The Ultimate Cheatsheet for an Ego-Death

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Introduction

The psychology behind an Ego death

Unification

Ritual

Symptoms of the Ego

Introduction

In the simplest form, ego death is a unification experience or collection of experiences that transform the ego. This experience will mature your idea of self and how you move in terms of existing other selves in the world.

Contrary to popular belief many of us will experience way more than one ego death in our life. And it may not seem like the emerging experience you believe it will be.

Like many spiritualists, I was itching for a truly deep ego death experience that I could carry with me for the rest of my life. I believed at any moment I would be lifted up into the heavens and be dispersed like cosmic glitter raining down into the vast universe making me one with everything that has come or will become.

In my journey with the ego, I have learned that it's an absolute paradox wanting to achieve an ego death. In fact in many of my prayers for spiritual guidance, I was met with wisdom from Sesheta.

And as clear as day I heard the sweet wisdom of Sesheta pour over me like fresh spring water, “ you cannot force the inevitable”.

These words lifted a burden off of me that maybe I wasn't healed enough, aligned enough, or even vibing high enough in order to receive an ego death.

This wisdom was like a key in my mind allowing me to accept that over time and through various experiences, my ego will mature and become more evolved in the world that I live in.

THE PSYCHOLOGY BEHIND AN EGO DEATH

Modern spirituality is heavily influenced by psychoanalytic theory. This is where we get most ideas about how our mind works and how we can heal them. And even most importantly gain more control over our nervous systems as they influence all things inside of the body.

However, psychology is not the only thing that influences spirituality as many practices and techniques come from spirit-based religions like Buddhism, Hinduism, Tantra, and even more popular religions like Christianity.

The idea behind the physcolanalytical theory is to make the subconscious conscious and therefore transformable. This means that with enough willpower and determination we can completely shift our mindsets and thus the reality that surrounds us.

Sigmund F. one of the founding fathers of physcoanltical theory held a strong belief that our mind was separated into many working parts known as the iceberg theory. The thought behind this theory is that we have an I.D, an Ego, & a Super Ego that sits within our subconscious, preconscious, and conscious minds.

In this helpful infographic, you can see this is what our minds look like according to the iceberg theory. At the very top in a pink hue is everything that sits in our conscious mind including our Egos and Super-egos.

Both egos also sit in our preconscious minds which means there are things we have become aware of but have not really changed or altered in a conscious way yet. Whereas the rest of our Super-ego and our ID sit deep in the blue representing our unconscious mind.

ID

The ID is the primitive and instinctual part of our minds and covers a major part of how we identify ourselves. So this is the part of us that responds directly and immediately to your needs, wants, and desires.

By nature, our I.D is selfish and wishful, as it works off of the pleasure principle. Every wishful impulse we have the ID demands that it be immediately satisfied or we will experience tension and displeasure.

This is also the part of our subconscious that holds our inherited character traits, life instincts, and memories that have been suppressed because of our “protective” defense mechanisms.

EGO

The Ego is a part of our ID that is directly impacted by the external world such as social constructs and surrounding culture. While it may get a bad rap the Ego actually helps us to make logical decisions that can satiate the desires of the ID.

The Ego gives us the capacity to set boundaries, delay satisfaction, and work around social norms to what our own minds consider to be socially acceptable behavior. It's only when the Ego fails to reason with our IDs are a self-defense mechanism employed as a natural reaction to situations we are not happy with.

SUPEREGO

Our Super-ego persuades the Ego toward what it considers to be perfections or the ideal self. In your most picturesque life, the Super-ego holds the perception of the person you think you deserve to be.

With this being said the Super-ego reins over our reactive emotions towards the self and can reward or punish us based on how well we matched up to the ideal self. For example, if we fall short of being the noble hero we imagine ourselves to be then the Super-ego can use guilt to punish up for not meeting those standards.

Our reward-based systems are largely set up in childhood and have a major impact on how we view ourselves in this world. Do we deem ourselves as worthy or unworthy? And tells us whether or not we still have things to accomplish in order to be deemed worthy according to the mind.

In reality, when we discuss the topic of having an ego death, this experience has to work through all parts of the mind in order to be a full transformation into a matured ego.

Meaning if we are altering parts of the Super-ego from our deepest most unconscious part of the mind it must first raise up into the preconscious mind to be transformable and then the conscious mind when we have successfully altered the way our mind structure was previously wired.

However many of these ideas of self can be covered in shadow work exploration, they are not all exclusively an ego death experience.

Unification

Again what we are aiming to achieve in an Ego death is a unification experience that dissolves “unneeded” parts of the self. So while shadow work focuses on transforming reactive behavior into behavior that is unreactive and logical, an ego death aims for a state of being that both is and isn't.

