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INFERIORITY COMPLEX OR SENSITIVE EGO?
Ego Sensitivity
Reginald's comment for my post on inferiority complex stimulated a lot of thinking and the result is this post on ego sensitivity.
Sweaty hands in social situations indicating slight anxiety, inability to tolerate authority, extreme anxiety while being interviewed resulting in stammering, getting hurt even by an innocent negative comment are some of the symptoms of ego sensitiveness. People with extremely sensitive ego don’t tolerate a dog barking at them.
With this easy bruisability of the ego, the prime task of these people become preventing it from hurt. Since hurt can come from every social situation, they refuse to participate in the society. They become extremely lonely because most often these people become target of bullies. They also suffer being reprimanded regularly by the parents who fail to understand the problem with the person.
As they have to confront an authoritative person in any time of job situation, they try to avoid any type of job instead they pursue music and creative writing etc, but as success in those endeavors favors the person with a healthy ego, they fail to taste any success even in their chosen fields.
They read a lot, observe a lot, know a lot and cultivate a sense of superiority. This sense of superiority worsens the problem because they ability to accept authority decreases further. Even if they get a job, they might quit the job in a fortnight because for them even their boss looks stupid.
The life becomes miserable for them in places like India because of the “kiss up and kick down” attitude is prevalent in every type of organization something which has resulted from British Raj. So the inability feel at ease in any type of social situation results in complete failure in achieving professional and personal goals.
These people cannot tolerate rejection and do not approach anyone from the opposite sex. At the extreme, they opt for drugs and pornography and live a life of failure. On the positive side, these people are good observers, great readers with a tremendous knowledge base, good in music and writing; they are good in logic and analyzing behaviors of other people. They are very empathetic and try to help others. But with all these positive qualities they achieve absolutely nothing because of the sensitive ego.
Meditation and interest in spirituality with a goal of egolessness helps a lot. The realization that there is no one superior or inferior to him helps the person a lot in curing his problem. Spirituality also cultivates a sense of universal love in us which also helps. Love makes you blind to the authoritative behavior of the other person.
The knowledge of your sensitive ego also helps. Once you know that you have a totally unreasonable ego, you can consciously teach it to behave. Once you know every person in the world will be superior to in some aspects and inferior in some. The authoritative boss is in a superior position because he is superior as for your job is concerned, though he may not have other knowledge that you have.
Involving yourself more in social situations, meeting more people, taking every small insults easily, training your ego how not to take itself seriously would liberate you from the clutches of your over sensitive ego with this freedom you start enjoying the life as it should be enjoyed.
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Hi, I find this discussion to be very interesting. As far as I know, the root cause of ego sensitivity is not knowing one's true self. The nature of every atman is detached. So no one's opinions can bother. So real remedy is self realization. Know Thyself. Till that does not happen, temporary remedy is counting only on facts and not opinions. When some one criticises we hurt because we first "buy" . And then feel bad. So questioning inside one's mind whether its a fact or opinion discards unnecessary suffering. For a single person every one has different opinion. Lets say shahrukh khan, everyone thinks different about him. Not all that is his actual experience of himself. So if he is aware of facts about himself others opinions are no more significant. And we all have experience that people think about us according to their perceptions and not what we actually are. So truth (facts) about ourselves set us free. opinions are just view points or judgements and not facts. Fact about oneself doesn't hurt much. Buying a unthoughtful judgement hurts.
- Author
@Shobana, ego is something human... I don't know about gods as I have never met one. I still have to meet someone human without ego. One can achieve egolessness through meditation and love.... I am sure of this because I experienced it myself. But getting rid of ego is not everyones goal. I see majority of successful people with healthy egos and a great sense of self-esteem. Everyone don't need a anchor called religion to live a great life.
For me the most loving word in English is "God" and the most uncomfortable word is "Religion" for that restricts my "freedom" of thought. BTW this post is not about ego in general but sensitive ego. I will be writing my idea of ego very soon and will discuss about further there. Thanks for commenting.
WOW, that something so real,.........i really felt azazed...........i am living this wreched kind of life...........i m talented but due to fear of being amused i always remained alone.............can u give more details to overcome this...............
In my opinion, people who have ego are easily hurt. They can't be termed as tough people. They can be easily shattered to pieces. If one person determines just to hurt a person's ego, n hurts him again n again, what will happen to him? He can just not stand. The desensitization of ego is just a quick fix. So ur ego will show its true face again. It'll make u dull again. U'll fall forever with nobody to lift u up. If u don't hv anything called ego, nobody can hurt u, u can't fall. U won't be afraid of people or their comments. Oh how free our life will be. We'll continue doing what we're doing, with whatever faith we're having.
Just see, how tough Jesus was. He came to die for the sins of the whole world. He served His purpose. Not even a single hurt could stop Him from doing it. The God who had been doing miracles all through, even raised dead to life, didn't show any of His miracles during His crucifixion. He didn't even curse anyone. He just asked the Father to forgive everyone and not repay for the biggest sins they're doing. What a mental toughness. God alone can have n give. You can study about Jesus more to really understand His mental toughness and the love He had for all human beings. You'll realize, he didn't have desensitized ego, had no ego but full of luv for u n me n the whole world.
"Crucified
Laid behind a stone
You lived to die
Rejected and alone
Like a rose
Trampled on the ground
You took the fall
And thought of me
Above all"
Yes He jus thought of me - above all...
Jus search for the song "Above all powers" in you tube...
- Author
I my opinion it is not removal but desensitization of ego is the remedy for sensitive ego. Ego is a part of us and natural. But like any other part of our body if there is any abnormality in the ego, we suffer rather mentally and emotional.
Hi friends,
I'm a victim of sensitive ego. I had many talents, but will never go with people who will pull me down. Always enjoyed the company of people who will always praise me. So naturally I moved with people who are lesser in talent than me. To be frank whom I felt to be inferior than me and who are very humble to me. I was not knowing my weakness deeply. When somebody insults me, I'll feel extremely hurt - but I know for sure, this emotion too high for such a small insult.
But my husband is a person who will always pull the other person down. I felt too much defeated in life. Everyday with him became a warfare. He started telling I don't deserve such a bad treatment from u. But I thought mistake is with him and not me. I suffered extreme "identity crisis".
Now coming to the remedy part of the problem :
Jesus Christ being God, was spit on face, slapped, made to hung naked. Through out the process, the most important thing is he didn't feel "hurt" or suffered any "identity crisis". The Bible only says He "humbled" Himself. So trying to get out of ego all by ourself is somewhat waste of time or just a quick fix. Simply pray to Christ. He'll take you the roughest road till you become like Him. The only way to be out of ego (whether it is inferiority complex or superiority complex or sensitive ego or whatever complicated complex), is to humble yourself and think you're nothing, but still the object of God's immense love.
If you take my case, I escaped people who'll not kill my ego. Finally I was riveted with the person, from whom I can't escape. Now I pray to God to kill my ego. No more does my "self", in other words, ego lives, but only Christ.
Wow, seems you touched a nerve :)
I am curious about the difference between this and an inferiority complex. The latter is documented and discussed academically, but I don't see much written about "sensitive ego". Much of what you've written here seems like an intuitive extension of the idea of an inferiority complex and/or superiority complex. Could you please elaborate on the difference, and also provide links to sources for more information (that would also prevent nasty comments like the one above).
this is so true
having a sensitive ego makes you very lonely and look stupid :((
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