The ego hates being misunderstood and will get riled up to defend itself when this happens. Communication can prevent this. If you actually tell people your wants, needs, boundaries, and expectations so much drama can be avoided. This week in Deeper Thoughts let’s take a look at how proper communication can help prevent ego issues.
No one is a mind reader. If you’re not properly communicating your needs and expectations then you’re leaving others guessing or not realizing they’re crossing your boundaries. But if you make those needs and expectations known, then it’s easier for everyone to be on the same page.
Our egos set up subconscious defenses to justify when we do things wrong or if we perceive someone has wronged us. It doesn’t matter if the wrong doing is intentional or not. This can range from victim mentality, gaslighting, unhealthy reframing, unhealthy positivity, to extreme anger, deflection, and stonewalling.
But in many cases this can be avoided with proper communication. If you communicate your needs, wants, and expectations in your relationships (the earlier the better) the easier things can be. This applies to romantic, platonic, familial, and work relationships.
This is important because once those needs are known and those around you aren’t making an effort to meet those needs, then you can assess if it’s a compatibility issue with the situation and if you need to remove yourself from it. Or just as equally, once those people know what you want and expect they can better know if they are able to, or want to, meet those needs. In the case of the latter this gives you three options you can work with.
1: You can intentionally choose to still try out the relationship as is.
2: You can decide if the relationship needs to change, such as no longer dating or working with the other person, but remain friends instead.
3: Walking away from the relationship.
This not only establishes these things for you to other people, but for other people and you. They can decide early on these things about you. And no matter what the choice is, if you are both practicing proper communication then you both can have a healthy conversation, which if you’ve been working with your ego to build a healthier relationship you can respond healthily to this news, even if it’s not what you had hoped for instead of reacting from an unhealthy, defensive ego.
Instead of dealing with an inflamed ego from people having no idea what’s important to you, have a healthy discussion so you’re on the same page with everybody. And it’s important to remember that these conversations aren’t a one-and-done type of thing. You will have to have them many times over the course of the various relationships if they are long term ones. Are these conversations always pleasant? No, but having this clear communication makes life a lot easier.
Remember, the ego isn’t this evil thing modern society tries to make it out to be. Its purpose is to protect you the best way it knows how. With building a healthy relationship with it with parts/shadow work you can have these conversations without having your ego react and lash out, causing ruptures that could have been avoided.
On this, if you have a healthy ego, if issues pop up even after these conversations, you can respond better and have those conversations to see if staying in, changing, or walking away from those relationships is what’s needed, instead of falling into your ego and jumping to walking away, when things could be salvaged.
Build a healthy relationship with your ego so it builds you up instead of causing issues, and begin practicing clear and healthy communication, this helps get you and all parties involved on the same page. Communication will always go a long way.
Thank you for reading, and have an enlightening day.
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