it, look at the identity and look at the ego. I truly think you can have those things and still be insightful. We have a question here of what is the ego? Yeah, we speak like it's a separate entity from ourself. Yeah, we do, don't we? Like something that's pushing us around.

SPEAKER_00: 14:23

Yeah, that's why I like the definition of it's a story we tell ourselves about ourselves, and then we we promote that story. We we dive into that story and and we we build it. I think about, you know, uh the ego, I think, is not something that we would often use describing ourselves. So if we were describing ourselves, we'd be using the term identity. This is my identity. And it's based on on the larger context of what we think is the world and what we think others are, and how we think we're supposed to experience this world and build it fit into this world and establish our place in this world. And I think that we tend to think of the ego negatively, and I think that's because it's built in comparison. I think, you know, when I when I think about, you know, there's a there's a common diagnosis out there, a common label that we're using these days, talking about narcissists and narcissistic tendencies. And I think that if you were to approach that from the perspective of this person that you're labeling a narcissist, and realize that they see themselves as alone, that everything is outside themselves. Everything, including all the people in their lives, are just things for them to manage on their path to where they want to be. And that there's uh an almost closed-offness, I think, driven by defensiveness against people in the world. And that it that, I think, is an example of ego gone bad. And that's acknowledging that central part of ego, the central part of ego is that I'm alone and I am comparing my level of happiness to others. You know, I think that there's a lot of power in the phrase authentic self. But the authentic self is hard to achieve when you don't have a real awareness of your connection to others, and that you're never alone, that your your genuine self is being guided, it's being loved from the other side, it's surrounded by others that are reacting to whatever you put out there. You're just never alone, and that even your identity that you've constructed that you that you can come to love has been contributed to, encouraged, reinforced, supported by others. Even if it's even if the only place you can look at it is luck and timing. Yes, there it requires a lot of individual effort to to achieve anything in this world, anything at all.

SPEAKER_02: 17:21

What's coming to mind, Soria, there's a lot of uh on reels, whether it be Instagram or TikTok or Facebook, there's reels of people going out and interviewing, usually it's older women, older being like in their 70s and 80s. And what I find fascinating is these women are they're they just they're they're all dressed up and whether it's like um high-end fashion or bright colors, big glasses, like cool hair, and they're in their 70s and 80s. And when I go through the comments, there's so many people saying, Oh, I I hope to be like them when I get older. I want to be like this, I wish I could be like that. And I start to think about how, and I think about it too, you know, I've got some chunky necklaces and fun stuff to wear, and and it takes, and I it's like I want to wear it, but it's like, well, what will people think of me, or what will people say, or who will, you know, is that me? Uh I don't know, you know, it's so you see all these people. So I think it's across the board. People just want to be, like you said, their authentic self, but it is a recognition that we're not we're not alone. We're we're part of this whole and part of this creative force on earth, this human, this human creativity that that wants to express itself in so many ways. But I think we get caught up in the what the expression means. Does that make sense? I don't even know.

SPEAKER_00: 19:14

Sure it does. I mean, it it's it's the battle, you know. E. E. Cummings has a quote, something to the effect of to be yourself in a world that's trying to make you like everything else is the hardest battle you'll ever fight. You know, in the quest to be the authentic self, it starts with an awareness, I think, that I am because we are. There is one life. We all share it, and we're all part of a larger creation that's incomplete without us. The ego will have a real tendency to pat you on the back for successes that you felt like you had to overcome something. The ego. Will be negative. It will attack you. It will tell you that you're not good enough. It will tell you that you're not worthy. And all of those terms, all of the conditions that it uses to attack you are really someone else's definition. And you're busy comparing yourself to what you think should happen, right? Who you think you should be, what you think you should have accomplished, what a good person does, what a bad person does. There's all of that constant comparison that drives you away from even an awareness then of your oneness with all and your uniqueness to all, and your own personal role to the whole, which certainly cannot be defined by a singular vision that says, go to school, get a job, make money, have this, have this, have this, create this. There are certainly some people where that path has been wonderful, but I think it's created havoc as well. I think the fact that we live in a world with high incidence of divorce, that we live in a world of blended families, of people seeking, trying to find a way to make this caricature of humans work for them, I think interferes. You know, we live in a world of programs. Program from the instant you arrive in the world. The world has all kinds of rules, right? It's it's filled with systems that you have to comply with, whether that's education or the healthcare system. There are all these different aspects of the world's controls that keep us all in line. And then we introduce this self-imposed confinement, this self-imposed cage that says, Well, these are my only options. And that's those are things that exist only in our mind, and stop the pursuit, stop the even awareness of the authentic self. What is unique about us? And I think that those I've all I this is where I've come to, and it's been confirmed to me, you know, that your curiosities, the things that stimulate your interest, that's that's unique to you. And the things you feel compelled to do and to create, that's the way it gets expressed. And the programs and the controls and this self-imposed confinement create unto themselves a kind of a negative interpretation, a negative comparison of me and my level of success. And so, in many respects, I think that that ego is the tool that wants to keep us thinking we're alone, that we're not good enough, that we're not worthy, that it's other people's fault, that I haven't achieved more, that the world is working against me. Yeah, I think those are the big elements.

