The Ego in Yoga Philosophy: Deconstructing the Ego (Part 1) with Byron and Michael

0:00 Leggo. My eggo. Welcome to the going pro yoga podcast. We're going to talk about Legos just getting. We're talking about the ego, which is probably more fun. Actually, the inner child of me was like, Legos are super cool, but then, I was like, no one's going to care about Legos.

0:20 Except for probably be Lincoln Logs, though, Lincoln Logs, you don't know that. Like the new thing, know it's the old thing, the Lincoln Log now come on guys. If you know the Lincoln Logs, we know what they are. Please message. Judge me and tell me I'm not crazy, but they're these logs basically can be like log cabins with them, they have two notches in them so they stack kind of perfectly. You just kind of build these Empires man. Really?

0:41 This is before they go. Yeah, I'm not making this up. Maybe same time. I'm not sure before. Lego Lincoln Logs, bro. Dude, how old are you? I'm old. Oh shit, I am. I'm dinosaur. Like I'm like I'm 37 and I don't even know. I'm at least a thousand years older. Welcome to the going pro yoga.

1:00 Nugget series. My name is Michael Henry and I'm Byron de Marseille and he's short 15 minute episodes. We're going to be answering some of the most common questions in the yoga industry. So you can walk away with the answers in a short period of time.

1:13 That's right. Michael with each topic, that we choose will be discussing it from two different perspectives, the teacher, and the student. I'll be approaching these questions as a physiotherapist or physical therapist with over 10 years experience, treating some of the most common and complex injuries. And my guidance will be from the perspective. Of having taught 7,000 classes, roughly 10,000 hours over 10 years.

1:35 Welcome to our podcast. Go, so what we're talking about. We talk about the ego not like us. Yes. Even though, like, those are cool and the ego man, what a topic? We could digest this for quite a while but we'll just start going at it and see how it goes and take it from there.

1:49 But yeah you go I mean what is the ego? What is it to you Byron? What is, what is ego start? Like, how do you want to it? Is I feel like this is a word that is very often confused. Not to say, I'm the one that is the perfect. Maybe I am.

2:08 I don't know the perfect person to talk about this. I see you go, but I think people are not that there's a confusion. There's just a different definitions out there people grasp. And so what I've learned recently as Five minutes ago when I pulled it up on my phone is some of the simple stuff.

2:29 What I like to do is go to the simple stuff, the basics and then form my own thoughts around it. So put simply the English word, ego is Latin for. I literally translated ego means I so if you're writing like I love you in Latin, you'd write ego ammo day The use of ego crept into psychology, mostly through the work of Sigmund, Freud. And in Ford's Theory, the ego is part of the personality that arbitrates between the animalistic desires of the ID and the moral and social

3:05 standards of the super-ego. So that's a little breakdown, might be a little TMI. I was going to say, what does that even mean? But it's just a planting that seed, right? Okay, and now let's go with the origins of it. Basically, yeah, that's the origin. So Lisa, And if you read further into that for Sigmund, Freud really never even said, ego, it was like, I forget what it says Russian or some but some writer German German called Das Das ich Das each literally the eye the

3:33 eye. So in his writing it became pop this word ego started to become popular. Hmm interesting. Yeah, so then going from there, what do I think about ego without having read that I feel, and I feel like my, I may not have the popular, but it's not that unpopular. I just think people don't think about the ego. The ego is like I do.

3:55 The ego is It is basically. Something that can stand in your way from seeing the truth. Is I think the most simplistic way I can put it the ego is a block from the truth. And now we know it comes from I, so your ego can get involved in a lot of ways. I want this, I want this fancy car. I want this big house.

4:25 I want this girlfriend or boyfriend. I want this life. This is your ego, that wants it. So I think at this point, it's important to insert. The question is the ego, good or bad? Hmm. Or is that relevant? So hmm. Okay, so let's discern that a little bit. Is the ego bad?

4:49 Yes or no? Okay, so let's explore. Yes. Then you're saying that. Because you want something that's bad. That doesn't seem right right. So what's bad about that? I don't know. Well, it kind of comes down to the freedom aspect. Hmm.

5:11 And like, where are you operating from? And it's a shield. It's a mask if you want to keep it simple as just like a Halloween costume that you put on every day, right? And that it's more or less there and affecting your decisions. So it's a mask that's the way I look at it. How about you?

5:30 I mean you got a pretty big ego. I'm just kidding. I think and that's the funny thing that you said I was thinking about it quite a bit. But the thing that really resonated with me was the good and the bad part and the perceptions or the the way that people see their ego as being generally speaking in my experience, a bad thing and wanting to you know, if you're an egoic person or Yuri.

