The Ego Trap of False Opposites

If you're looking at your shadow, you're looking at those parts of yourself that are difficult to look at, it's really important to know that the counterpart of that shadow aspect of ourselves is this persona we have. And in this video, I'm going to give you nine ways that the persona can trick you so that those aspects of yourself remain unexamined. So stay with me. So I'm going to give you nine adjectives ways that you might describe yourself. And these are not nice aspects of ourselves. And of course, when we're doing any kind of inner work, the idea with the shadow, I mean, the shadow is in the dark, the dark, it's the part of ourselves, we don't like to look at the idea is to look to look in there and see the truth of it. So the tricky thing when I'm going to tell you these adjectives, the shadow holds all these ways we look at ourselves. And this persona we have is sort of like the solution to that problem. Now, the truth is, it's a non existent problem to begin with all this stuff that's in there, a lot of it, at least in the shadow is really unhelpful stuff based on false beliefs about what this persona offers you the solution to it. And it uses it, it sort of sets itself up as the opposite of that thing. And therein, believe it or not lies our problem. Because these sort of opposites that it proposes to us are not actually opposites at all. Okay, and that's where our freedom lies when we start to see through the tricks of this persona that we're deeply attached to. That's the problem. We're trying to get rid of our shadow and really deeply attached to this persona, we're trying to cultivate this persona. And that makes the shadow stay in place permanently. So let me give you these examples, right? The first one is this, what is the opposite of lazy? Okay, that's a shadow aspect, we got him so lazy, we find ourselves thinking and feeling like that about ourselves. So the persona would say, well, look, okay, forget about that, don't really examine that too much. Just be more productive. So we think, therefore, that the opposite of lazy is to be productive. Now, when you can realize the untruth in this, everything will start to change. You start to look at this persona concept of and realize that it's not true. The opposite of lazy, in actuality, is bossy. Now, that may not make any sense to you. When I say that the opposite of lazy is bossy. The persona uses nice sounding concepts like just be more productive. When you look at what the persona is actually doing with that constantly berating you for not doing enough, you should have done it yesterday, you should do more tomorrow. This is not good enough, you really need to be more productive. It's constantly bossy, it constantly uses have to terms, you should have done this, you ought to do that. So when you can start to realize, what I'm actually fluctuating between here is this belief in my own laziness. And then I go into not productivity, I go into this bossy mode, where I'm constantly reinforcing feelings of guilt about this laziness. Okay, so I'm going to talk at the end after I share these nine examples of how this happens, about what the solution is. But first, we have to recognize that this persona that we're really attached to, we're trying to cultivate is part of the problem. It's a solution to a non existent problem, being the shadow, which we don't look at and start to question, question this idea that I'm lazy to begin with. And that bossiness is the solution. Next question. Second question here, what is the opposite of stupid? That's a shadow concept. Okay, oh, God, I'm so stupid. I'm not as clever as other people. Of course, the persona and you may have answered, and of course, you'd be right in terms of, you know, in terms of grammar, you'd be right if you said the opposite of stupid is to be intelligent. In this split egoic mind, intelligence does not really enter into the equation. The opposite of stupid is can you guess what it is? The opposite of stupid is to be right. The constant need and attachment to be perceived as being right about things, I can't be perceived to be wrong about anything, because therefore, I'll go into the shadow of my stupidity again. So we're deeply attached to being right about things to be seen to be knowledgeable to be seen to know what we're talking about to never be never let anyone see that we might not know an answer, God forbid, to say, Huh, you know what, I don't know, might be an honest statement from time to time. But when we're attached to this idea of being right, because we've secretly feel stupid, and we haven't really examined that yet. That's where this constant struggle comes in. So, you know, the opposite of stupid in the egoic mind is not intelligence. Intelligence doesn't really exist in the ego of mind. It's outside of that you, your authentic personality, you're extremely intelligent, okay, in all sorts of various ways. But this egoic split mind that we have, usually from past pain, and trauma, there's not really a lot of intelligence in there. There is an attachment, a deep attachment to being right about things. So maybe you're getting the hang of this. Okay, so I'm going to give you a few more examples. Another thing that we might have in our shadow, and maybe people have reinforced disbelief in us. I'm so