This is why an ego death is a temporary experience because there is no real way to dissolve the self entirely without completely leaving your vessel. Because even during astral projection your idea of self does not change. Anytime you can identify yourself as a being inside of an experience it's no longer a unifying experience.

This is absolutely a good thing because without the ego we would have no way of setting boundaries and separating ourselves from the world around us. Many spiritualists have a strong belief in unity and love, so when we dissolve our ideas of self we can live in a true community; which would look like making your neighbor's highs and lows of life not only equal to your own but the exact same as your own. There would be no differentiation between you, your mom, your doctor, your pet, or your plant, all would be one at all times forever.

And yes if we were all to live in this wholesome fashion we could live happy lives as a collective unconscious. But in doing so you remove any goals, ambitions, or desires your spirit has completely stripped you of your individuality which is why no haven such as this can really exist.

The point of ego death is a full transformation of what the self is and what the self actually desires. So while initially, our childhood has played a large role in developing who we are, as an adult at some point or another we will need to alter this idealistic self in order for us to lead reasonable and more pleasurable lives.

Ritual

Let's take a look at this as an example of how an ego death can change your life, and also how many of us experience some ego deaths that don’t do much when it comes to actually measure the ego.

Before we get into these experiences I need to discuss the basics of ritual. Ritual is a deeply spiritual and meditative practice that aims to give an energy transformation that will reflect or manifest into our physical realities.

If you're not too familiar with meditation the goal is to find and exist in stillness. Stillness is where you can find “the all '' and also complete silence, everything and nothing coexist simultaneously in the vast waters of stillness.

Ritual is a fantastic tool to provide you with a unification experience and it doesn’t always have to be as mystical as ritual tends to be portrayed. A common example of a unification experience is going to a concert with a group of friends.

We all travel together into the pit of the concert where we join a larger band and dance and sing together with the artist and the band in pure bliss. Not thinking about the past or future Just existing together.

This is a unification experience between everyone in the stadium or at least everyone in the stadium who is so deeply rooted in the present moment that they are purely just existing. As soon as one person starts to reflect on the situation they take themselves outside of the present moment; removing themself from the unit.

While an amazing experience that technically qualifies as a sort of an ego death because your sense of identity must dissolve into the crowd for you to be in sync with it, it doesn't do too much for having a later impact on how we view our most idealistic self.

The same can go for most types of social gatherings like a family reunion where we all have joined in doing the cupid shuffle or birthday parties where we sing a celebratory song to honor the life of a friend, an ego death is simply a "we experience".

This scale of experience can be light and joyful or painful and atrocious. Like most things an ego death is glamorized in the spiritual community as being an enlightening experience when it doesn't always reduce down to be an evolution of the soul.

As we journey on to learn more about the mind and the role we play in constructing it we must understand that wanting to have an ego death is the desire to change the structure of the self to flow better with a new idealistic self. The idea is that the larger the “WE” the more power is behind pushing the narrative of the ideal self.

In ritual practice, we tend to be heavenly/ celestial bodies such as God and the moon or what tends to be the all or dietity-based archetypes. This works because they are quite literally the largest capacity of WE that can be easily understood by the human brain. Or at least most of them.

A spirit-based ego death releases us from all senses of identity from our clothes, name, location, and eye color, all parts of self must dissolve for it to be considered an ego death. As we as cosmic dust dissolve back into the aether. Otherwise known as the all, god, the creator, shiva, & the universe.

Much like all great things the divine goes by many names and is most easily understood when we categorize them as being the divine feminine ( as in structure) and the divine masculine ( as inflow). Ultimately this act of dissolving the ego is a unifying experience in various degrees.

In 2007 a university in Iowa conducted a 4-year experiment to study the effects of transcendental meditation, here is a small excerpt from the Huffington Post that summarizes the conclusion of the experiment.

"From January 2007 through 2010 over 1,725 participants gathered to practice group Transcendental Meditation at Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa.

Researchers found there was an 18.5% drop in violent crime nationwide at the end of the study. Statistical and independent analyses showed the rising trend of U.S. homicides during 2001-2006 was reversed during the 2007-2010 study period. Other variables were ruled out such as the economy, demographics, and law enforcement.

"I understand it's a new hypothesis in the social sciences that meditation could have a stress-reducing and coherence-creating effect in society," said lead author Dr. Michael Dillbeck in a news release. "But such research is increasingly suggesting that there's a field effect of consciousness. If you get a large enough group together practicing this technique to experience the field quality of consciousness, these extended 'field-like' effects are expressed in society."" (Meditate For Peace And Heal The Planet By Elaine Gavalas)

Psychological effects: In order to even first begin meditation participants had to remove their sense of identity to fall into stillness. Meditation has been known to bring peace and balance to practitioners that they funneled so abundantly into the energy that surrounded the nation it had a real impact on our realities. In this experiment, the student was able to fully transform the energy they streamed during meditation to be used as a tool to make the world a more peaceful environment. But most importantly that energy of peace was able to reach those with violent tendencies so much so that our national crime rate dropped by over 18%.