SPEAKER_02: 23:25

Yeah. Until you just said that, I had it in my mind to ask the question of is it actually the ego that beats us up mentally? In the chat, we've got something very similar. We we make it positive and negative, giving it those characteristic characteristics. And I think about how I think about how with with clients and myself, those beating those thoughts of uh beating ourselves up, it's usually parts work, and then that part leads to somebody else that have has said that to us in our life, and we've taken it on. So I wonder how much the ego is built by other people.

SPEAKER_00: 24:12

Absolutely. I mean, you could you could say that the ego is a collection of beliefs about myself as compared to others. My identity as well are is my beliefs about myself in comparison to others. And the beliefs really interfere with our authenticity, our ability to speak to and be in touch with our deepest self. So I'm sitting here watching a muskrat come up and down out of the ice, and also watching the chickadees eat the seeds, and don't say it that a tree being, if I say the word the dog will get crazy, a tree being out there eating the seeds, and each is simply being who they are, and in that process, they contribute to the world as a whole. We couldn't eliminate any of them, that would create an imbalance, and each serves others in their existence. Well, that muskrat's having a good time. He just went under the air. I see his head poking up. Yeah, I think that we have a natural tendency, yeah, to identify ego as a negative characteristic, but I'm not sure it's a characteristic as much as it's a process that we engage in our pursuit of trying to build ourselves within that you know programmed, controlled, and confined environment. I guess in the end, if it's beliefs, and yeah, you you when a belief becomes so ingrained, it becomes a part.

SPEAKER_02: 25:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 25:59

And a belief about yourself that is deeply ingrained, when it becomes your motivating force or your greatest, I don't like the word, ration rationale, I was gonna say excuse. When it becomes your greatest reason that you can't do something, that something cannot happen, there's something you cannot be, yeah, then it starts to have a real negative force, a real negative impact.

SPEAKER_02: 26:28

Do you think the ego can actually die? We hear of you know, death of the ego.

SPEAKER_00: 26:34

Well, if you think about it as a collection of fears and comparisons and a quest to measure up to others, and you see those ideas as driving your behaviors, your choices through the day, and you release those motivating forces and take on a more spontaneous response to the world from your honest, self-loving self, then I see that the ego as a motivating force disappears. So when we talk about death of the ego, I think everybody who has a death of the ego has a different experience because they have a different ego.

SPEAKER_01: 27:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 27:18

And they have a different story that they tell themselves. You know, uh, there are many people who pursue enlightenment, and they say they say that step one in enlightenment is releasing your story, letting go of your story. What you are in this moment, with no reference to the past, is infinite potential. You can go anywhere from here, you can do anything right now. Some things that you might do lead to accomplishing larger things, and they might take more than the present moment, but they will require a series of present moments in which you apply yourself. I think, in many respects, the death of the ego is the end of judgment of yourself, of others, of that comparison, of a sense of freedom in this moment. As hypnotists, we deal with people with beliefs and belief structures and programs all the time. I mean, that's what we do. And they come to us because they're sometimes desperately unhappy with how things are working out, without a clue how they got to where they are, but not liking where they are.

SPEAKER_02: 28:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 28:27

In many respects, that's what brought me to hypnosis as an experiencer of hypnosis, as a user of the tool of hypnosis. And sometimes it's just that recognition that our ego and our identity are just stories that we tell ourselves and that unfortunately we cling to because we don't have anything to replace it, or we're afraid of replacing it, because we're afraid we don't measure up against others.

SPEAKER_02: 28:56

Yeah, it's it's a funny thing because I've I've thought along my life path that I've had moments of ego death, whether it lasts a day or a few weeks, and then it and then it comes back. Not as strong, but it comes back. And so I wonder sometimes uh when people talk about ego death, if if it can actually completely die forever and ever, you know, you know, in this lifetime.

SPEAKER_00: 29:26

Well, I think we've talked about some of the processes that that build ego, some of the ideas that create ego. So I think that, you know, avoiding those processes, avoiding comparing yourself to others, stepping back away from the program and saying, I can have, do, or be anything I want. I am free. And yeah, in many respects, the world is going to do everything it can to dash those thoughts from your mind. But they're the truth. You are infinite potential in a moment.

SPEAKER_02: 30:02

I find that people tend to, and I think I went through this a little bit, or a lot, depending on the day. But I've seen it with clients, I've seen it with people on journeys of enlightenment or introspection, is this feeling like, well, nothing really matters now. So what do I do? Right? If my job doesn't matter, if and they they have this infinite, like you said, infinite potential, but now it's like, well, why even try? And it's not like they want to stop everything or stop the life. It's just that they are like, what is the point? Do you do you find that with people?

