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In this episode, Joel and Antonia talk about some of the downsides and challenges with ego work.
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12 comments
I really appreciated this podcast. These are challenging questions that you two brought up and very relevant ones. The way you process these things is a model and an inspiration.
Hey you two! Thank you for your podcast, always.
I would highly recommend reading Nature and the Human Soul, by Bill Plotkin. Plotkin looks at archetypes (like in the hero’s journey) and seasons of nature to explore the developmental tasks of childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and elderhood. He’s particularly insightful around the ego tasks in each stage, and how communities serve to usher us through stages and initiate us through ego development, shadow work, and ego surrender in later life. SO GOOD. It would address Joel’s question of “timeline” particularly well.
This was such a great podcast! I’ve only listened to a handful of episodes but this one resonated with me so much.
One thing you guys said that really stuck out to me was that you can’t be too young if you want to dive into ego work, specifically that anyone under 50 should continue to develop their ego/preferences/etc. I am 20 years old (and an INFJ) and I started my ego work a little over a year ago. I’ve made incredible progress in my mental state and even though my growth is only begininning, The work I needed to partake in had to be ego work; anything else wouldn’t have been helpful, if that makes sense.
Anyway, one thing that’s always bothered me about my growth is the thought that maybe I’m too young to be doing this, maybe I should be out there living life like a reckless 20 year old. What I’m really getting at is that I’ve come to recognize that I don’t truly know myself and I have a lot of coming into my own to do. Does that mean my ego isn’t developed enough to be managing effectively?
Currently, my ego work has led me to the conclusion that I need to work on setting boundaries (which I learned a lot about in your co-pilot podcast about IxFJs and Fe, and that was sort of a game changer for me, so thank you for that). So does that mean it’s possible to do ego work that allows one to put the ego aside when appropriate, while also showing how to further develop it as a tool? I sort of think so, but I thought it was an interesting topic.
And one last thought, I absolutely loved what Joel was saying about being able to laugh at yourself. When I first dipped my toe into the pool of ego work, one of the first things I came across that was describing transcending the ego was being able to laugh at yourself. My parents always told us that being able to laugh at yourself is incredibly important If you want to stay sane, and I can confirm. My brother and I were just having a conversation about how people in general don’t laugh enough. There are so many absurd situations in this life, and we as humans are so foolish and ridiculous! It’s hilarious if you let it be! :)
[INTP] I really appreciate what Antonia said about the difference between being an influence for someone during conflict and being responsible for them, in particular their personal growth. As a Ti user, it helps knowing that is a struggle not unique to myself. My inferior Fe is constantly being triggered to “help” in self-defeating ways, but that strategy of discerning influence and responsibility has likewise been the most successful path in relationships I care about.
It does remind me of a related question that came up for me after listening to the last podcast. As an INTP, to grow in Ne, I need to get my ideas into the outside world somehow and get feedback and learn how to refine my Ti. But ideas have impact, and I have this nagging fear that while I am growing personally as I calibrate/improve my ideas, I am doing harm to those my ideas impact. My rational Ti says “Easy. Just find a context to test your ideas where their impact is minimized, such as a discussion group, and not in real-life applications”. My irrational Fe teams up with Si and says, “Nope. Still too dangerous.” Not to mention I’m married to a Fi-Se who, while very supportive, still struggles with being triggered by the Ti-Ne processes. Anyways, is my Ti voice on the right track?
Thanks for this episode! I’ve been thinking a lot about your dependence-independence-interdependence model lately and can really see that in the process of ego work. I think that a lot of people (myself DEFINITELY included) really try to create an illusion of independence fairly early on in their personal work, especially if/when they enter Graves 4.
I definitely strived for this independence in the second half of my teen years (I’m 24 now) in order to preserve my notion that I’m morally pure and good. I noticed this paradigm start to shift following a conversation with my therapist/psychiatrist, in which we discussed my worry of becoming very arrogant if I were to indulge in certain thoughts I had about myself. My therapist, who also specializes in developmental psychiatry, told me that this fear would absolutely come to fruition, not because of a certain failure on my part, but because that’s just what happens when people reach their twenties.
I think that this was the permission I needed to start leaning into my ego’s uglier aspects. From my perspective I’m sort of doing a form of shadow work that’s incredibly liberating. My teenage “lack of ego” was no less ego-driven than my current state, and it feels really nice to stop lying to myself. I’m holding space for myself to let my arrogant self out to play, and watch what she does, and notice what parts might be helpful and what parts might not. I like banging pans together and chanting “I’M SO GREAT! I’M SO GREAT!” Which is all I can expect of this part of myself, because I hadn’t allowed it to mature past its childish state.
And hopefully she’ll grow up and learn, and catch up with my better-developed parts, and I think at that point, and not sooner, I’ll be able to think about transcendence.