needy. I'm just so needy. Persona will come up with a solution for this. What is the opposite of needy? I just need to be more independent. I need to be more independent. Now, of course, we haven't examined this belief in neediness. So I'm going to be deeply attached to this idea of being independent. What is the real opposite of neediness? The real opposite of neediness is going to be avoidant. So I'm still secretly feeling all those needy things. But I'm just going to avoid just going to have really, really clear, strict boundaries, probably overly strict boundaries, not to the point where you're not allowed to be vulnerable at all. And we become avoidant, fiercely independent, to the point where we're anxious about it. So that's the real opposite of needy. It's not about independence. In your own authentic personality, when you're not in this split mind, and you've really examined and dropped this idea in neediness, you will find an authentic form of independence to be self-reliant. But it's not about this really anxiety-driven need for independence that the persona offers to us. So we become avoidant when we really haven't looked at this idea that I'm needy. Here's another one, and maybe other people have reinforced this idea too within you. I feel sleazy. I'm a bit sleazy. This is a bit of a trickier one, maybe. What's the opposite of sleazy? Sleazy would be the opposite of that would be to be this mannerly person, this really polite person, this very thoughtful, considerate person. Now, the truth is this shadow aspect of this sleaziness. It's all the shame and guilt around it. It's not true. We become this persona, this mannerly person, really the opposite of sleazy. The real opposite isn't mannerly. It's boring. Someone who never expresses themselves become very, very boring. So to really question this idea of sleaziness, maybe some of the attractions I have in my life or some of the things that I want for myself, maybe there's nothing wrong with wanting things in my life. It's not a bad thing. This will be to question the shadow and this idea of this fake mannerliness or this fake considerate persona gets dropped, and you become this authentic part of yourself, which is in touch with its own desires, its own needs, which doesn't feel sleazy at all. It feels authentic and it feels exciting. It's nice to be around someone who owns what it is that they want. So it's much more authentic. The fifth one here, person carries anxiety and they don't like that about themselves. I really hate this part of myself. I'm so anxious all the time. I'm anxious. Well, the persona will tell us, work on your confidence, become more confident, and we therefore try and try and try to be this confident person. Of course, it doesn't work, makes us more anxious. So confident is not the opposite of anxious. Really, all we become when we're in that mode of trying to be confident is stifled. So the opposite of anxiety or anxious is to be stifled. Really, what the solution to anxiety is all about is to realize, first of all, to remove all shame about anxiety and all guilt about it, and then to instill a sense of safety within yourself. And the need for confidence goes out the window. You don't need to be confident. You need to really learn ways to feel safe within yourself, and then your authentic personality will be expressed. So that's one thing I really, I'm not a big fan of in terms of anxiety treatment. It's this idea of building confidence. Anxiety has nothing to do with confidence. Even if you're someone who has a lot of anxiety, you may have noticed in the past, you know, when I feel in a safe place, maybe around people that I trust and your nervous system has a chance to feel safe, I'm actually fine. I'm actually pretty confident. In other words, I feel safe enough to express my real self. So the opposite of anxious isn't confident. It's to be stifled. As long as we haven't looked at this shame that's around the anxiety. What's the opposite of jealous? How many times do we beat ourselves up and feel bad about being jealous? Oh my god, I can't believe I'm jealous of this person. Well, we typically think, you know what, I'm just not going to be affected by that anymore. So we think that the opposite of jealousy is to be unaffected, which is phony and it's just going to lead to numbing out and denial of emotions. So the opposite of jealousy is not to be unaffected. The real opposite of jealousy is to be repressed, right? It's just to not look. It's a denial of an emotional experience that you're having. So that is not a helpful way to think about this, is to look at the jealousy and to realize that it's connected to an emotion, an authentic desire for something. What is the opposite of egoic? We don't like to think of ourselves as being egoic. Well, you might say, what's the opposite of that in this persona? See if you can get that one. What's the opposite of being egoic? It's to be enlightened, we might say. Now, as long as you secretly really detest and are fighting your ego, you're going to want to identify with this enlightened persona. And that is really the real opposite is you're just becoming the spiritual ego, right? Or the spiritual persona. You know, it maybe changes the way it dresses. I dress all in white clothes or I eat special foods. I don't react to anything. Of