Ego, Identity, Spirituality and Recovery

[freya]

(Yeah! How's that for a light and inviting thread title??????????)

"There is only one spiritual principle: God, instead of me." -- Don M. Louisville, KY

Anyways.......................

"Who am I?"

That is a question that I have only seriously entertained twice in my entire life.

The first time was after the birth of my fist son and the second (still on-going) time began somewhere in mid-December 2009.

As a general rule, I tend to have a very strong and clear sense of who I am, of what my values/principles are and of how I live those values principles in my life. Although I am definitely always growing and changing -- and, in fact, am usually doing so very intentionally -- I pretty much always have a very strong and reliable sense of identity continuity. I guess a good metaphor might be like being on a journey where one moves from point A to point B to point C in a fairly uniform and even kind of way. I mean, there might be plateaus or swamps where one gets stuck for awhile or obstacles one has to work one's way around, but, for the most part, the way and what needs to be done to make one's way is clear and where one is going follows very clearly from where one has been.

The first time I held and nursed my oldest son, I was confronted very suddenly with the sense that the usual pattern of my life, my progress, and my sense of self (my identity and my confidence and the general psychic orientation of my energy) had just been totally disrupted in a huge and, at the time unprecedented and incomprehensible, way, for which -- although I had most certainly chosen and planned and prepared for motherhood as well and as much as I believe possible -- I was totally unprepared.

I looked at that baby and I thought: "OMG, who am I?" Actually, it was more like an internal, silent outburst. Certainly not a bad one, not as if I didn't want to be a mom, but more a shocked and uncertain sense that I had gotten myself into a situation -- arrived in a territory --that was totally unchartered for me and in which it was very unclear if and/or how the seemingly utterly insufficient planning and preparation I had been able to do to prepare was going to even be of any use, let alone be of adequate use.

...and there was a definite feeling of "What have I gotten myself into here?" and also a sense of the enormity of the task and of the responsibility I had undertaken....without there having been any way, until that very moment, of my truly understanding how enormous and how important it was going to be.

Luckily, when it came to motherhood, nature helped me out quite a bit with hormones, so I really didn't have much time to sit around worrying and wondering about what was going with me identity-wise. I just got to work loving and taking care of my kid. Thank God for prolactin!

But, I have never forgotten that very unusual, for me, and super-disconcerting sense of sudden, earthquake-like rupture in my identity...and looking back on it later, I knew that what that was about was the fact that actually becoming a mother, actually having that baby in my arms and realizing that here was a human life that I had chosen to bring into this world and that was now, to some extent, my responsibility, had resulted in an immediate and total re-orientation of mySelf and activated hitherto unacknowledged and unexercised aspects of who I am and/or had the capacity to become.

....because, prior to having kids, the central point around which I organized my life and my decisions was "me": my values, my principles, my goals, my needs, my beliefs, and what was best for and right for me in the light of all that. And I don't mean for it to sound crassly selfish because it wasn't.....I definitely cared about and took others into account....but when E was born, suddenly there existed an "Other" who I somehow knew for absolute certain had to come before "me" in my thinking, my feeling and my living.

So, fast-forward 24 1/2 years, and here I am doing this recovery work and trying to establish and build this relationship with a HP...and things are going along nicely (in my estimation), and then, last April I have that sudden, prolonged "very vital conscious contact" experience. And it's pretty overwelming and a little scary, but good. And I do sense that things are somehow changing for me in a big way, but I'm not sure exactly how or exactly what that means.

Then comes the fall of 2009 and that whole situation with my partner -- which most certainly cannot seem to anyone but me to be a very big, momentous, history-making deal. But internally -- psychically and energetically -- what began to manifest for me in all of that was somehow another, even bigger, reorientation of my identity.

This time in relation to HP.

And what makes it bigger seems to be the deep, deep experiential awareness that this new orientation means that I am not -- really, truly in any sense of those terms -- the director or the decider....whereas with my becoming a mother, although the goal of my direction and the basis of my decisions changed, my "role" as "boss of me" did not.

