Programmed to 'get' - why you should forgive your ego

We are evolved from a long lineage of nature hard-wired to ‘get’ in order to survive. As far back as 750 million years ago, Amoeba evolved to survive by reaching outside of itself to ingest bacteria. It adapted to learning it is not fully self-sufficient and needed something from the external world to sustain itself.

As time went on, strategies for ‘getting’ became increasingly more complex. Fast forward to today, and we see squirrels stashing nuts for leaner times, Lions predating aggressively on gazelles, as well as being defensive of their territory for doing so. We see gazelles themselves equipped to be fearful as a strategy to avoid being ‘gotten.’ And perhaps smartest of all are bears, who sleep for half the year to minimise having to get at all.

Animal inheritance and Super Ego

We human beings have inherited all of these strategies and their associated emotions as part of our limbic system. We haven’t evolved beyond them; we’ve evolved around them. We have developed a prefrontal cortex, which has made us incredibly intelligent and afforded us the capacity for reasoning and planning. However, this part of our brain did not replace the limbic system but rather was plastered on top of it. We therefore have the unenviable task of mediating our animal instincts and our felt sense of being a civilised person that ‘should’ be able to control them.

Freud captured this difficult dance with a model of our Id (animal instincts like hunger, aggression, sex), our Ego (decides how to act or not on these instincts) and our Super Ego, which forms judgements of whether our thoughts, instincts and actions are right or wrong.

Of the three, the Super Ego is often where much of the work occurs in therapy, especially early on. A lot of the time, the judgements we’ve formed of ourselves aren’t our own: they are the result of difficult or traumatic experiences, or learned and introjected through things we’ve been told by others. By and large, our super egos are working overtime, sometimes leading to a nasty mix of experiences including shame, guilt, hatred and projected fear of judgement by others. This harsh criticism and judgement is very much unique to our species:

• Squirrels do not worry about being greedy when accumulating.
• Lions do not question the morality of hunting to eat, or have qualms about natural aggression in defending their territory.
• Gazelles do not view themselves, or their herd, as pathetic for being on the anxious lookout for predators.
• And bears, above all, I hope, do not condemn themselves as lazy for hibernating away from the world for half the year.

Each is absolutely perfect within the context of its own domain and experience, and is exactly what it has evolved for millions of years up to the present moment to be. Similarly, we too at this moment are perfect within the context of our own individualised human experience, and we would do well to forgive ourselves for the animal instincts and emotions that are such a perfectly natural and core part of our being.

Therapy and your own evolution

As therapy progresses, we can grow incrementally less afraid and judgmental of our emotions and our ego, which is doing the very best it can at this stage in our personal evolution. Over time, this invites compassion, security and trust towards both ourselves and to others, who we know must be in a similar predicament and evolutionary process of their own. What we resist, persists – therefore, to deny our thoughts, instincts or emotions can often exacerbate or prolong the hold they have over us. Sometimes we might just be missing the environment where it feels safe to explore these difficult emotions, which is where therapy can be extremely beneficial, but the most important factor is your own intention: aiming to be compassionate towards yourself, even if at times it feels impossible to succeed in doing so. 

Forgiveness and compassion towards our ego does not mean that ‘anything goes.’ It is possible to both be forgiving of oneself as well as be a moral and decent person aiming up in life. This is where a dialectical approach in therapy can be so useful, for example:

• 'I am perfect as I am and I want to make changes.'
• 'I am self-sufficient and I need support.'
• 'I am doing the best I can and I have room for improvement.'

Therapy can support us in being able to hold these apparently dualistic concepts in mind simultaneously, increasing our resilience, self-worth and emotional capacity over time.  

A shared but unique process 

Although we share such a common lineage, your expression of it as it is today is entirely unique. Your evolution as an individual person is a microcosm of our collective evolution as human beings. It is the crest of a wave that is consistently learning, in a process of trial and error, of growth, cost, gain, steps back, leaps forward, and also (ever since the trailblazing Amoeba) of the relationship between your internal experience and external world. 

So set your intention to recognise your inherent value and beauty as you are right now, to forgive any perceived shortcomings, and to be open to change and growth in the course of what you are becoming. It is an often challenging, but worthwhile and meaningful experience – and certainly not one you need to embark on alone.