We might kid ourselves that the world "out there" creates our problems, but the truth is that the source of all our suffering is the Negative Ego.

The Negative Ego is not you. It's something you unintentionally created. For very good reasons you intended to create the individual bits of it. But you never intended it to finish up controlling your life.

The Negative Ego is the limited, separated, illusory (i.e. imitation) self which cannot see beyond the end of it's own nose. The Negative Ego is our internal saboteur, our own worst enemy, which confines us to the dark cellars of our mind. It is the Negative Ego which leads us to:

• Worry about trivialities
• Feel anxious and fearful
• Feel despairing, helpless and hopeless
• Feel resentful and guilty
• Want approval and admiration
• Take things personally
• Criticise and judge others
• Feel empty and dissatisfied
• Swing from one mood to another
• Feel hurried and driven
• Strive to be perfect
• Be concerned with outward appearances and worldly success
• Focus exclusively on goals and results
• Cling to the past
• Be afraid of change
• Worry about failure, humiliation and rejection
• Compete rather than co-operate
• Be manipulative
• Harm and abuse others
• Be rigid and inflexible
• Be unable to live in the present moment
• Become addicted to drugs and alcohol
• Desperately seek love and security
• Want to be "special" to someone
• Feel that life is futile and meaningless
• Take ourselves very seriously
• Wait for the world to be OK in order to feel OK

Note:

There is also a Positive Ego. It is the Positive Ego that, like a moving camera, shows us what is happening in the world. Without it, we would not have any conscious awareness. While we have a physical body, we must have a Positive Ego. The problem is that part of it has turned into a Negative Ego.

The Ego was designed as a mere postal service which delivers messages to our conscious mind. Instead, we allow it to open our letters, read them and tell us how to reply. Not only that, but we let it choose which letters to show us. It's rather like a filing clerk being suddenly being promoted to managing director, without having a clue as to how the business operates. In accordance with the Peter Principle, we promote the Ego to it's level of incompetence.

Our task is to understand our Negative Ego, so that we can recognise it's ranting and raving. It is a slippery customer and will disguise itself in various ways; we must see through it's masks, for beyond the Negative Ego lies our true unlimited self. There are five telltale signs that the Negative Ego is in command:

• Feeling "better than" or "less than" others.
• Playing victim or martyr
• Denying responsibility
• Being busy busy.
• Flirting with disaster

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