...and again it feels to me like totally unchartered territory. Actually, how it kind feels is like I am walking on water and I don't entirely know how that's happening or feel entirely safe and sound and supported even though, at the same time, I know I have to be or I could not be doing it at all.

And I feel unsure. Is that unsure part Ego? An SR member to whom I was talking awhile back about all of this seems to believe that I can (that I should?) just be sure. And intellectually, I know that that's true, at least insofar as "being sure" = "trusting God." But, really, this all feels very, very new and tentative to me, and I don't think that I can pretend to be sure or act like I'm sure when I'm not totally sure...even though I am pretty certain that the "unsureness" comes from Ego and from the newness of the new identity/orientation, not because of any "wrongness" of it. And I am sure that that will go away as I just keep allowing myself to be lead forward (wherever that is -- another source of my "unsureness" because I still somehow, on some level, think I should get to know where I'm going) and when I get enough practice/experience with being in and following this new orientation.

...and I want a word for it, too...I like to have words for my identity(ies) or for various facets of my Identity...like "mother" or "queer femme" or "scholar" or even "b*tch".....So, what's the word for someone whose identity is oriented around God, but who's not stereotypically "religious"???????????

...or maybe here's an even bigger question/issue/area of uncertainty: do I even get to have an identity if I am oriented around HP? Is identity and sense-of-self in and of itself tied to Ego? Or, maybe, is it more probably another one of those paradoxes insofar as "losing" oneself in HP is actually the most true (only true?) and highest expression of self...??????

....and if so, then what-the-h*ll does that mean???????????????????

Yikes....that's enough....I'm going farther than I had planned here!

So, whatcha got to say, folks????????????

freya

[Ann]

So, what's the word for someone whose identity is oriented around God, but who's not stereotypically "religious"???????????

Freya, I can only answer from my own perspective. Doesn't mean it's right (or wrong) it's just how I see it from my own heart.

To answer your question above...Spiritual? That's what I call it as it relates to me. I embrace many thoughts from several different theological beliefs, and for me they all tie back to that one "Higher Power" that I choose to call God, and that others may prefer to call by another name or simply "the universe".

As for defining myself, I consider myself a work-in-progress, even after all these years. I hope I never stop growing and changing and learning and redefining myself as I go. I hope that even if I die at 115 years old, that someone writes on my tombstone "She wasn't done."

As a codependent, it's a good thing how I define myself today. I no longer define myself as "my mother's daughter", "my husband's wife", "my employer's employee" or as an extention/reflection of anyone else.

Recovery taught me to love that stranger called "me", warts and all.

Hope this helps a little.

Hugs

[Rusty Zipper]

So, what's the word for someone whose identity is oriented around God, but who's not stereotypically "religious"???????????

Spiritous,

it works for me

[utopia]

wow, big hearts to you, WHO AM i? wHO AM i REALLY?

looks like analysis paralysis to me,,, i look at children as being entrusted to our protection care and guidance...I remember an alanon reading about when an aeroplane is crashing the parents MUST put the oxygen masks on themselves first and then attend to children and others, otherwise theyll pass out and all will die... much is the same for me with recovery, I make sure I am stable so I can provide sane and stable support to children in my care ( im only a godparent so i can appreciate this is much harder when its your own baby) that doesnt mean i shirk being responsible for my children but i do need to meet some of my own needs first....i found for me a more important question was to ensure that when with me children can feel wanted, loved and safe....that i can give love with one but take away with the other, that my eyes always light up when they enter the room...

one book i read that really really helped me with similar dilemmas was "a new earth" by eckhart tolle.

but ultimately, after it all and through years of meditation and step work i've come to understand that my essence is one with this greater power called "god" but i will never understand it or fully comprehend it and have to surrender to not fully ever knowing "who i am" but the steps lead me to a greater sense of what i value and what my motives and attitudes and thoughts are and how they shape my actions and responses to life. for me, insight alone isn't helpful without action and support, above all, the support of those who understand and cherish us,,, i call it love.

