Ever thought about your ego/pride vs. intuition/higher self? And why do we have to worry about any of them. That’s a question for debate or for each of us to answer on our own.
Only we can really determine how important or not important these things are. But to make that decision, you first have to know what each of these parts of ourselves are and what they do.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary says that ego means self. It also says that intuition is direct knowledge without evidence. Actually, our ego or pride are one and the same just as our intuition or higher self are the same. Its kinda weird to think that we each have two voices telling us what to do, what to believe and what decisions to make.
And on top of that, the two voices rarely agree!
Most of us react according to our ego/pride because this is our defense mechanism to protect our feelings and vulnerability or how we look to others. Being concerned with what others think is caused by their influence on you. Read about how influence affects us.
After all, we want to fit in. On the other hand, our intuition/higher self leads us towards growth and allowing forgiveness.
Our failures start with our ego and pride even though none of us like to feel vulnerable or appear weak. Ego ends and destroys relationships and friendships while intuition builds and restores them.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO VOICES
Remember when you were growing up and watching a cartoon where sometimes, they would show a little devil on one shoulder of a character and a small angel on the other and the two would argue.
Well, that’s kinda what your ego and intuition are doing. They are not necessarily a little devil and angel, but they definitely come from two different perspectives.
And that is what we are going to look at so that when they are fighting for space in your consciousness, we will know which to believe and make life a bit easier.
OUR EGO/PRIDE
Your ego is your fight or flight response. It wants to protect you and keep you alive-that’s it, no more and no less. Ego/pride uses physical problems to help decide what actions need to be taken and the ego always errs on the side of protection.
Ego also raises its head during uncomfortable or unfamiliar times. That’s because ego always wants to know what is going on. If it doesn’t know, how will it be able to protect you.
This basically tells us that ego makes its decision based on our fears and then it moves quickly to keep us out of danger, whether right or wrong. And the danger isn’t just phyical danger, but the danger of feeling vulnerable or just feeling and being hurt.
This doesn’t make our ego a bad thing, we just need to learn when and how to use it for our highest good and to stay alive.
OUR INTUITION/HIGHER SELF
Now for the other little voice that lives inside us—our intuition, higher self or soul. This little voice is all of those things, so you can choose what you want to call it.
For this post, I will use intuition or higher self when referring to this voice inside ourselves.
Our intuition comes from our gut and our heart. You know when you have a feeling you don’t know where it came from, but you “just know”. That is this voice and its, trying to tell you something, so you should pay attention.
This is where using and accepting our intuition gets hard. We may hear this voice, but not necessarily believe it because we aren’t used to using it as much as our ego. And that’s because our ego speaks loudly and is domineering while our intuition is soft and subtle.
Our higher self/intuition makes its decision based on knowing that everything in the universe works in our favor and to help us thrive.
Intuition is almost always right, if not always, because it comes from a universal intelligence and doesn’t make its decision based on what is physically in front of it.
Instead, our intuition comes from an all-knowing standpoint that we are being guided by something greater than us for our highest good. Therefore, when listening to our intuition, we generally stay on the right path for us.
Our intuition guides us spiritually and emotionally and gives us a sense of “knowing” without an explanation for that “knowing.”
The quiet taps you get from your intuition usually come as a feeling rather than a loud voice. So, if you aren’t aware of your intuition due to lack of use, it can take a bit of time to learn how to recognize it.
EGO OR INTUITION
Where our ego is loud and logical, our intuition is the soft spiritual, all knowing part of you.
Think of it like this, your ego and your intuition are looking out the same window but see two different things based on their perspective.
If you’re only looking at the problem, that is all you will see. This is your ego.
If you’re looking at the problem just long enough to figure out a solution, solutions are all you will see. This is your intuition.
Listening to your intuition takes practice and being aware of your intuition is the first step. Then we need to look at the differences of our ego and intuition to better understand each.
This will help you recognize when your ego is trying to take over and then you can switch on your intuition to start listening to it more. Your intuition is what guides from love so that it can nudge you down the correct path for you.
CHARACTERISTICS OF OUR EGO
*Ego (enemy of inner peace)
*Incessant mind chatter
*Critical, chaotic and negative
*Never enough
*I am the victim
*Loud, cantankerous and domineering
*Attached to the physical/material world
*Affects the flow of abundance into our lives
*Uses judgment and criticism
*Becomes overdeveloped in a lot of people
*Uses logic to bring you around to its side
*Focuses on self and meeting our needs only, never other’s needs
*Ego tends to pick up an unhealthy negativity toward money, status and beauty
*Our successes are based on monetary gain, status, popularity, and worldly recognition
Ego/pride is a big part of us. Its part of our self-esteem and identity. Ego tells you when its time to eat or sleep and protects you from others overstepping into your boundries.
