Self-Love vs. Ego-Love
The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.- Derek Walcott
According to astrologers, we are now in the age of Aquarius, which started dawning upon us around the year 2000. What does that mean? The positions of the planets and stars have an energetic effect that reverberates across the cosmos. Energy is the language of everything. It is how the Universe communicates through us and with us. For instance, the Moon affects the water levels on Earth and our physical bodies. In turn, this shifts our moods and, ultimately, our perception, our psychology, and consciousness at large.
The Age of Aquarius describes the Earth's retrograde into the sign of Aquarius. There are many different theories about what the Aquarian age entails, but the one common theme is that it is the age of finding love within oneself. Before the age of Aquarius, we were in Pisces. The Piscean age was more about searching for transcendental higher ideals marked by the birth of some of the major monotheistic traditions. In comparison, the Aquarian age calls for a turn inwards. It is no wonder that consciousness studies, self-development, and psychospiritual leanings are becoming the centre stage of our evolution. We are talking more and more about self-love or self-compassion, bolstering boundaries, and healing traumas. People are continuously exploring all forms of alternative wellness therapies, including sound/hypnotherapy/past-life regression/reiki/psychedelics/breathwork/mindfulness and even plain old psychotherapy, amongst many other modalities.
There are many pros to the collective shift toward mental wellness. Firstly, there is no doubt that mental health is now one of our primary concerns. With the global pandemic unfolding, everything has changed. How we lived before lockdown looks drastically different than now! Mental health was always an issue, but with the pandemic, emotions have become more amplified. Anxiety, depression, loneliness, and breakdowns of all sorts are rampant.
People are now taking their mental health into their hands, and many are losing faith in the traditional medical model. A model that has served us well and continues to do so. However, our mental health crises are not just chemical imbalances in the brain. We have a soul that aches and yearns. If we do not tend to the matters of the soul, we become entrapped. Monkey mind takes over, as the Buddhists put it.
Dr. Kirsten Neff wrote extensively on self-compassion and is the co-founder of the Center for Mindful Self-Compassion. The idea is to become compassionate with oneself, much like you would be with a friend. To be gentle with the pains of your heart. How would you talk to your friend if they are having a difficult day? What would you do if your pet is having trouble sleeping or eating? In cultivating self-compassion, we tone down the voice of the inner critic. The voice that paralyzes and originates from an old system of self-care that no longer works. The old way of perceiving the world, usually tailored by our past negative experiences and traumas, has caused us to protect ourselves through unhealthy habits (e.g. addictions), which in itself is pretty paradoxical.
The healthier form of self-care is not only going for a massage or spending the day at the spa. While all those things are needed, other forms of self-care that we tend to miss are:
Things like going out for a walk in nature.
Seeing a therapist or a counsellor, mindfulness, journaling.
Meditating.
Having a warm cup of tea or calling a trusted friend.
When all else fails, the ultimate form of self-care is to be able to ask for help.
When does self-love become egoistic? There is the danger that amongst all this talk of self-love, narcissism may arise. In fact, narcissism is on the rise not because of self-love but primarily because of our perfectionism-driven society. On the one side, narcissism is about hating one's self to the point of inflating the ego (overt narcissism). Still, on the other side, it is about hating one's self to the point of ego deflation (covert narcissism). There is no authentic self-love with narcissism and other personality defence mechanisms (like borderline, codependency, and others). It is pure ego-love. Self-love comes from a place of expansiveness, while ego-love comes from a place of fear and contraction.
Even when we are bashing our ego, we inadvertently "love" it. The idea is, 'I will break my ego before someone else does,' a habit that stems from a myriad of parental complexes. Notice how I talk about breaking the ego. Our inner self always remains intact despite our traumas. It takes work to unravel the layers of protection we have built around it. How do we draw the line between self-love and ego-love? By working on our deep awareness through constant inner work and looking at our shadow side. The ego is not the culprit here. It just needs to be kept healthy and in check.
Finally, many spiritual traditions point out the importance of refining the ego. In Sufism, there is muraqaba meaning constant vigilance, a form of mindfulness. There is a special prayer that goes something like this,
"O, God, do not abandon me to my ego, not even for a blink of an eye."
Whether you believe in God, a Higher Power or Energy, or just your authentic higher Self, the prayer speaks volumes about the trickster-ey nature of our ego.
Despite the birth of significant religions and hierarchies during the Piscean Age, many individuals within the monotheistic traditions chose the path of finding the Divine within (Kabbalists, Gnostics, Sufis, and many others). Therefore, there is no real difference from one age to another. The reality is this being human is a mysterious process that we are only beginning to understand.
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