i want to talk to you today about the ego self versus the authentic self because a question i get from people a lot is how do i know when i'm acting out of ego versus acting out of my authentic self or my true self and so i'm going to talk to you today about some pretty clear differences that you can use as a guide to know whether or not you are acting out of ego or out of a genuine sense of authenticity i did a whole series on ego a little while back i think it
was three or four videos you can go back into the library of my videos and look for those i think there you know a few videos back there if this whole concept of ego is brand new to you and even if it's if it is brand new to you're still going to get a lot from this video because it's not all that complicated but it makes a big difference in our lives in our relationships and how we feel about ourselves and how we're showing up in the world when we are keeping the ego in check
and intentionally showing up in our authenticity if you're new here welcome to our incredible little corner on the internet take a second introduce yourself in the comment section below and if you are back again welcome back i am always so glad and grateful to have you here if you haven't already subscribe to the channel i think the button is about right down there either way my name is julia christina and i'm a registered clinical therapist a researcher a coach and the creator of my incredible membership community the shift society where we are taking this work
deeper applying it to real life situations working closely in community with my help and support every step of the way you can get more information about that in the description i have a master's degree in counseling psychology and i work to help heart center go-getter humans break through the crap that is holding them back so they can like themselves and their lives more every day and many of us are functioning on a regular basis from ego and it is keeping us stuck and just to kind of for those of you who are not really as
familiar about ego oftentimes when we think about the word ego someone is acting from ego or someone has a big ego we think of someone who is just like walking around thinking they're god's gift to humanity and they think that they're so great and that's often i think what we associate that's what i used to associate with the word ego until really understood what it was instead of understanding that all of us have an ego and our ego is there to try to protect us from shame it's like this cover-up it's like this shield that
we put up the eagle puts up the shield to protect us it's trying to protect us from vulnerability but what it really does in the process is also prevents us from authenticity so instead of learning how to be resilient how to have a healthy strong relationship with ourselves how to be able to manage our own mind and emotions when things come up so that we're not taking things personally and getting really worked up and upset about stuff when we're not able to kind of manage our own emotional state and our own kind of sense of
vulnerability then the ego comes in and tries to shield us tries to essentially it's trying to protect us but it often ends up preventing us like i said from being authentic from feeling um like we're allowed to be authentic and from having genuine connection not only to other people but also to ourselves and to life itself and so what does it look like why is it not good to be acting out of ego because like i said it keeps us stuck and frustrated and unsatisfied because our ego has this proving energy right our ego is
trying to prove that we're good enough that we're lovable enough that we're smart enough that we're successful enough that we're interesting enough that we are whatever it is what is your enough that you don't feel enough of you can even let us know in the comment section below what you don't feel enough of and then how you know our ego tries to come in and tries to prove it tries to kind of hustle for it calling it call it hustling for our worthiness and that's our ego in action and so i put together kind of
four ways to know whether you're functioning out of ego and then four ways to know whether or not you're functioning out of your authentic self and these are really really simple ones and you can keep yourself in check and they are really simple at first when i say them but actually taking time to process whenever you are acting or reacting to something asking yourself if you're doing one of these four things and then you'll be able to know am i acting out of ego am i acting out of authentic self and sometimes it's hard to
do like i'm telling you well i've had to do this myself i've had to take a step back when something has happened and been like okay how am i going to handle this how am i going to deal with it am i going to act out of ego or am i going to process what's going on am i going to take a step back am i going to deal with my reaction my emotional reaction right now and then get to functioning out of authentic self and what does that look like i don't always get it
right i am a human being and i do not always do it perfectly but quickly as i teach this to you you will be able to know the difference and as you work on this it will absolutely transform your life so how do you know if you're acting out of ego so the three or actually the four ps it's really easy you can write them down so am i trying to prove something right when i'm doing something or saying something and how i'm showing up am i trying to prove something that's the first p am
i trying to prove to something to to someone else or even to myself that i'm good enough that i'm capable enough that i'm competent enough that i'm lovable enough that i'm worthy i'm trying to prove that that's ego the next p is am i trying to protect something right am i trying to keep myself cut off and hidden out of fear out of fear of vulnerability out of fear of being hurt out of fear of something not going the way that i want to that i want it to and so often we protect our ego
and and i'm going to talk about this one in a second but even you know when we are not trying things in our lives right when we're not putting ourselves out there we're not letting ourselves take risks we're not stepping into the unknown because we are scared that it's not going to work out the way that we want it to so we're trying to protect our ego from the disappointment we're actually trying to protect ourselves from shame because we have this habit of shaming ourselves when things don't turn out the way that we want it
to we judge and blame and criticize and are terrible to ourselves so we're actually trying to protect ourselves not from an outcome that's unfortunate or that we don't want but but we're trying to protect ourselves from ourselves because it's about how we are going to treat ourselves if we don't get the results or the outcome that we want so what am i trying to protect the next way that we function out of ego is along with this protection is what can i perfect so if i'm always going out of perfection and thinking to myself how
do i perfect this what can i perfect what do i need to do to make this perfect that is ego based because again i'm trying to protect myself from the reality that i am an imperfect being because so many of us think that in order to be good enough and lovable enough and worthy enough we have to be perfect we have to actually try and get ourselves on a pedestal just to measure up to everyone else so this idea of what can i perfect when i'm we're moving out of perfectionism that is ego ego-based because