Unfortunately, our egos are influenced by the outside world. The culture we grew up in, our past experiences and fears and society come into play with our ego and how it decides to protect us.
Ego and pride can get in the way of so many things. It just wants to win and the heck with resolving a problem or situation. Love and understanding do not include a “yeah, but”.
INTUITION/HIGHER-SELF
*Lives in abundance
*There is always enough
*I am happy
*Soft, calming and subtle which makes it harder to hear
*Considers others in the equation
*Self-love and acceptance
*Gentle nudges to guide us down the right direction to the correct answer/decision
*Reminds us to consider long term consequences when making decisions and how those around us would be affected
*Belongs to the non-physical world and transcendal realm
*Many perceive our intuition as the voice of our soul connected to a higher dimension
*Is our soul’s GPS and is constantly trying to guide us toward our best selves
*Comes from our heart and gut; a form of wisdom from our higher self or possibly the universe, itself
* Rooted in love and guides us toward choices for our best selves and the good of everyone around us
One reason we need to cultivate our intuition is because it can guide us through the cycles of hurt and make it possible for us to forgive, including ourselves. I know its hard for many of us to “turn the other cheek,” but that is what our higher self does.
We need to spend more time with our intuition and put our ego on the back burner. Its something I’m continuing to work on, as my ego can get in the way in no time flat, especially with my son and daughter.
Intuition’s job is to guide us spiritually and emotionally through our lives. Unfortunately, with our ego being so loud and domineering, it can be hard to hear our intuition or believe it when we do hear it.
When we allow our intuition to become dominant in our consciousness and let go of any resistance caused by our negative ego, things flow smoothly and effortlessly. Our intuition lets us just “know” something and its our ego that makes that “knowing” hard to believe.
Its when we finally manage to quiet our ego long enough to merge with and listen to our intuition that we can start making better conscience choices.
We can never get rid of our ego totally since we actually need it, but we also need to learn how to manage it.
HOW TO BRING OUR EGO UNDER CONTROL
First, we have to work through any hurts that we are feeling and learn to face new hurts that come our way fairly quickly. No more letting them fester. When you’ve done this, you are more open to letting your higher self be in the driver’s seat.
Your higher self is what embodies good traits such as awareness, reflection, intuition, balance, foresight, and being able to see the big picture.
We live in a world that doesn’t necessarily believe in our higher self or intuition, but when we can use both our intuition and ego together, we make much better choices as we go through life.
The trick is to keep your ego from becoming too loud. We feel our higher selves more often just by learning the difference between our ego and higher self.
QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF
Here are some questions to ask youself to help you determine if you are dealing with your ego or your intuition.
*Are you hearing logical reasons?
Remember that your ego deals with logic and will give you very good logical reasons for doing something, according to it. That’s because it deals with what something will bring to itself. It could be hard to argue with such good reasons to do something, but that doesn’t mean your ego is right.
*Which is changing its mind?
Ego can change direction very quickly, especially if it thinks it will get something better by turning on its first reasons for doing something. Ego likes pleasure and that’s what it wants
Intuition doesn’t care about those outsides pleasures that ego does. Intuition cares more about what is on the inside. It knows that our primary source of happiness comes from the within.
When your intuition makes a decision its for your greater good and therefore won’t change course. Intuition’s decision may be very subtle, but it will be there.
Your ego is always looking for something better, so will forever change its mind if it thinks doing so will help it feel temporarily better.
*Are you hearing abundance or scarcity?
Your higher self understands the true abundance of the universe so will never offer up scarcity. When your ego thinks not having enough, it panics and tries to control or manipulate everything to get what it wants.
*Which props itself up?
Ego absolutely loves things from the outside world since that’s how it measures success and happiness. But unfortunately, outside world trappings can be taken away at any time. Outside things are not enough to keep your ego happy. Then how do feel about yourself? Turn to your intuition to tell you.
*Am I feeling fear?
Your ego is almost always in fear of not having enough from the outside world. This fear makes the ego go overboard and paralyzes us rather than take action.
Your intuition is always happy and secure with what it has, so will not feel the fear that your ego does.
FINAL THOUGHTS
In the battle between our ego/pride vs intuition/higher self, its sometimes hard to make a connection with either, although our ego will always try to win. Its impossible to totally get rid of your ego, nor would you want to, since it protects us. But when we become attuned to our higher self, we are learning how to distinguish our intuition from our ego much faster. Therefore, we have better control over our impulses.
The idea is to understand how to use both your ego and your intuition to create the life you want and should have.
Stay Awesome!
Cher
Relevant Reading:
Reinventing Yourself
Don’t Compare Yourself
Change These Behaviors and Be Happier
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