Soul Sustenance

The Hurting Of The Ego  Almost everyday or every second day we come across a situation when someone says something to us which is not very pleasurable or we chose to perceive it to be so. In either case, we feel insulted and get upset as a result. In some cases we react and display our feelings. In some, we don't. In either case, the result is a depreciation (decrease) in our happiness index. Why does this happen? It's because you have created, attached to and identified with an image of yourself in your mind that does not match with how the other sees or perceives you, as a result of which you believe you have been insulted and you get upset. As long as people's perception of you matches the image that you have created inside your mind of your self, you are content with them, but as soon as the opposite happens, even if its to a very small extent, you become disturbed, because you are attached to that image. The more the attachment, the greater the hurt, the disturbance or reaction. You could examine this phenomenon very closely, taking place inside yourself everyday. This kind of attachment mentioned above is called ego. That's why the phenomenon explained above is called in common language 'the hurting of the ego'. We commonly use the terms 'my ego got hurt' or 'I think your ego got hurt'. 'You hurt my ego' is nothing but 'you hurt or harmed the image that I carry of myself with me each second everyday.' Because I carry it with me all the time, I have become attached to it. e.g. If, on a particular day, you reach home late from office and your wife, who is angry with you, accuses of not being a family man and one who doesn't give enough time to her and the children. Your reasons for reaching home late may be genuine or not, your wife may be right or wrong on that particular day. In either case, you carry an image of yourself, all the time, as being a very loving, caring father and husband, who has been responsible for the all-round growth and development of the family in all respects since the family was created. Your wife's words basically pinch that invisible image, as a result of which you feel insulted and hurt and you react angrily, not necessarily in front of your wife, but it could be in front of someone else or even just internally. The image that we all carry of our selves is made of various traits or characteristics, obviously the characteristics of each one's self-created image are different. These characteristics of the image may or may not actually exist inside the real self, but whenever someone challenges any of those characteristics or tries to suggest to us that one of those characteristics is not ours or does not exist inside us, we react.