Ego and Mental Health: How to be happy again
Most of us are familiar with how to take care of our physical health. We might not practice all the best principles everyday but we know what we have to do in order to stay healthy physically. When it comes to looking after our mental health and living a happy life, we find ourselves in an uncharted territory. The most common suggestions we receive about improving our mental health include things like:
Eat healthy
Get good sleep
Stay away from alcohol/drugs
Exercise
Talk to someone about your feelings/Ask for help
Taking care of our body and expressing our emotions definitely help with our mental health to an extend. However, they feel like quick fixes. We feel better for awhile but we always fall back into that dark place where we’re just not motivated to do anything. When it becomes a pattern, serious mental health issues such as depression and anxiety occur. When we suffer from depression or anxiety, we are actually experiencing negative emotions that come with negative thoughts in our head. Even heaven could feel like hell if we kept having negative thoughts. Our external world is a reflection of our internal state of being. If we hope to improve our mental health permanently, we need to stop addressing the surface wounds. We need to look inward, get to know our true self and heal. We spend decades learning about academic knowledge and professional skills yet we neglect the one most fundamental area - how to live. When we talk about how to live, we’re not just thinking about getting a job to support yourself, getting social recognition/approval or developing a certain lifestyle. How do we live in this physical world as an eternal being experiencing temporary human life? How do we handle thoughts and emotions? How do we live happily instead of suffering until death releases us?
Among all the books I’ve read about spirituality and self-improvement, I always come back to Eckhart Tolle’s teaching when I’m faced with challenges. His book, A New Earth, opened up the spiritual dimension within me. I started my spiritual quest after reading A New Earth and learning about the sources of suffering in my life. I’ve re-read this book a few times and each time I have a deeper understanding of the essence in spirituality. A New Earth showed me a path to disentangle from the self-imposed suffering and know who I truly am. Here are some pointers for you to start thinking about why happiness is hard to come by for you and start searching for answers that you need for your own journey of spiritual growth.
Who am I? I am __
What is the first answer that pops up in your head? Perhaps you immediately think about your name, your roles in life, your personality, etc. I never knew how to answer this question and I used to beat myself up for not knowing an answer. I thought it was because I didn’t have anything good enough to represent who I was. The truth is, none of the things that we come up with can explain who we really are.
2. How do “I” come into existence?
Your physical body came from your mother’s womb. How about the sense of “I” that you think is who you are in this physical world? This is how Eckhart Tolle explains how we become “I” in the book.
When a young child learns that a sequence of sounds produced by the parents’ vocal cords is his or her name, the child begins to equate a word, which in the mind becomes a thought, with who he or she is. At that stage, some children refer to themselves in the third person. “Johnny is hungry.” Soon after, they learn the magic word “I” and equate it with their name, which they have already equated with who they are. Then other thoughts come and merge with the original I-thought. (Eckhart, 2005, p. 28)
The sense of “I” emerges when we start learning words, their meanings and interacting with people.
3. How do “I” evolve?
Once the sense of “I” is established, the next step is developing thoughts of me and mine to designate things to be extensions of “I.” For example, a child cries when his or her toy is taken away. It doesn’t matter if the toy is a rock or an expensive toy car. As long as it’s “mine”, the owner of the toy suffers when it’s been taken away. When we inject the sense of “I” in an object, we become attached to it. When it’s broken, it feels like a part of you is broken too.
Objects are not the only thing that the sense of “I” becomes attached to. As we grow up, the “I” start to identify with a gender, pleasures, titles, roles, possessions, power, social status, opinions, knowledge, etc. “I” also identifies with things that happened to “me” in the past.
“…the memory of which are thoughts that further define my sense of self as “me and my story.” - Eckhart, P.29
With every identification created, the sense of “I” grows stronger and it becomes a mental construct - the ego.
