Addressing the ‘ego’ is needed in healing.

Interesting info from Eckhart Tolle…

Vanity and pride are what most of us tend to think of when we think of ego, but ego is much more than an overinflated sense of self. It can also turn up in feelings of inferiority or self-hatred because ego is any image you have of yourself that gives you a sense of identity—and that identity derives from the things you tell yourself and the things other people have been saying about you that you’ve decided to accept as truth.

One way to think about ego is as a protective heavy shell, such as the kind some animals have, like a big beetle. This protective shell works like armor to cut you off from other people and the outside world. What I mean by shell is a sense of separation: Here’s me and there’s the rest of the universe and other people. The ego likes to emphasize the “otherness” of others.

This sense of separation is an intrinsic part of the ego. The ego loves to strengthen itself by complaining—either in thoughts or words—about other people, the situation you find yourself in, something that is happening right now but “shouldn’t be,” and even about yourself. For example, when you’re in a long line at the supermarket, your mind might start complaining how slow the checkout person is, how he should be doing this or doing that, or he failed to do anything at all—including packing the bag of the person ahead of you correctly.

Nothing of human capacity, will undo, or fix the unmet childhood needs, or psychological damage, of severe childhood complex trauma.

Last night, was a bad night. Deep realisations, hurting like being beaten up, hurting every part of me. Depths of pain and emotions, that put me back into a fragile and dark place, that is only ever just below the surface. Dark thoughts, wanting the pain to end, fear of another 40 years, or however long I live, of being where I am now.

I nearly phoned my husband to come home, as he is on night shifts. Which is good self care and a need in my life that he is there in an emergency if I need him. Good to acknowledge now, that I can think appropriately – whilst also having highly unsafe thoughts. An inner strength and desire to survive. A hazy awareness of my children and my need to live for them and Jesus’ presence.

Today, within a whole range of emotions and exhaustion, coming to terms with the following.

Healing complex trauma – in any human capacity terms, I don’t believe this exists.

Children have needs, emotional, psychological, mental, developmental. If these needs are not met, they will never be healed, and they cannot be met, within adulthood.

I truly understand this now. It makes sense.

The only way the wounds can be healed, is by the needs being met, and that can only happen within childhood, by the people who were supposed to meet them, at that time.

The following do not ‘fix’ these unmet needs, do not heal the wounds;

i) Intellectual understanding of the deep consequences of prolonged severe neglect.

ii) Intellectual understanding of the reasons why people abuse.

iii) Intellectual understanding of the severe damage of not having one adult to rely on, trust, and being surrounded by danger, harm, abuse, severe emotional neglect, severe abandonment.

iv) Intellectual and deep insight of complex trauma.

v) Deep self awareness of the consequences to myself.

vi) Compassion for abusers.

vii) Forgiveness for abusers.

viii) Deep insight and understanding of the abusers personality and traits and how they formed.