Warts & All
- Dr. Tom Wagner
- Aug 30
- 4 min read
What if the parts of yourself you’d most like to hide are the very places calling for loving acceptance? This reflection explores ego, the false self, and the freedom that comes from learning to sit with yourself—warts and all.
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Warts & All
Two weeks ago, I stepped back into my usual life, after my week-long silent retreat. Wouldn’t you know it? Shortly after returning home, my ego decided to pay me a visit. To be clear, that part of me that Karen Horney called “the false self” was a frequent companion with me in the hills and halls of the monastery/retreat house where I stayed. Like a shape-shifting movie character, it showed up in so many costumes and roles: accuser, second-guesser, prosecuting attorney, defense attorney, debater, and violin player for my occasional pity parties.
This morning, he showed up in one more guise. In a conversation, just before our morning sit, I found myself correcting my wife. According to my ego, she was giving credit to someone else for something I felt was my achievement. To make matters worse, it was for a profoundly banal accomplishment—sort of like needing to be honored for the nifty way I fold towels—it wasn’t that…but that’s not too far off! Even typing these words reddens my face and tightens my embarrassment sphincters.
This isn’t my wife’s very first rodeo with this side of me. The look on her pained face indicated that she would have preferred to share a cup of coffee with a full-grown man rather than the six-year-old, who somehow managed to find his way into the CEO’s chair of my inner boardroom. I knew enough to apologize. More importantly, I know enough to get curious about all this. This week, I’m inviting you to pull up a chair alongside me and puzzle over what to do with a robust ego when the goal is a journey toward greater psychological and spiritual freedom.
How Do You Think of the Ego?
Like “love,” the word “ego” shows up, conversationally, with a broad spectrum of meanings. As you may already know, the “ego” is no actual thing. It’s a word used by spiritual writers and psychologists alike to describe the mischievous part of us that gets in the way of loving relationships with self and others—including the Transcendent Heart that pulses at the core of all creation. According to existentialist and humanistic psychologists, it forms early, in response to a care-giving/care-receiving environment that can’t effectively meet a child’s needs. Now, small children are perceptive. Pretty quickly they learn how to bend themselves into whatever shape that ensures their needs for affection and survival are met. That constructed, inauthentic self gets subtly reinforced as coping strategies develop and take hold.
No caregiving environment can fulfill all of a small person’s needs. That’s why, to some extent, every mother’s child has to wrestle with the false self to a greater or lesser extent. Anyone on the contemplative pathway will find themselves, as I did on retreat, becoming aware of this part of the self. Staying plugged in to the noise of life may seem to provide relief from the ego. Unfortunately, its influence can be felt in a kind of dissatisfaction in relationships with self, others, or the Ground of your own being. So the question is, how do you tame the false self?
Sipping Tea with Mara
In her book, Radical Acceptance, Tara Brach offers an approach that resonates with a technique I’ve used over the years to deal with my ego in its many manifestations. She related the story of the Buddha and his encounters with the demon, Mara. In his journey toward enlightenment, the Buddha noticed how the dreadful demon, Mara, would show up with more and more frequency the closer he got to enlightenment. Her purpose was to undermine his journey toward loving engagement with the world and himself. Through experience, the Buddha learned that trying to fight her, or throw her out of his house and psyche, only enhanced her power. Convinced of the futility of doing battle with such a formidable foe, the Buddha learned to invite Mara to join him for “tea.” With this approach, he found that Mara lost her power over him.
As a counselor, I have discovered something similar with my clients. To approach one’s own shadow, or false self, with hatred and self-recrimination is to amplify the power of the ego. Better to find a way to place this part of the self on your lap, like you would a small child, and to enfold it with loving acceptance.
Don’t get me wrong, allowing a six-year-old to drive the car of your behavior and psyche is not a way to make purposeful progress in life. No one is saying that you ought to give the ego free rein. Rather, the trick is to recognize its presence when it surfaces, accepting it non-judgmentally as you get curious about the “what,” “when,” and “how" of its emergence in this moment. Sometimes the answer is as simple as the need for a ham sandwich, or some other form of self-care. It might have to do with the need to enforce boundaries. It can even involve the presence of a trigger that took you back to one of those times when you experienced a significant or ongoing wound.
It’s not unusual to hear someone come off of a retreat and report that they felt God’s love in the very place they thought to be unlovable. When you become aware that another human being loves that part of you that you hide from others, the world itself feels like a softer, gentler place. There’s a kind of immediate healing that comes over you.
You want to try on a life-changing experiment? Resolve to love yourself like that…all week long. And when you fail to do it perfectly, love that part of yourself as well.
Please share with the SMC community your thoughts and/or reflections in the comments below.
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