[freya]

Originally Posted by utopia

looks like analysis paralysis to me.....i've come to understand that my essence is one with this greater power called "god" but i will never understand it or fully comprehend it and have to surrender to not fully ever knowing "who i am"

Yeah, this does seem to be the issue...I was listening last night before I went to bed to Scott L. and Bob D. talking about Step 3, and I realized, probably because I wrote the OP yesterday, that I am struggling with "the need to know"...even though I do know that I can't know or more accurately that the only knowing is in the doing...so I guess what I'm really stuck on is accepting that I don't/can't know...

I can't remember if I was reading this here on SR or someplace else -- about the difference between faith and trust being the difference between believing that God could push a wheelbarrow over the Grand Canyon on a tightrope and being willing to get in that wheelbarrow??????

Well, for me right now, it's like I've actually gotten into the wheelbarrow and we are on our way, but, instead of relaxing and enjoying the ride, I am choosing -- or at least allowing myself -- to be disturbed and disgruntled by the fact that I don't understand how this is all working. I am absolutely sure that, on a spiritual level, I know and I trust or I would not be in the wheelbarrow, but my intellectual pride is still putting up quite an unpleasant fuss.

freya

[yeahgr8]

I loved Ann's work in progress, that is comforting to aspire for spiritual perfection but safe in the knowledge that it is spiritual progress and no matter how long we live we will never achieve that perfection...how cool is that now? If i fall off the perch now to be on a path, heading in the right direction...what peace of mind!

I loved A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle too, really did help a load to read...i'm also just about to go through sermon on the mount again, bet it's a different read than when i tried to get through it 6 months ago!

I'm really new to this way of life but as far as i understand it, and bear with me here, is that whatever i call the soul, energy, life force whatever, this is part of an overall source which i call God...so, in effect, i am a child of God. Ill call it soul. So my soul is 'on a journey', 'performing a task'...who knows maybe it is just as simple as it is life force of some kind and when i die on this material plane it goes off and becomes life force for something else (re-incarnation)...anyways point is i don't know and i will never know...

Then there is me, self, who is made up of all the experiences, enviroment, conditioning etc and ego is a part of me that i have learned...so anyway i like to think that i am making all the deicisons etc when really the soul is going where it is going regardless of whatever i do or say or think...so is my free will an illusion? Fundamentally yes i believe it is! 'I' am going to end up where i end up...regardless of self. The spiritual awakening is almost like a licence not to suffer whilst my soul is doing what it is doing...the work that id do and by practicing living a spiritual life gives me a freedom from self, wherein self just causes me pain...that's it for me?!

I don't believe that the soul is interested or affected in the slightest by what i do, however if i can become closer to it and God (the source if you like, through my soul) then i can be affected by it.

The writings make so much sense now, heaven and hell being on earth, if you will, a metaphor for the way we live as in the internal struggle. Good and Evil, on this planet sure we have distinguished between the 2 but does this apply to our souls, no i don't believe it does...

At the end of the day it doesn't matter what i do, there are no brownie points or gold stars and self dies with me when i die materially anyway, self being my thoughts, beliefs, everything...the soul will remain completely unaffected by what i do on earth.

It's almost life the film, the matrix, does anyone else see that? It's all an illusion...so label myself what i want, do what i want, say what i want...it makes no diffference whatsoever, because if i have a soul and so does everyone else and my soul is not impacted at alll by anything i do then neither is anyone elses.

The steps, the bible, the books, the different religions etc are all just pointers to the truth trying to get us to see that all that we think is real and important is BS and here is what is really going on...do you know how much of a head screw, well a lot to take in, that is by the way for someone in early recovery...it's great isn't it though:-)

[murrill]

So, what's the word for someone whose identity is oriented around God, but who's not stereotypically "religious"???????????

freya [/QUOTE]

At-one-ment

[freya]

Originally Posted by murrill

At-one-ment

That's great!

