When Your Ego Takes Over

When anger and fear are flaring up it can be hard to stay balanced. Losing your cool can happen when your ego is threatened. This often happens when you are facing values disagreements.

If this causes you to act up in away that you regret later, but struggle to control yourself in the moment, there are some things you can do to stop the ego from taking over.

Time Out

Breathe and walk away. Learn the signs that you are about to spill out, and catch yourself before the anvil drops. You can explain that you are not going to do the conversation justice if you continue, and will come back to it later.

Do you recognise that you are becoming defensive? Does you heart rate go up? The volume of your voice? Do your muscles go tense? Does your mind go blank? Do you stop listening and start reacting?

Find your signs that something is brewing. If you know you’re triggered and it’s about to go downhill, excuse yourself, but that’s only for the moment.

Evaluate Your Assessment

Will this issue matter to you in a year’s time? Ten year’s time? Put some perspective on it. If it’s still important, and you cannot compromise or let it go there is a deeper reason.

Investigate Your Reasons

When your beliefs feel challenged, and you start to activate it’s often because you feel the need to defend something. Ask yourself what are you fighting for really, and why?

Very often we are fighting to feel important, to have our aspirations and personal ideals valued, to be loved, to avoid abandonment, because we perceive rejection or disrespect. Ego battles and emotional battles are a sign that there is a deeper need or a deeper wound at play.

How to Overcome Your Ego

Get conscious of the root cause by going internally, use any past example to explore your ego’s motivations and identify any unconscious wounds that may be flaring up.

Affirmations are not the most useful tool – although they can help diffuse the situation, they will not address the root cause. Their effect is only temporary.

Self-Awareness

You are not your ego. You can know this because you can observe your ego. You can witness your inner life.

Find the Core Belief

Go deeper by asking yourself – what was bother me? When you come up with the answer keep going with it for next layer. What would be the worst thing that would happen if that were the case? And what does it mean about me if that were true?

Find the Core Wound

This is a style of inner child work. You identify the emotion you are feeling in the moment, and become aware of it in your body. You connect with the feeling that triggers the flare up, and then you ask yourself “what was the first time I felt this way? That will help you to understand the wound that started this whole thing, and why you feel the energy to fight so hard in the moment.