ego
The problem isn’t that the ego exists. The problem is that we believe it’s who we are .
The Backyard Buddhist • The Death of Ego and the Persistence of Self
As the psychologist James Hollis puts it, “Your ego prefers certainty to uncertainty, predictability over surprise, clarity over ambiguity.8 Your ego always wants to shroud over the barely audible murmurings of the heart.” The ego, says Lee Hardy, wants you to choose a job and a life that you can use as a magic wand to impress others.
David Brooks • The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life
Jennifer Leela • Carl Jung’s Path to Spiritual Awakening: A Journey Toward Wholeness
The ego is a “subject” to whom psychic contents are “represented.” It is like a mirror. Moreover, a connection to the ego is the necessary condition for making anything conscious—a feeling, a thought, a perception, or a fantasy. The ego is a kind of mirror in which the psyche can see itself and can become aware.
Murray Stein • Jung's Map of the Soul: An Introduction
The Ego is that part of the psyche that believes in material existence.
Steven Pressfield • The War of Art
This aspect of Sol niger can show itself when consciousness becomes unconsciously critical. Alchemically, the heat is turned up too high, and the ego's skin is burnt, blackened, or tortured with stinging criticism, producing shame and threatening bodily integrity. Hillman describes a similar process of mortification-when the ego feels trapped or
... See moreDr. Stanton Marlan • The Black Sun: The Alchemy and Art of Darkness (Carolyn and Ernest Fay Series in Analytical Psychology Book 10)
The shadow is that which has not entered adequately into consciousness. It is the despised quarter of our being. It often has an energy potential nearly as great as that of our ego. If it accumulates more energy than our ego, it erupts as an overpowering rage or some indiscretion that slips past us; or we have a depression or an accident that seems
... See moreRobert A. Johnson • Owning Your Own Shadow
Shunryu Suzuki put it simply: when we let go of self-centered practice, our... See more
The Backyard Buddhist • The Death of Ego and the Persistence of Self
In the classical and developmental psychologies, the unity of the healthy ego is the essential structure of the psyche. The question of the dissolution of the ego or Self is almost always seen as regressive and detrimental, a fusion, or a return to the mother. Some analysts, however, have raised a different perspective, one that has challenged ego
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