The Primitive Ego of our Inner Child

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The Primitive Ego of our Inner-Child© Dick Rauscher - Issue #3

I have been referring to the concept of "primitive ego" in past newsletter articles. Several readers have asked me to describe in more detail what I mean when I use that term. The primitive ego is simply the ego of the unconscious inner-child that resides in each of us.

Growing up as young children, we learn a lot about life. What's safe and what's dangerous. We learn to know when we are being good and when we are being bad. Over time, we develop ways to take care of ourselves that are called survival skills. Many of the survival skills we learn as children are in large measure based on the home and family environment we grew up in. However some survival skill are common to virtually everyone.

For example, we all learn to split the world into good and bad, right and wrong. This early survival skill is called black and white, all-or-nothing thinking. We wanted to be right because it helped us to feel safe. When someone criticized us or told us that we were wrong, it was scary so our primitive ego protected us by getting angry and defensive. Our primitive ego liked people who agreed with us. Virtually all of us learned very early in life to be obedient and respectful of authority. We often felt guilty when we were disobedient.

Unfortunately, virtually all of the survival skills we developed in early childhood tended to be somewhat simplistic and primitive. Primitive in the sense that they were learned or developed by us before our minds had developed very much. In other words, as young children, we had to keep our survival skills simple if they were going to be useful for us.

For example, we all learned very early in life that everything, including both pleasure and pain, came to us from the outside environment. Unable to get out of our crib and get what we needed, we developed the survival skill of simply opening our mouths and screaming until someone brought it to us. Because we wanted what we wanted, when we wanted it, we simply continued to scream until someone brought what ever it was we wanted to us. In early childhood, it was a very effective way to get what we wanted.

Since most of the survival skills we learned in early childhood were designed primarily to keep us feeling safe and happy, the primitive ego of our inner-child learned to get angry when others dared to made us unhappy. We told the world in no uncertain terms don't even "think" about taking our doll or truck away while we were playing with it, or withhold something from us that we wanted. Our primitive ego did not like the word "no".

Eventually our brains matured and by the time we were seven to eight years old, we had developed a primitive sense of "self", and virtually all the experiences and learning's of our childhood quietly slid into our unconscious. As adults, we now refer to that part of our brain as our unconscious inner-child.

A very useful metaphor is to think of our inner-child as our invisible operating system. Just as the invisible operating system on our computer controls literally everything our computer does, the primitive ego of our unconscious inner-child invisibly controls virtually all our human thoughts and behaviors. We continue to grow physically after eight years of age, but because very few of us make the commitment to intentionally grow in self-awareness, we are unaware that the unconscious primitive ego of our inner-child is continuing to control our lives.

In other words, we may look like mature adults on the outside, but inside we continue to behave emotionally and cognitively as immature children. When we feel threatened, we respond with automatic knee-jerk reactions that come from the unconscious primitive ego of our inner-child. We continue to split the world into right and wrong; the source of virtually all hurtful judgmentalism. We still tend to want what we want, when we want it and are often inpatient and exhibit very little ability to delay gratification. We tend to present our beliefs as "THE" truth and we often get angry when our beliefs are challenged or our behaviors are criticized. The primitive ego of our unconscious inner-child still does not like to be wrong.

In other words, it's clear that our childhood survival skills may have been very helpful in childhood, but if we continue using them as adults, they can cause us, and those around us, a lot of problems. Until we intentionally learn to develop a deeper self-awareness, we will continue to journey through our lives with our unconscious inner-child running the show.

The scary reality is that virtually all-adult humans alive today essentially manifest the emotional self-consciousness and survival skills of an eight year old when they are under stress. Because no eight year old has the life experience or insights required to live a happy and productive adult life, it's no wonder so many of us are depressed and unhappy; it's no wonder there is so much conflict and violence around the world.

Happiness comes only when we have learned to live fully self-aware in the present moment with the reality of "what is". Living in the past, emotionally and mentally trapped in the primitive ego of our unconscious inner-child, is not an effective way to achieve happiness and success in life. Enlightenment, maturity, and authentic spiritual growth all come only from intentional growth in our self-awareness.

PERSONAL THOUGHTS

The truth of these uncomfortable realities are seen clearly by anyone who spends even five minutes a day reviewing the headlines of a newspaper, or watching the evening news on television. We can see clearly that the level of our individual human consciousness, and the depth of our self-awareness as a species, both need to grow. Until we learn to intentionally grow in our own self-awareness as individuals, we will not have the maturity or depth of insight needed to elect political leaders with the maturity or insight to be effective leaders. Continuing to elect political leaders that are unconsciously manifesting aggressive, survival of the fittest, policies created by the primitive ego of their inner-child will only generate more of the same levels of conflict and violence we see in the world already.

We seem to insist on electing political leaders that offer simple black and white, either - or sound bite solutions to the complex global issues that confront us around the world. We tend to reject those running for political office that don't have ready-made answers, but are willing and capable of exploring the nuances of the complex challenges that are currently confronting us. We judge these politicians as being indecisive or "wishy-washy" because our own primitive ego wants the illusion of safety that comes from concrete black and white solutions. The more aggressive the proposed solutions are, the better we seem to like them.

Unfortunately, the problems confronting us around the globe require significantly more enlightened, mature, complex, and subtle solutions. As we move toward a global culture, the problems and challenges that are going to face us in the days ahead are going to become more complex and involved; not less. They will not be solved by simple black and white solutions no matter how safe they might make our collective primitive ego's feel. They will not be solved by the simplistic thinking process of a young child. We have to grow up if we want to create a compassionate world.