5:56 egotistic, then that's a negative thing or you're if you're selfish which is just another way of saying, like the same thing, self-centered these types of words they have like this negative connotation to them, And if you're labeled as one of those things, you would be like ah shit.

6:11 I only think of myself but that's like wait, it doesn't mean you only think of yourself at least in my opinion. It means you think of yourself or you're considering yourself or your being aware of what your needs are, or what your wants are, and that's okay when it becomes a problem is when that starts to step on other people, when your needs and wants and desires wants end up, you know, crushing other people are like walking on top of other people, then that to me is not

6:36 necessarily the ego. Oh, being a bad thing. It's how the ego is being is, how it's carrying forward perhaps, does that kind of register at all? Because that's how I see that good and bad. And to me, at least that's how I used to think about the ego is like, the ego is bad. Like, if I have a big ego, then that means like I'm I'm big-headed or, you know, I'm not accepted in society because it's a negative thing.

7:00 If I'm egoic or whatever, at least, that's the way that I view it is, or at least that's the way I used to do it. I'm trying to change. Just the way I see it. Now, as the ego being kind of being my friend and like you said not getting in a way where my ego becomes more of a reactive state or it becomes something that limits me from, you know, Joy's or enjoyment of life.

7:23 Because for example, this little trapped thought in mind that if I'm self-centered or I'm focusing on myself that it's a bad thing and I think that sometimes maybe that's the way people feel about it is that they don't want to focus.

7:38 On themselves too much because then they're being self-centered or selfish. When in my my world I'm always encouraging people to look out for themselves before anyone else. Like I'm my number one and my partner Christina. I always tell her like you're number one. I'm not your number one, your your number one and you can choose to have me as your number two if you like. But everyone's number one should be them first. Is that self-centered is that?

8:02 Egotistic at least that's the kind of way that I. Yeah, what I hear. Hear what I'm hearing is. There's a fear of judgment from others, which you said, which I think is in a valid point. Like the cassette the social conditioning around the word ego and what that does to us inside contracts us or expands us. And just by hearing the word, you might think, oh, that's bad. Because you associate it with a certain something. Let's say, for instance, Some,

8:35 I'm walking in, with some bravado and like, I'm just super loud obnoxious and it seems like it's all about me. Somebody says, oh my gosh, the guys got a huge ego mmm-hmm. So, here is this judgment from someone else that is with mega, that's not good or bad, but It could also be seen as at least the perspective that could be shifted on the other side is like a person's very confident or they're coming in.

9:04 And they're, you know, they pulled themselves a really confidently or assertively or, you know, there will there's a way. So, there's a way to be confident and not to be in your ego. Somebody might perceive it as your ego, one way or the other, right? Might come down to familiarity the Kevin Costner in fact, which I've talked about on previous podcasts, but just getting familiar with somebody will will help you to maybe see if this happened to me.

9:26 Me a lot in my life, where people will approach me after several classes and now they've I've won them over something about them. They loved my class now and they feel compelled to tell me, you know, in the beginning, I wasn't real sure, it happens less. Now it seems to happen more when I was younger, but um, but yeah, I think that's indicative of, of, kind of making it seem like it's about you, but they kept coming back because they weren't sure.

9:55 But once I got familiar and Wait, this guy is just different in a way that I like hmm. And I'm going to keep coming back now. Probably don't get those other people, you know, they just don't come back. So you don't have the other kind of stories.

10:10 Um, and then going into the yogi perspective, in the meditation perspective of separating yourself from, I from ego, and what is that, what's happening during those moments of meditation, what's happening during those moments of complete and utter? Satisfaction with Simplicity and just being well. I think some would say that the removal of the ego is so pleasurable because you're not trying to please anything anymore.

10:45 You're just being present to the moment and react reacting is not the right word responding to your environment but literally it moving with the flow of life and not getting caught up in. and your wants instead trying to listen to maybe you could say the universe wants, you know, maybe that's going a little too too much into the my narrative, but You know, what did I want to say there? What are you going to say?

11:13 You know, the truth is, I want you to like understand that the ego isn't just this thing that is is just kind of this bravado confidence thing. But from the yogi perspective, you're removing the I you're meditating yourself away from these multiple thoughts that you're having.

11:31 And these emotional kind of like each thought is holding some sort of energy like electricity behind it. Every time you sit and meditate, you release that electricity a little bit from the negative thoughts from the things that are bothering, you and obsessively, and gotta keep cycling through that Loop and now sudden cycling through and you're looking at it but you're feeling a little less stressed or anxious. And so, then it goes by.

11:57 And next time it comes around, you're training your mind ready. Feel kind of like a rat's. There's a bad thing going. It's kind of cute now. Wow, no. It's like, it doesn't even affect me now. It's gone. And it's out of the loop, right?