4. Why do “I” suffer?
Most people are still completely identified with the incessant stream of mind, of compulsive thinking, most of it repetitive and pointless. There is no “I” apart from their thought processes and the emotions that go with them.” - Eckhart, P.30
The monkey mind
How long can you go without having any thought? Even when we’re by ourselves, we are constantly having a one-way “conversation” in our head. When you pass by someone on the street, you might make a comment about the outfit. Then the “voice” in your head quickly moves on to the next thought. Maybe you start thinking about a similar shirt you saw the other day and it goes on and on. What goes on in our head is insane and it’s no wonder that we suffer. When we perform an activity that we enjoy so much, we feel happy. That’s because we are so present in the activity and what’s going on “now” instead of listening to the non-stop chatter in our head. Some people enjoy strenuous activities like skydiving or rock climbing because they are required to be totally present. Others become present when reading a book, playing the piano, dancing, watching TV, etc. When we’re present, the voice in our head stops and we are happy. Eckhart shared a story about encountering an insane woman on the subway full of passengers. She was talking to herself angrily non-stop and was totally unaware of the surroundings. As he went on with his day, he was still thinking about the woman who was arguing with herself on the subway. He thought to himself, “I hope I don’t end up like her.” In that same moment, it struck him that he was already like her. His mind was as incessant as hers. The woman thought out loud while he thought quietly in his mind. The woman’s thoughts were tied with anger while his were tied with anxiety. Don’t we all have the same incessant mind like the woman on the subway?
Identification
The egoic mind is completely conditioned by the past. Its conditioning is twofold: It consists of content and structure. - Eckhart, P.34
In the case of a child who cries because his or her toy has been taken away. The content is the toy. The content we identify with is conditioned by our environment, upbringing, social group, etc. For example, a 5-year old boy is more likely to identify with a bike than a house even though a house is worth much more money. With a bike, he can hang out with his friends or even show off the bike because a bike is the thing that his friends value. If the 5-year old boy’s friends all fancy houses than it’s a different story.
The unconscious compulsion to enhance one’s identify through association with an object is built into the very structure of the egoic mind. One of the most basic mind structures through which the ego comes into existence is identification. - Eckhart, P.35
5. Ego & Happiness
It’s in ego’s nature to always want something new
Ego needs to continue to identify with something in order the sustain the sense of existence. Does this mean that we’re doomed to be unhappy because identification is the source of suffering?
“Concealed within it remains a deep-seated sense of dissatisfaction, of incompleteness, of not enough.” “I don’t have enough yet.” by which the ego means, “I am not enough yet.” - Eckhart, P. 54
Be aware of things that make you feel superior or inferior. There is nothing wrong with enjoying your possessions, buying something that you like or having a debate to express your opinions. The suffering occurs when we are unaware of another dimension within us - our true self.
The True Self
Words have its beauty and practical use. Words are labels. Words can get us closer to the truth of something but words can never express the true essence of the thing. Through the lens of labels, we can only touch the surface of the reality. The ego arises from labels and continues to grow by attaching to more labels. We’re only scratching the surface of life. There is more to who we think we are.
Ego is an alter identity that is meant to co-exist with the true self in this physical world. It is an important survival tool for us, especially in communities. The purposing of learning about the ego is not to escape from the responsibility. We can’t just blame everything bad on the ego. I got angry because of the ego. That would be the ego talking. There are different names for the true self - consciousness, soul, spirit, etc. Names are labels. They serve as pointers for us to “understand” things. The only way to “know” something is to experience it. How do we experience/know the true self? We do so by shutting up. Stop talking in the head for a second and allow the true self to exist. When you’re present, you connect with the true self.
Conclusion
Underneath the surface appearance, everything is not only connected with everything else, but also with the Source of all life out of which it came. Even a stone, and more easily a flower or a bird, could show you the way back to God, the Source, to yourself. - Eckhart, P.26
The humble realization of the true self opens up a whole new dimension in life. From that point on, you’re ready to remember the connection you have with the source of life. Each of us is unique and tightly connected. Each of us is a piece of an infinite puzzle. We’re all creators of everything. I am ___.