Also, yeahgr8, what an amazing post! Thanks so much -- You better watch out, 'cuz if you keep on like that, you'll be cannonized before you know it!

freya

[utopia]

ahh freya, I so relate to your reply, that "acceptance" is what I have come to call Grace, just because I pray doesn't mean the absolution comes that instant, I had to obsess and work out every facet before I could really just let it go, took me to some very scary, strange and interesting places of thought and manifestation... but I think all the saints, mystics and prophets in history have gone through it too, our brain wants to know all things but our soul is all things, strange paradox of oneness and duality,...

I have found periods of practicing various meditations have helped too, and accepting that today for me I dont care how or why it works, but my own beliefs take on bits of religion and that it just works for me and that's it.....its that simple i almost missed it,,,i sometimes forget

[WakeUp]

I'm a combination of thoughts, feelings, perceptions. I don't have a fixed, solid identity separate from everything else. In other words, I'm not who I think I am.

[zbear23]

Originally Posted by murrill

So, what's the word for someone whose identity is oriented around God, but who's not stereotypically "religious"???????????

freya

At-one-ment[/QUOTE]

This would seem to me to mean that the only possible thing I may know is..... "God is." Everything after that is supposition, beliefs, conditioning, opinion, etc. etc.

I am struck by how so many various spiritual paths, religious or not, seem to describe the same "reality" as that old story of Adam and Eve, who ate of the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil....thus separating themsevles from each other and from God. Creating ithe llusion, or dream, that it is possible to be separate from God (which would inevitably result in competing with God). The Hindus would say our perceptions are all "Maya," ... an illusion....a dream, and that the purpose of life and reincarnated life is to finally awaken to the oneness that is God. This world is neither heaven nor hell. It is nothing....only a dream. Regardless of terminolgy (and terms, being language, not only join us; they also separate us from each other), most spiritual paths seem to accept the truth that as long as I am an I (ego) then I cannot "know"...because knowledge is of God...always singular, never a duality. The eye cannot see itself, except as a reflection. BTW...although Freud uses the term "ego" in describing attributes of personality, the Greeks came up with the term way earlier: and they meant a "self that is an illusion" that doesn't truly exist.

Truth is true...and nothing else is. God is. Period.

I think that it is a mistake for me to think in terms of "my" soul or spirit. Separation inevitably produces conflict and bondage. Unity is the basis for eternal peace. I think we are all the same spirit/soul, just dreaming our dreams until somehow we awaken:sort of like a hologram, in which every single part includes the whole. Every drop of water includes the ocean. "I am you as you are me and we are all together....coo coo cachoo." (I am the walrus).

Or...more contemporaneously...Jung's "collective unconscious."

The only black to love (unity/peace) is separation (fear/ego). I have only one choice:whether to focus my perceptions through spirit (love) or ego (fear). unity or separation. peace or conflict. spirit or ego.....I get to choose what I see. As I see and believe, so shall I act.

And just to add some spice to this mix: IMO...all perception is projection. Everything is happening within my mind...which is also YOUR mind....and the Mind of God. The world is a projection of our shared insanity.

blessings
zbear

[Boleo]

Originally Posted by WakeUp

I'm a combination of thoughts, feelings, perceptions. I don't have a fixed, solid identity separate from everything else. In other words, I'm not who I think I am.

René Descartes had it backwards when he said "I think therefore I am"

The Hindus, Buddhist's and Taoists figured it out at least 2,500 years ago:

"I am before I think" (thinking is optional).

