How to Let Go of Ego in Your Post-Divorce Life

Let’s dive into our egos and specifically look at how to let go of ego in your life after divorce. People judge the idea of ego because we don’t have a deep understanding of it as a concept. Our default is to shame and blame ourselves or other people around us.

When we women get into the nitty-gritty of egos and how they work for and against us, it creates space for you to have more grace and self-acceptance. It’s a path to feel better about who you are in your life after divorce.

We’re here to build confidence. We’re here to grow. We’re here to just feel better and do better.

What is Ego?

In the early 1920s, Sigmund Freud started talking about the ego as a part of our psychology. Later on down the road, Carl Jung starts exploring the concept in other ways, and it becomes part of how we understand ourselves.

What is the Ego in Psychology?

Ego is a sense of self-importance, and it provides us with a sense of capability before we have developed confidence as a result of practice.

It allows us to just go for the thing before we’ve actually mastered it.

When my daughter was learning how to walk, she wasn’t thinking, “What if I get it wrong, what if I can’t, or what if I fall?” She just went for it. It is the part of our psychology that facilitates us taking on new tasks before we feel good about them.

It says, “I’m important enough. I can do this.”

It is the thing that allows us to believe in ourselves before we have the data to support it. It can compensate when we feel insecure.

However, anything with the wrong dose or potency can become toxic. For example, a certain amount of nutmeg provides beautiful health benefits and a nice flavor to my coffee, but too much nutmeg can become lethal.

A good amount of ego is healthy, but too much becomes toxic.

Life After Divorce: When Ego Can Become Toxic

When you are going through a divorce, your ego is automatically activated because it’s invested in being right. It’s invested in winning. It’s saying, “What is mine? What is for me? What do I need?” It wants to have power over your ex and win at all costs.

Feeding the Ego

We women have all heard the phrase ‘feed the ego,’ and it’s not necessarily wrong to do this; it’s a good chunk of what I do in therapy. I am boosting certain parts of my client’s identity so they can let go of ego and say, “Okay, I don’t have to get so defensive and competitive here.”

It’s important to discuss two concepts: Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Victim Consciousness.

What is NPD?

Narcissistic Personality Disorder, or NPD, is when someone often acts like they’re really special and important.

They need a lot of attention and compliments from others and sometimes have trouble understanding how others feel; this can make it tough for them to have good relationships with people.

Underneath that confident exterior, they can be quite sensitive to criticism or rejection.

What is Victim Consciousness?

Victim consciousness is when someone often feels like life is unfair and they’re always getting a raw deal.

They tend to blame others for their problems, feel helpless, and avoid taking responsibility for their actions.

It’s like they’re stuck in a negative and helpless way of thinking. But with support and the right mindset, they can work on feeling more empowered and taking control of their life.

Codependency Triangle

The Codependency Triangle is explained in detail here.

When people are separating their lives, the person who is more narcissistically oriented is used to the codependent (or victim) partner adapting to their needs, so the narcissist ego can become very inflamed when that specific behavior stops.

On the other hand, the codependent person gets their ego fed from being self-sacrificing, the one that takes such good care of others, and feeding off the ego of those people whom they love and support.

Ego becomes a problem in a healing process when you don’t realize it’s blocking your ability to become humble and curious.

Choosing Ego Instead of Heart Center

When we’re locked and loaded into our ego, we women are not grounded in our heart center.

You’re not feeling fully secure and confident, so you shut down your sensitive parts.

To really heal from heartbreak and get clicked into divine power, ego can’t be the predominant force. It doesn’t have time for sensitivity. You need to let go of your ego to move on and out of the divorce trauma path.

Sacrificing Yourself Instead of Living Purposeful

Sacrificing yourself is not living fully into your divine gifts or purposefulness. Understanding and meeting your needs is the key to self-love and achieving joy and passion. When you hinge your well-being on somebody else’s success, it’s not sustainable. It leaves you wide open to be a victim.

Choose Faith Over Ego

It’s truly an act of faith to shift out of ego and into the vulnerable, humble place of saying, “I don’t have all the answers, I don’t know how to do all of this well, but I’m going to take the steps to grow my confidence by practicing and trying it.”

The initial steps to growth are saying, “Teach me how to do something I don’t know how to do.”

Feeling afraid to do that or relying on your ego to protect you from that process is the opposite of progress. It’s stagnant.

Becoming a Master Takes Practice

We women all have aptitudes that come naturally. There’s no escaping that. When we women are trying new things, our ego is loud. It’s constantly commenting on what an awful job you’re doing because it wants to be right. It wants to win. It wants to be perfect. The learning process is not a process that we celebrate as looking good in this culture.

Ego can convince you that you’re going to die of mortification, make you feel insecure, or shame you for having flaws. It doesn’t want to show your vulnerabilities.

Practice talking to your ego. Say to it: “There you are, sweet ego, trying to help me feel important and not feel small and incompetent.”

Help it grow as part of the process.

Finding the Right Balance Between Higher Self and Ego

We’re here to make friends with the ego today and to cultivate a more robust relationship between the higher self and the ego. This helps us tackle things that we haven’t mastered yet.

I want you to do a body scan right now. I want you to find that sensation in your body of the ego approaching a dangerous dose and potency. Learn to let go of your ego so you can access the beautiful spaces you couldn’t see before.

Too often in certain religions, the ego gets vilified as evil, but the ego is part of God’s design.

It is meant to help us compensate for certain deficits until we women can grow that confidence. It’s a beautiful part of our God-given design. If we call it selfish or evil, we are now shaming ourselves or suppressing something valuable.

Rather than vilify any part of ourselves, I want you to instead look at the dose and potency of your ego and just adjust. It may feel very hard to do this at first, which is why we use tools and why we go to therapy.

Healing Tools to Get Grounded

There are tools out there to master your ego: EFT, journaling, the butterfly tap, and homeopathy. Go outside, put your face in the sun and your bare feet in the grass.

When I use these tools or meditate or move my body, I will hear my higher power speak to me. I promise you, ego and higher power don’t function very well together.

Using these tools will reduce your cortisol, and it will regulate your intuition and your ability to download what your higher power is trying to say to you.

So here’s your friendly invitation to make friends with your ego. Love is recognizing your current dose and potency and adjusting. Helping your ego come into balance is your key to healthy, loving relationships with your ex, with your children, with your family, and with your friends.

When you have access to your heart’s center, you can tackle new things.

I love you so much. Happy ego spotting this week. Peace