i'm trying to prove something and then the next way we function out of ego is who can i please when i am moving through life trying to please other people abandoning and neglecting myself in order to get other people to think a certain way about me so that i can feel good enough and that's what people pleasing is it's trying to control others people's thoughts about us now i'm not talking about being generous and giving and loving when that comes from the inside outward when we're giving that outward we're not expecting we're not trying to
get something from it then that's different that's genuine generosity but people-pleasing is when we're trying to get something out of it maybe we're not trying to get someone to reciprocate the same thing but we're trying to get their approval or their validation or their acknowledgement so that we can feel okay and you know the difference you know this shift in energy when you're anxiously people pleasing versus calmly and authentically giving so the four p's of ego-based action of ego-based choice is what can i prove what can i protect what can i perfect who can i
please so run it through that when you're going through life when you're doing something when you're looking to respond to something or take action on something or stopping yourself from taking action on something run it through am i doing one of those four things and then there's the four c's of authenticity so we're going to run our choices through these four c's and then we're going to get more clarity around knowing whether or not we are functioning from our authentic self from our our true self from who we truly are when we're not functioning out
of ego and so the first c is what can i create when we're stepping into life when we're trying something new when we are engaging with life in some way what can i create what can i do that is that is interesting that is intriguing that is meaningful that is valuable not just for me but maybe for society as a whole where i'm just using who i am as a human being my my gifts and my talents and my abilities and my passions to create something to contribute which goes to the next one which is
what can i contribute right we can contribute through our creativity we can also just contribute with how we're showing up in the world how can i contribute to making this world a better place to making this world a happier place to contributing contributing my authenticity contributing respect contributing kindness contributing love contributing my gifts and talents and abilities to this world and what is my motivation from that i'm not trying to prove something right we're not functioning out of ego i'm not trying to prove something i'm i'm looking to contribute or create for something bigger and
also as a genuine extension from myself because that feels good when we are using who we are to contribute and create we are expanding we are learning we are growing which then moves us to our next c which is how can i connect when especially when we're dealing with conflict when we're dealing with a challenging situation instead of trying to work out of ego and trying to be right and trying to prove that we're right and trying to prove you know something about us or whatever that is instead looking at and this one can be
a hard one especially when there's tension but how can i connect how can i connect how can i show up in my authenticity how can i communicate in a way that is clean and we're going to talk about that in just a minute here but if my motivation is to connect instead of divide all human beings we are hardwired for connection when we are functioning from our authentic self we naturally and genuinely want to connect the next c is what can i cultivate so what can i cultivate what can i build and grow what can
i experience in this life that's going to be interesting and meaningful like we talked about before what's meaningful for me that's going to allow me to have a more meaningful engaged involved life because that feels good and also what can i cultivate for the world in general to contribute and cultivate and create for this world do you see how when we are functioning from authentic self there's not this anxious proving you know forcing energy it's like this this natural kind of flow from within ourselves when we're not seeking out from other when we're not you
know trying to get permission or approval from other people when we're not trying to prove something then we can show up in our authenticity then we can show up like i talked about keeping things clean we can show up as this sort of clean self instead of letting ourselves show up all kind of cloudy and murky from these different kinds of energies different kind of proving and perfecting and pleasing and all that kind of stuff when we keep it clean and this is a big one especially in communication and i've talked about this before but
keeping our communication clean where i'm not trying to force something i'm not trying to manipulate something i'm not trying to prove something i'm not trying to guilt something right i don't have kind of an ulterior motive i'm showing up clean in my communication i'm showing up clean in how i am and who i am as my authentic self what would that be like for you where have you noticed yourself proving perfecting performing pleasing protecting oh i put another p in there performing you could probably even think of more versus when am i showing up clean
when am i showing up as my authentic self and asking myself what can i create how can i connect what can i cultivate what can i contribute let me know in the comment section below and so much of this um comes from [Music] our self-trust when we trust ourselves when we feel secure in who we are then the ego just kind of naturally fades away and so working on these things simultaneously working on building that self-trust and as we show up with the three c's we naturally will start to trust ourselves more and as we
trust ourselves more we will naturally start to show up more with those sorry four c's not three c's and you can probably even think of more in there so we're showing up as that clean version of ourselves it builds self-trust and as we become more self-trusting we naturally show up in that clean authentic version of ourselves it kind of has this like back and forth relationship but also if building self trust is something that you want to do more of you want to learn how to do and want some steps to do that i have
a simple guide to self-trust that you can get in the description below and also if you want some help with this if you're kind of like oh i don't really know like this situation or how do i deal with this like this um and what if this comes up you know how do i make sure i'm not acting out of ego i'm doing authentic stuff then come and join the shift society because this is the deeper work that we're doing in there and you get full support in this process every step of the way so
you can get more information about that in the description below as well how was this for you i imagine a lot has come up because we don't realize how much we are functioning out of ego make sure you're being gentle with yourself and kind to yourself and not criticizing yourself because then again that's ego-based right trying to protect ourselves from shame in some way instead of just getting curious okay this is what's going on what do i want to start kind of being more intentional about and aware of and start working on now like the
video share it out subscribe to the channel if you haven't already and it's always so good to have you here until next time take good care