[murrill]

zbear, I think I am inclined to agree. When I try to define my perceptions or god or spirit I find that language is woefully inadequate. And the harder I try the more I miss the point. I view religions a ways to explain the world: Christians had their Garden of Eden, the Greeks had their gods and myths. My real issue with religion, I think, is that it represents a barrier to spirituality. Too often I have observed them to be mutually exclusive, and I wonder if religion is not for people who are afraid of spirituality.
In early sobriety I was frantic for a God that I could visualize and define. Eventually I would come to understand spirituality as something altogether different from what I had imagine, and that occured experientially. I have found that the less able I am to define spirit the more comfortable I am with it. A certain irony there I guess, but not the first paradox I've encountered on this journey.

[zbear23]

Originally Posted by Boleo

René Descartes had it backwards when he said "I think therefore I am"

The Hindus, Buddhist's and Taoists figured it out at least 2,500 years ago:

"I am before I think" (thinking is optional).

I strongly suspect that, although thinking may be optional....thought isn't.

blessings,
zbear

[ftw]

So things seem a bit uncertain. Maybe you should accept uncertainty, or maybe there are things you need to understand, or maybe there is something else you’ve never even considered. Who knows? I sure don’t, but I do know that when things aren’t clear, it’s sometimes helps to ask that a little more light be shed on the situation.

[ftw]

You also seem to have a lot of questions about identity, and the Ego and such. You know the term Ego has been used to describe many different things. It’s been used to describe the things that allow an individual to hurt someone else because they are separated to the point that they can’t feel for others. It’s been used to describe a person's association with a human identity that makes life seems dangerous and death seem final. It’s been used to describe the things that separate a person from God.

I wouldn’t get too hung up on what exactly it means to get out of the Ego, or loose oneself in god. These things don’t have any real meaning. They’re not something you should be trying to do, some standard you have to meet in order to follow the spiritual path. They’re really just ways to describe the spiritual process, and again, different people use them in different ways.

Perhaps a better way to think about Ego is not as some absolute thing that every spiritual person should strive to be rid of. Try to think of the Ego as those parts of an individual’s identity that are limiting them. Ego is the things that stand between who someone is now, and who they want to be, need to be, or are most comfortable being. Of course that's different for everyone.

My advice would be to stop trying to live up to an idea of what you think spirituality is all about. Don’t think, I need to get out of the Ego, or I need to give my life to God. Seriously, what the heck does that even mean?

I’d say, keep a close eye on your self. Find the things about yourself that are holding you back. Find the things that try to push you to do things you don’t want to do. Identify your Ego not from some standard definition, but by looking at your self and the things you’d like to be different.

Step by step, mold yourself into want to be. Maybe that simply means straightening out some problems. Maybe that takes you all the way to God. But don’t get hung up on a destination. See, that’s nothing more than an idea, slippery and shifty (like your identity, just an idea about what you are and just as shifty). Anyway, just focus on what you can change about yourself today and see where that takes you.

[Boleo]

Originally Posted by zbear23

I strongly suspect that, although thinking may be optional....thought isn't.

"When I met my Guru, he told me: "You are not what you take yourself
to be. Find out what you are. Watch the sense 'I am', find your real
Self." I obeyed him, because I trusted him. I did as he told me. All
my spare time I would spend looking at myself in silence. And what a
difference it made, and how soon!

My teacher told me to hold on to the sense 'I am' tenaciously and not
to swerve from it even for a moment. I did my best to follow his
advice and in a comparatively short time I realized within myself the
truth of his teaching. All I did was to remember his teaching, his
face, his words constantly. This brought an end to the mind; in the
stillness of the mind I saw myself as I am -- unbound.

I simply followed (my teacher's) instruction which was to focus the
mind on pure being 'I am', and stay in it. I used to sit for hours
together, with nothing but the 'I am' in my mind and soon peace and
joy and a deep all-embracing love became my normal state. In it all
disappeared -- myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world around
me. Only peace remained and unfathomable silence."

Nisargadatta Maharaj

[Pagekeeper]

So, what's the word for someone whose identity is oriented around God, but who's not stereotypically "religious"???????????