SPEAKER_00: 30:52

Well, I find that with myself, yeah. Yeah, like it I think that as one tries to examine their identity, tries to not succumb to the individualized, fearful, lonely nature of ego, they they bump into their program. Their program compels them to move back towards it. And that comparison to others creates an enormous amount of fear, right? Like it's not just, you know, I'm not good enough, it's you know, I don't fit in anymore. Yeah, right. And and uh the human part of us, the the body part of us, really is aware of the safety of being part of the whole. And we, when we see somebody who has stepped away, right, has stepped away from the system as it is, the program of the world, you know, we we call them crazy. We we push them away from us. We might envy their freedom for a moment when we pause and we examine it, but it might also just scare the crap out of us to be around them.

SPEAKER_02: 32:07

And we should be clear, we don't call them crazy. But the ja you know how it is, the general population. We we label, we we put yeah, what's that? There's a word for it where people do it in in politics, especially, where if someone says something, they'll just make them out to be a tinfoil hat person and get everybody against them kind of thing. Discredit them. Discredit, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's an interesting thought process. Do you think that is out of fear?

SPEAKER_00: 32:40

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02: 32:42

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 32:43

Absolutely. It's completely out of fear. And I think some of that fear comes back is part of our nature as as human beings, as physical bodies, and some of that, well, a lot of it is programmed into us.

SPEAKER_02: 32:57

Yeah. I think when we are uh I've mentioned this on the podcast a few times, because I think it's the truth, is this idea of community, right? So if you think of let's let's take let's take aliens as an example. So now it's shifting. There's because there's a huge community rising of people that believe that they're here. But let's say back in the 50s there wasn't as much of a community. So when there was something like Roswell, can't remember what year that was, but there the the one of the things that happened was after Roswell, they had in the US government a news briefing on it, and they brought out somebody dressed up as an alien, right? And this made everyone laugh, and it was like just discrediting the whole thing, right? And if you think about someone in that time period who may have wanted to believe, they would lose their sense of community, right? People around them would ostracize them. And the people that maybe those people were a little into it too, but the fear of losing their community turned them into people that made fun of or were were mean to, you know. Yeah, exactly. Conformity keeps us in place. Yeah, that's from the chat. So I think that at a base level in our brains somewhere from many, many eons ago, we are scared of losing our community because to lose our community means that we're ousted from our our village, and then we're in the we're we're basically on our own. And to be on our own as a human is is pretty scary, right? Especially way, way back. So everyone, I I think if you start to look at every single person and what they're doing as constantly looking for community, constantly looking for acceptance, you can really start to understand every single person individually pretty quickly, because they're all calling out for a community. And whether that's one other person on earth or a huge community, they're constantly doing that.

SPEAKER_00: 35:44

Yeah, I think that comparison and compliance are forces that keep us from stepping out of the norm. But there is incredible possibility, isn't there? I mean, if you could see through the program and try your own thing, you know, one of one of the ways I I would always encourage, I would say to my students, you know, the last bastion of real freedom in our society is the creation of a business, right? New idea, new thing in the marketplace. It will be subject to attack, it will be subject to criticism, it will be subject to market forces. But boy oh boy, is it an expression of freedom. I will make my way through the world, generating the money I need through a business that I create. And I will offer my own unique ideas to the world. Yeah, I think that there are little ways we can grab individuality in a healthy way, not in an ego way, in an exciting way, as an I'm worthwhile and I have something to offer, rather than a how do I fit in? Where can I, where can I be part of the system?

SPEAKER_02: 37:05

Yeah, there's some so much to think about, so many levels of this.

SPEAKER_00: 37:12

But I think it's that fear of being alone, and I think it's that comparison that causes to have negative feelings, negative emotions. And I think those are the things to avoid because the truth is you're never alone, physically or emotionally or spiritually, that you can find like-minded people, especially in a world of social media, you can find like-minded people. And there's nothing wrong with expressing that which is unique to you, it's needed.

SPEAKER_02: 37:40

Yeah. So where will we take this?

SPEAKER_00: 37:44

Well, it's it's interesting how you know I think the best we can do is show how it arises, show how it can be positive, show how it can be negative, show how we rely on it and we don't need to, to show how we have a tendency to want to build a unique individuality and balance that against fitting into a world and a system so that we can be safe and be part of a tribe, part of a group.

SPEAKER_02: 38:13

Not judged.

SPEAKER_00: 38:14

Yeah. And that the things that that push us away from peace of mind there are things like comparison and judgment. Yeah. And I I I can't, you know, for from my perspective, I only want to encourage people to see through their programs, three, see through their beliefs and their parts to find their way again. The programming is thick, the programming is extensive and it's been going on for the whole of your life. It's not going to be easy to unwind. It's not easy to see through. But I hope that our little thought experiments here are helpful.

SPEAKER_02: 38:56

Okay, so thanks for hanging out today, and have a good day, and we'll see you later.