Participant of this study was actively maturing their ego by expanding their emotional intelligence. They were able to expand their empathy to people they have no recollection of and establish a real change. This also encourages their own superego that they can in fact change the world around them.

Spiritual Effects: Over the course of four years more than 1500 people consciously entered into a unity-based meditation to urge lasting effects of nonviolence throughout the nation. Each time they join in transcendental meditation they had to dissolve the self and focus their energy to expand into a much larger conscious than the group themselves. An intentional practice that came with accidental ego deaths across thousands of people helped to push our world into a more peaceful existence.

Symptoms of the Ego

Additional signs

• You're a sore winner or loser

• You compare yourself as being superior or inferior to others

• Valuing your worth as being high simply because of an action or action you don't take that’s different from the norm

• Believing for whatever reason that your desires are more important than others

• You enjoy tearing into people's lifestyles either by gossiping or to their face as it makes you feel better than them

UNCONSCIOUS AND CONSCIOUS HABITS OF THE EGO

So if we can’t simply walk into a unifying experience on demand what can we do in practice to heave a healthier more rounded Ego? When we find ourselves identifying with the symptoms of the ego chart we can acknowledge that the ego has taken the driver's seat in many instances in our lives.

Leading with the ego isn't always a bad thing especially when the ego can actually protect us from harm. The idea is to transform the ego so that its defensives are vulnerable enough to let in new experiences without hindering our actual safety/ security.

An example of change

Amanda has been friends with Sydney for over 2 years, but she doesn't always enjoy how Sydney will take digs at Amanda’s outfits in order to make her look more fashionable.

Sydney: ” I don't know why you are wearing such unflattering clothes, you would think by being my friend you would have picked up some sort of fashion sense by now.”

Amanda: “ haha yeah green isn't really my color” immediately Amanda absorbs the blow of the comment and agrees that she is less than because of her clothing choices and options. The young ego grasps any idea of acceptance it can get even if it puts a damper on its own light.

With a matured ego Amanda can set boundaries with Syndeny. Not to push her away but to let her know that tearing Amanda down will no longer be tolerated for them to be friends.

Sydney: ” I don't know why you are wearing such unflattering clothes, you would think by being my friend you would have picked up some sort of fashion sense by now.”

Amanda: “ you do not decrease my worth by making comments about my outfit. If your comments continue I will be leaving and we won't be having lunch for a while”

Amanda was able to establish boundaries that let Sydney know her comments were heard and will have an impact on the dynamic of the relationship.

This sets a precedent that Amanda doesn't want to be friends with someone that tears her down. With a firmer grasp on the ego, Amanda can now set healthier boundaries that protect her from unwarranted attacks while also allowing room for friendship if Sydney is willing to work with Amanda's boundaries.

Here the ego was able to transform without the need for an ego death or “unifying” experience. Over time the ego will alter itself to be more adaptable in our ever-changing lives, by establishing boundaries we protect our spirit and what it will tolerate on a day-to-day basis.

There are two sides to ego death experiences one is to achieve ego maturity slowly through time and experience, but what can we actively do to improve the Ego? Aka how can we incorporate more unifying experiences into our daily lives?

This is where ritual comes in. Rituals as in our daily habits and actions such as making our bed play an important role in who we are.

By incorporating unifying experiences into your everyday life we take steps closer to blending with the divinity that surrounds us, thus aging the ego increasingly more than if we took a more passive route.

This includes facing hard truths and dismantling our natural defense mechanisms. As the ego matures it will be challenged by the people around you. Each person will come into contact with the new version of you and will attempt to verify if you are who you say you have become.

Innately this is not to attack you, most of the time, but to understand this change and what this change means for how that person can continue to react to you. Our most natural human response to change is to challenge it.

In the event accusations against you are untrue the mature ego does not feel any need to fight in order to prove itself. The matured ego understands that death and loss are a part of life and is accepting that previously established dynamics no longer serve them.

This is why it's so important for us to grow into our interpersonal relationships rather than being left behind because of a refusal to improve and mature. This is not an encompassing definition of how an ego death can impact your life but an example for which I was not necessarily prepared for when my matured ego came into play in existing interpersonal communication.

Excuses seemed tired and useless and reverting back into people pleasing rather than boundary maintenance seemed poisonous to my spirit. If I refused to put myself first as I had done many times before I would be refusing the ego a chance to evolve. Never resist change that will usher us closer to divinity, especially if it becomes difficult.