We need to elect enlightened leaders that are open to the input of others. Leaders that look for and explore alternative solutions that do not agree with their own ideas. Leaders capable of seeing the truth on both sides of the issues. Leaders who may not have ready answers for the problems that face us, but who are open and willing to wrestle with them until solutions begin to emerge. Leaders who know that no one country or philosophy will find the solutions alone. Leaders who know that the solutions will come only when we are all working together as a creative human community.

It is my belief that if each of us could make the commitment to do the challenging work of becoming more self-aware, the consciousness of the human species would begin to grow, we would insist on more enlightened leadership, and the world would actually become a safer place in which to live.

I will continue to explore the importance of increasing our self-awareness in future newsletters because we simply can no longer afford the luxury of living out of the simplicity of our unconscious primitive ego. We must each learn the tools required to intentionally raise the consciousness of the human species, and make a conscious commitment to intentionally develop our own self-awareness until we can clearly see the beam in our own eye.

So stay tuned. In the coming issues of the Stonyhill Newsletter, I will offer a brief overview of the Primitive Ego Theory of Human Social and Spiritual Development and show how we can each develop the day-to-day tools and spiritual practices required for the intentional growth of our self-awareness.

SPIRITUAL PRACTICE

I hear many opinions on how people are supposed to grow psychologically and spiritually. There are certainly a lot of approaches being promoted in self-help books and magazine articles. I believe that there are two basic "truths" that are essential; bedrock practices if we are to be successful in becoming self-aware and achieving authentic spiritual growth.

Basic truth #1: We do not increase our consciousness and grow by force of will. As one author humorously said, "Lord help those around us when we attempt to grow through a force of will alone." The graveyard of broken New Years resolutions offers ample proof of the folly of attempting to grow through will power.

Basic truth #2 is that all authentic growth comes only when we are able and willing to pay attention to, and then "sit with" the things that we manifest in the world, especially those things that we don't like about ourselves.

Authentic growth comes only when we become consciously aware that our old beliefs and behaviors no longer make sense to us. When that happens, we grow and our behaviors change effortlessly. In fact, we are often unaware that we have changed and are behaving differently until well after the change itself has actually taken place. In other words, the conscious awareness often comes "after" the change in our behavior has occurred.

Paying attention every time we manifest the behaviors we are uncomfortable with, and then learning to consciously "sit with" the awareness every time the behavior comes up, no matter how uncomfortable or embarrassing it might be, are the two most important and effective growth skills or spiritual practices that we can learn on our journey toward enlightenment.
StonyHill Institute

GOALS OF THE STONYHILL NEWSLETTER

We live in a world filled with conflict and violence. Almost everyone agrees that something has to change. There is an urgent need to develop a more compassionate global spirituality.

At Stonyhill, we believe it makes no sense to profess the values and morality of peace and compassion while continuing to manifest the primitive ego's paradigm of vertical power called survival of the fittest; a paradigm of power, control, and violence.

We must learn how the unconscious judgments of the primitive ego bring the seeds of conflict, and a sense of "otherness" into the world. If our personal goal is to do no harm to others or the world, then our thinking must consciously evolve and become more conscious or self-aware.

We will become what we think about and authentic spiritual growth is achieved only when we grow in self-awareness.

Traditional mainline religions are based on primitive pre-modern and violent tribal metaphors written during a time when our human consciousness was still very primitive. Until our mainline religions remove the violence contained in their scriptures and come to understand that most of the wisdom in their scriptures is metaphoric and should not be interpreted literally, they will be unable to offer the moral and ethical framework needed to create effective global solutions to the challenges facing us in the 21st century.

We will evolve as humans only as we become more self-aware and intentionally increase our ability to love unconditionally. A compassionate global spirituality is no longer just an interesting philosophic idea; the future of the human species may very well depend upon our ability to create it. The danger that we could destroy ourselves as a species has never been greater. The creation of a compassionate global community is the most important goal of human consciousness in the 21st century.

The Stonyhill Newsletter explores the insights and spiritual practices required to achieve the authentic spiritual growth that comes from deep self-awareness, understanding the primitive ego that resides in each of us, and the intentional evolution of our species consciousness.

The Stonyhill newsletter is written each month for counselors, therapists, clergy, and individuals interested in authentic spiritual growth, intentional growth in our human consciousness, and the formation of a compassionate, non-violent global community that openly embraces radical inclusiveness and diversity.

Namaste
Dick Rauscher

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

The Stonyhill Newsletter is written and published by Dick Rauscher, M.Div., Fellow AAPC. For past issues of the Stonyhill Newsletter and other in depth articles on authentic spiritual growth and the Primitive Ego Theory of Human Development written by Dick Rauscher go to www.stonyhill.com
All rights reserved.
Copyright 2007

There are many article on spiritual growth, the middlepath and the primitive ego on the Stonyhill web site at www.stonyhill.com. If you would like to read an in-depth article on The Primitive Ego Theory of Human Development and the relationship between authentic spiritual growth and the growth in self-awareness that comes as we better understand the primitive ego that dwells inside each of us, you can go to the Awakening article #26 on the web site or just click on this link: http://www.stonyhill.com/articles.htm - awakening

Visit the STONYHILL INSTITUTE website at http://www.stonyhill.com/articles.htm for additional articles on the integration of spirituality and psychotherapy.

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