12:09 That's it. Just thing that you say that example, because I don't know if it was you that told me this. But I remember someone talking about the ego being a loop cycle within your mind of something happening. And you're basically your ego, keeps you trapped in the loop and maybe it's a story that keeps looping back and forth or sounds like something I said differently.

12:28 But yeah, yeah. At least that's the part that resonated with me because you said a lot of stuff and I was like, man. That's that's like thinking it's thought-provoking. But then, when you mention the thing about that, I was just like, Ah, that's that sounds familiar. That like Like, you know, in the ego doesn't need to be like a confident, you know, masculine type of thing, as well. Like, the ego could also be like victim. Mentality can also be viewed in

12:53 different ways, from like the feminine perspective. And yeah, I just that looping kind of resonated with me and I wanted to share that because I thought maybe it might resonate with with someone else with regards to that ego kind of getting in the way and if you know, if you're in this Loop cycle and you can't get Out of it than, is that getting you in the way of something better, or greater or just moving on type of thing. So that's at least one resonated

13:18 with me. I mean, there's a few other ways we can take this ego thing in a practical sense of like, how do we explore our own ego little bit because, you know, we've been working on these things a little bit. But there might be someone that being like this is too advanced for me hard for me to kind of digest this ego conversation.

13:34 I have a I have a suggestion actually just to kind of throw out there if this is kind of Of a little bit lighter for you, is that just in my Explorer, ation of what the ego was? For me with came out a lot in a, my relationship with Christina, where it's like, when the ego comes out, you know, we would Clash and we'd bump heads and all that stuff.

13:54 And one of the most freeing things. And also, most challenging things that we've done is we've named each other's ego. So, Christine has egos name is Barbara in my name, for my ego is Leonard, so, the way that we would, View. It is like whenever we're not being our best and the simplest form whenever we're not being our best self, Barbara is present or Leonard's present and that best self might be coming across as like egocentric or like rude or short or whatever. And then by us labeling, the ego

14:28 quote unquote, Then we were able to identify when there's this energy, this presence, or maybe this Loop or whatever you want to call. It is. Now, are you the one saying that you're Leonard is out or? And she's saying to her Barbers that are you calling the other person out? Well, originally the part of the plan was to just name the ego like, as in a give it a an actual name so I chose Barbara, she chose Leonard, right?

14:51 I didn't love the word Leonard which kind of made my ego be like, I don't know how I feel, you know, I mean but like that's the point is you don't necessarily need to like it. That's just who it's being identified as Then we would actually, like, try to call out the qualities of it, so, like, qualities of my ego or frustration sometimes getting annoyed, these types of things like that.

15:09 And then Christine azygos more little bit victim lies. It's sometimes, manipulative, you know, these types of things, but like to hear that some, if I were to say like, yeah, you're a little bit victim mentality and manipulative, that might trigger someone's ego immediately, right?

15:24 So in our relationship, it was one of the most challenging things to do. But at the same time, it was the most freeing thing because we started to identify When it was present. And even though we didn't like being called out, it's almost like those touch points.

15:36 Just made it easier to recognize. Like, I asked, you die do get frustrated a lot when I probably could just need to, you know, not react in those moments and big gave myself a breath. Take a moment, take a deep breath and then continue on. As opposed to reacting in that frustrated moment I could wait a minute, then respond be my better self if you will and I'm no longer speaking from Lenny, Lenny is no longer driving the car.

16:00 Lenny's in the back seat saying and yelling a bunch of stuff. And then Mike was like, no, no, Lenny just take a breath, I'm driving the car, buddy. And then that's how we're gonna I think is, as many touch points as you can have to develop awareness around your own ego, the better, I think if you can learn how to do it on your own, without somebody else calling you out will probably trigger you less, it'll be a lot easier.

16:24 I'm gonna be a lot easier. I wouldn't recommend doing it my way, but that's just my story and how that kind of came through. Alright, let's give this a little bit of a break. We're going to end this episode here and continue the conversation next week as we explore part 2 of what is the ego.

16:41 This will give you a little bit of time to integrate some of the thought-provoking questions about the ego to ultimately create awareness around. And that's the whole goal of these episodes. So, thank you so much for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.

16:54 Alright, listen up everyone. Paul Byron and myself have been working so hard on putting together a platform dedicated specifically to yoga teachers and the good news is it's almost ready for you soon. This platform is going to be publicly released but we want to actually make a special offer to those who have been dedicated to following us since the beginning. So that's a lot of you listeners right now we want to make a special offer for you and if you

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17:36 So that you can take advantage of this offer will hope to see you there. Members of this going pro platform, then you're going to have an opportunity to do. So all you need to do is just go into any of the description of any episode and you'll be able to sign up to the waitlist for this going pro platform. So that you can take advantage of this offer will hope to see you there.