How mindfulness and flow diminish the ego
Escaping the tyranny of the ego
According to a recent psychological theory, the ego is an internalization of the instructions that we received in our childhood from our parents, teachers and peers. Driven by the powerful social emotions of shame, pride and guilt, it compels us to achieve things in life. The ego is scared of failure and attached to success. It creates an unhealthy dynamic in our lives that makes us unhappy.
According to Buddhism, craving is the source of suffering. However, contrary to most common interpretations, craving is not the pursuit of pleasure.
What do you crave in life?
Is it food, sex, friends and a good rest (pleasure)?
Or is it money, fame and success (ego)?
The simple pleasures of life produce little attachment. We can enjoy them and let them go. What drives us crazy with anxiety are things like money and success, which originate in the ego.
Our education has instilled in us the desire to achieve socially valuable goals in life. We have become so obsessed with them that we have forgotten to question whether they make us happy.
We have forgotten to take care of ourselves.
We have forgotten who we really are.
We are not our ego.
It is impossible, and undesirable, to live without the ego. It serves useful purposes, like keeping us out of danger, not letting ourselves be controlled by others, motivating us to achieve our goals.
The problem is that the ego has taken possession of our minds so completely that it makes us unhappy with its constant demands for success. With its continuous berating when we fail to achieve its goals.
Everything that we do, everything that happens to us, is interpreted by our ego in terms of its goals.
The tar giant
There is an old Buddhist tale about the young Buddha making his way home through a forest after learning martial arts. In the forest, he encountered a giant who blocked his pass. After failing to convince the giant to let him continue his way, the Buddha attacked him with his bow and arrows, then with his spear. But his weapons just stick to the giant, without harming him. Then he struck the giant with his hands and feet. But then the young Buddha realized that the giant is made of tar, so he becomes stuck to him. The more he fought the giant, the more trapped the Buddha became.
The tar man appears in many tales and legends. It represents the ego. We cannot fight the ego because every success that we would achieve in doing so would be a success of the ego, and therefore, would make the ego stronger.
Even the desire to defeat the ego comes from the ego, so it turns against us.
Like the tar giant, everything sticks to the ego. The more we fight it, the more attached we become to it.
We cannot abandon the ego just by trying to abandon the ego. It doesn’t work that way.
The way to decrease the hold of the ego over our mind is to practice states of mind that turn off the ego. Like mindfulness and flow.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is a practice in which we open our minds to everything, without judging. Mostly, we open our awareness to all our senses, without emphasizing anything in particular. But we also open our mind to thoughts and memories, without trying to push them away, but not encouraging them, either.
Mindfulness is letting everything course through our mind unimpeded, like clouds in the sky.
This creates a relaxed and expanded state of consciousness.
Because the ego is constantly trying to judge everything, the non-judgmental state of mindfulness turns it off. However, the ego will constantly try to intrude, patting us in the back when we are being good at being mindful and chastising us when we get distracted.
The only way to deal with this patting in the back (pride) and chastising (shame) is to treat them just like any other emotion: don’t push them away, don’t let them take over.
Say “Hello, ego!”, wave and smile.
Flow
Flow consists of engaging on a task — a sport, playing an instrument, dancing, writing, drawing — with absolute focus, so that everything else disappears.
The task has to be something that we have learned to perform well, but that still challenges us to the limit of our ability. After an initial period of struggle, we enter a state in which we no longer feel the effort. Time passes without us realizing it. And we really enjoy what we are doing. That state is flow.
In another article, I explored the neuroscience of flow.
One of its remarkable properties is that the ego is turned off during flow. The sensation of the self is mediated by the medial prefrontal cortex, which is part of the default mode neuronal network. During flow, the default mode network is turned off, while the saliency network, first, and the executive network, second, takes its place. The middle prefrontal cortex gets inhibited during flow, making us “forget ourselves”, so there is no ego.
Perfectionism
While there is no judging in mindfulness, is a certain level of judging is necessary in flow to let us know if we are doing things right. However, this judging is about whether our task is going in the right direction or not. It is centered in the process, not on the goal. The ego is concerned with goals, success or failure, and not so much in the process.
However, there is one way in which the ego can ruin flow: perfectionism. It consists of an intolerance of making errors. The ego demand that everything we do, we do it perfectly. Otherwise, it feels like we have failed. Making mistakes negates the exalted self-image that the ego has of itself.
However, experimenting, making mistakes, and correcting them are essential parts of the creative process involved in flow.
Flow has been described as venturing into the unknown. If we are in known territory, then we are not facing our challenge to the limit of our abilities. This is essential for flow.
When we venture into the unknown, it is impossible not to make mistakes.
Therefore, if we let the ego surface in the form of perfectionism, we stop being in flow.
The difference between flow and mindfulness
Flow is different from mindfulness.
While in mindfulness we let every sensation, emotion and idea into our mind, in flow we select only those mental contents related to our task.
In flow, we screen out distractions, while in mindfulness nothing can be a distraction.
Mindfulness is Yin, feminine. It is passive and receptive.
Flow is Yang, masculine. It is active and discriminating.
However, when we practice mindfulness and flow, at different times, these states support each other because our mind becomes disciplined in staying in one state of mind.
Both mindfulness and flow require a good measure of mental control.
Daydreaming
However, we should refrain from wanting to always be in mindfulness or flow. That can be exhausting and counterproductive.
There is a time for everything.
Wanting to be in mindfulness or flow can become a goal of the ego. We fall into the trap of one part of our mind wanting to control our entire mind. This runs contrary to self-love and inner peace.
Daydreaming is a state of mind in which we let the default mode network do its thing. We fantasize. We reminisce about the past. We hope about the future.
This is all about ourselves. During daydreaming, the middle prefrontal cortex gets activated as part of the default mode network, but that’s okay.
There should be a time when we remember ourselves, too.
There has to be a time when we let everything that is inside our mind come up and be enjoyed. That is also part of the creative process. The best artistic ideas do not come up in flow, but when we let our mind be truly free. That’s where the seeds are found.
When you hear spiritual people talk about the “monkey mind”, it’s their ego talking. There is nothing wrong with letting the little monkey come out and play, once in a while.
Maybe even break a thing or two.
Who wants to control the monkey?
The ego.
A new way of life
Thus, if we practice mindfulness and flow often enough, we erode the tyranny of the ego by creating egoless states of mind.
Since states of consciousness become habits, the more we practice mindfulness and flow, the easier it becomes to enter these states.
We don’t need to fight the ego, which is useless. We just need to have habitual states of mind in which the ego is absent. From these states of mind, we can envision a life that is not directed by the ego. Since the ego embodies societal norms, this empowers us to direct our lives according to our true selves and not the dictates of society.
By entering flow, we can achieve the creativity that we need to succeed in our professional life without the anxiety-provoking prodding of the ego. We can turn our work into play.
Wanting money, fame and success are goals of the ego. When we get used to viewing our lives through a different lens, we can start focusing on the process and not on the goals.
Enjoying what we do instead of worrying about our success is a way to prevent anxiety.
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