Mystic

You're mystic, Freya.

[yeahgr8]

Originally Posted by ftw

So things seem a bit uncertain. Maybe you should accept uncertainty, or maybe there are things you need to understand, or maybe there is something else you’ve never even considered. Who knows? I sure don’t, but I do know that when things aren’t clear, it’s sometimes helps to ask that a little more light be shed on the situation.

Is your username an unfortunate coincidence or does it stand for what it nomally would? Had to chuckle ftw and spirituality doesn't normally go hand in hand, do you know what i mean:-)

[AtheistAA]

I am an Objectivist. That means I follow (and have followed for 37 years) the philosophical system devised by Ayn Rand, author of The Virtue of Selfishness; Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal; Atlas Shrugged; The Fountainhead; and many others.

Rand was atheist because it was irrational to replace reason with "faith"; and irrational to desire "greener grass", that being what is on the "other side" after death, when we are so lucky to have life to begin with.

As for the ego, she said Objectivism's ethics was "rational egoism", and had this to say about Jesus:
"Jesus was one of the first great teachers to proclaim the basic principle of individualism -- the inviolate sanctity of man's soul, and the salvation of one's soul as one's first concern and highest goal; this means -- one's ego and the integrity of one's ego."

How did she handle "spiritualism"? Read this short chapter (11) from Anthem. My love of this chapter is one reason I can have my ego, and eat my spiritualism, too!

A bad ego is not "egoism". It is "egotism", or some variant of "descriptive egoism". Even a Christian can be a "rational egoist", though some contradictions do arise now and again.

Keep searching for the meaning, and perhaps you will find it is "you", because without "you" there is no being to care for your children, no being who loves your wife, and no being to fulfill the A.A. Responsibility Statement.

O.D.A.T and a big A.A. hug,
Curtis C.

[murrill]

Originally Posted by AtheistAA

I am an Objectivist. That means I follow (and have followed for 37 years) the philosophical system devised by Ayn Rand, author of The Virtue of Selfishness; Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal; Atlas Shrugged; The Fountainhead; and many others.

Rand was atheist because it was irrational to replace reason with "faith"; and irrational to desire "greener grass", that being what is on the "other side" after death, when we are so lucky to have life to begin with.

As for the ego, she said Objectivism's ethics was "rational egoism", and had this to say about Jesus:
"Jesus was one of the first great teachers to proclaim the basic principle of individualism -- the inviolate sanctity of man's soul, and the salvation of one's soul as one's first concern and highest goal; this means -- one's ego and the integrity of one's ego."

How did she handle "spiritualism"? Read this short chapter (11) from Anthem. My love of this chapter is one reason I can have my ego, and eat my spiritualism, too!

A bad ego is not "egoism". It is "egotism", or some variant of "descriptive egoism". Even a Christian can be a "rational egoist", though some contradictions do arise now and again.

Keep searching for the meaning, and perhaps you will find it is "you", because without "you" there is no being to care for your children, no being who loves your wife, and no being to fulfill the A.A. Responsibility Statement.

O.D.A.T and a big A.A. hug,
Curtis C.

Curtis,
Thank you for your post. I found it provocative, and I could probably ask lots of questions. I have liked Any Rand for many years, though I have read only her fictional novels. My own experience has been that there is risk of misunderstanding in venues such as this, and quite often the disagreements are based more in semantics than on actual disparate POVs.
I recall my reaction to The Fountainhead--yes, I read the book firs, and then I saw the movie---that someone understood me! I had always marched to the beat of a different drummer, and here Ayn Rand celebrated my kind. So the word "selfishness" took on new meaning for me: It meant being true to myself; it meant being authentic.
As a recovered alcoholic I have used the word "ego" to discuss sobriety and what I have had to address in my own life. For me it came to represent my sense of self---whether too big or too small. I don't have time to continue this post right now, but I would enjoy more conversation on this topic in the future.