course, spirituality isn't about not reacting to things. It's becoming much more aware. We'll get to that in the end here. So it's just to be in denial that the ego is there at all isn't helpful. To start denying our reactions to things isn't helpful. The reactions are not the problem, okay? So you don't have to be this enlightened being because all that really is, any effort to be that is just persona. It's really ego in disguise. The eighth one here, what's the opposite of angry? God, I have this anger problem. I hate that anger. Well, we would say, well, look, I just need to be more peaceful. The opposite of anger is peaceful, we say. And this is a really important one because this one is very, very common. Every time that anger sparks up, oh God, okay, I'm angry, but I hate myself for that anger. Try to be this peaceful person, try to be non-reactive. What's the real opposite of anger? The real opposite of anger is passive-aggressive. It's the constantly low-level frustrated and irritated, which does things like, well, I'm going to be the bigger person here. All the while, I'm giving the person the cold shoulder or I become avoidant of people or displacement. It's the old example of you're angry at your boss, you come home and you yell at your kids, passive-aggressive, or you displace anger like that. So trying to be this peaceful person when there is this anger, I'm not going to look at, just results in the true opposite of passive-aggressive behavior. Passive-aggressive behavior is, you have to be careful with this because anger can be very destructive, but I'd almost prefer a person just expressed their anger rather than be this passive-aggressive person, assuming that the anger isn't destructive or violent in any way. Because the passive-aggressive, we like to think in this persona that it's a better option. Passive-aggressive behavior is very, very toxic and it's not good for us at all. Even for ourselves, when we hold in that anger rather than expressing it outwardly. So that is not helpful at all. This is another example, of course, of how the persona tricks us into not resolving the actual issue, not looking at the issue and the shame around the issue. Final example here, we all have addictions, but I think that's the statement I'm standing behind anyway, especially nowadays because there's so many things to be addicted to. I'm addicted. Okay. I despise that part of myself. It's in the shadow. I wish it would go away. So this persona will tell us, you should do this. You have to do this. More, you have to. You have to. You have to develop willpower. Where's your willpower? Now, really, what the opposite of that is, what you're going to feel, the opposite of it to be addicted is not to develop willpower, is you're probably going to feel very victimized because we're leaning into this idea of willpower. Now, willpower, I will explain it maybe in a different video, but willpower is not a very helpful thing when it comes to an addiction because of the power aspect that's attached to it. Your will, your free will is very important when it comes to working on your addiction, the ability to choose what it is that you want for yourself and to develop that. But without this force behind it, because if there's force behind it, that's fighting an addiction. Really, what you're going to do is you're just going to set up this internal battle. What I will say on that will apply to everything I've mentioned here so far. What is the solution to this? Well, it's first of all to realize, okay, yes, there's a shadow aspect that I'm trying to desperately get rid of, but this thing that I'm attached to, this persona, is actually keeping it in place because it's a fake solution to the underlying issue. So the solution to all of this, for instance, even to the addicted thing that I mentioned, is that we develop awareness and then we start to dissociate. Dissociation was the initial problem for most of us. We dissociated from our authentic self. So this false persona starts to develop, which has all that pain and that shadow. We start to disidentify or dissociate from that into the authentic self to keep affirming that. But first, what we have to do is be aware of this shadow persona, to start to watch it, to bring awareness to it. I can see it. I can see the voice of shame. I can see the voice of guilt. I can see also that these fake persona concepts are still there and I'm starting now to recognize what they are. If you can recognize something, it means it's not you. You're now standing away from it and now you're in touch with your will, your decision making power, your ability to choose to dissociate yourself from this into and you're just left in your authentic self. Your authentic personality can then start to regain a foothold here. So I think I'll leave it there for now. There's a lot in that. I hope that the idea of sort of we're all kind of aware and we're all aware probably of the idea of many of us are at least of the idea of working on your shadow, which is very, very good. But to know about your persona and how tricky that can be and how surreptitious it can be, that's really a huge part that will help us speed up that work in our shadow. So food for thought there maybe. But as always guys, thanks for being with me here and I will see you again in the next one. Take care.