How your ego and personality have you trapped – The Mental Well-Being Coach

As most people know I’m really passionate about the topic of ego and personality and the importance of spending time getting to know our personality patterns.

When it comes to ego/personality all have one, some of us vaguely understand what we mean by ego and personality and what purpose they serve and most people have no idea.

Why should I put in the work to find out what my ego/personality style is?

You need to know because you are unwittingly caught in a trap. If you are unaware of the ego defence patterns you are applying liberally throughout your day to day life you don’t realise how much you are limiting your view or the world.

Our egos and personality formed in very early life. We adapted our behaviour and preferences, and formed our beliefs to fit in to the world as we saw it as children and we then fail to update those beliefs and behaviours when we are older because they have become so unconscious we just do them over and over.

What happens when you build up your behavioural defence mechanisms is that we learn to identify yourself with certain values / behaviours and you by consequence disown other behaviours/values because you don’t feel they represent you and you fob them off as things that other people do.

I want to give an example from my own life.

I use positivity and being up beat as a defence mechanism. My childish thought was … If I’m happy then everyone else will be happy. It’s not ok to be sad / down / moody.

Now let’s take that in to my everyday adult life.

I identify strongly as someone who is upbeat and happy and can always raise a smile for everyone around me. I do not identify with negativity and sadness. The problem comes when I’m not feeling good. Life is 50/50 good and bad. I spent 10-15 years struggling with depression but because of my drive to appear happy and ok I learnt to put on a good act when at work etc. When I wasn’t ok in work or in company people soon notice the absence of my up beat nature and the questions start flooding in. “What’s the matter”, “why are you in a mood”. I’ve created a situation where I literally can’t let my upbeat energy drop without it becoming an issue for others. I mean, I can go for months and months playing the person who is always happy and then I just become so exhausted that I crash. That is where my depressive periods in my life have become problematic. Behind closed doors I need to crash but I have to do that in the moments I can have on my own as I’ve disowned that sad part of myself in public and even at home.

I’ve recently been doing inner work to look at this. Of course I would get utterly drained… nobody can remain positive 100% of the time. Nobody should set that as an expectation of themselves or others. This year I’m leaning in to being ok not being ok from time to time. Im learning to re-own my right to feel sad or tired or down when I feel like that.

What ego behaviours have become a trap for you?

I am certified as an enneagram coach and the key value of the enneagram is all around the ego and the defence mechanisms. If anyone would like to talk about this topic I’m always up for a chat!