I have a lot of things to say about my ego. My ego is my best friend in the whole wide world. It always has my back. Which is why it’s a little bit insulting to call my ego an “it”. My ego has an identity and a name. And my ego is called Egan. Yes I know, not so creative, but still. Egan is nice and simple and easy to remember. So let’s talk about Egan shall we? There are so many ways in which Egan is helpful and also so many ways that Egan just hurts me and holds me back. I guess I have a complicated, almost toxic relationship with Egan. When I have the words, I will fully discuss the complications of loving Egan, but for now, I want to focus on how Egan is hurting today.
I took a proper hiatus from social media for about a year and a half. It was great. I just focussed on myself, read and did other things. I recently got back into social media. I don’t know what prompted this, but anyway, I found myself back on FB, Insta and Linkedin.
Linkedin is actually the worst one for me, because it continually shows me what a bloody failure I am. Linkedin shows me what all my peers are doing with their professional lives. And reader, I am not ashamed to admit that when I see what they are doing and how far they have progressed in their professional lives, I feel bad. Like really bad. Today for example, I was perusing Linkedin and checked out the profile of someone I kind of know. Super nice person, probably smart as hell. But in reality, no smarter than me. No nicer than me. A little bit younger than me. And what do you know, this person is partner in a law firm. I cried. Internally of course. But I cried nonetheless. Egan was furious. Egan could not handle the fact that I was not partner in a law firm. Reader, I have not worked in a law firm for 10 years now. I have moved on from law firms (for now, but never say never right?) and I am happy in my career (Working Mothers). I have a family (Parenting; Managing Or Not). I have hobbies (You Phoney Impostor; My week). I have lots of things I didn’t have when I was working in a law firm. But seeing my peers become partners and therefore making mad amounts of coin hurt Egan. Made Egan feel bad. Made Egan feel inadequate and unaccomplished. And like a total stupid failure. And when Egan feels bad, I feel bad. When Egan feels like a failure, I feel like a failure. See where this is all going. So how to make Egan feel better, so that I can feel better? Well, I have recently discovered Kundalini yoga. Don’t ask me to explain it to you, because I can’t, but you can check this out for any further info (https://www.joy.yoga/kundalini-yoga). And I also discovered Russell Brand. Do you know Russell Brand? He is legit awesome. He is a guru. I know what you’re thinking – Russell Brand? The guy who used to go out with Katy Perry and was a drug addict? Yeah that Russell Brand. He took all his adversities and became a legit wise man. Check out his youtube channel (https://www.russellbrand.com/) .
Anyway, I was watching one of his videos, I can’t remember which one now. And he was talking about how we don’t need to identify with our thoughts. Nothing new there right? We all know this (for a really excellent article on this subject, check this out https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/jan/06/silence-your-inner-critic-a-guide-to-self-compassion-in-the-toughest-times). We’ve all had enough of mindfulness and so on and so forth. But the way he explained it was really nice. When he has a bad thought, he simply says “Oh Russell is thinking x.” and he separates himself from his thought. So I’ve started doing the same. When I feel like a failure, I say “Yasmin is feeling like a failure”. When I feel bad about something I say, “Oh Yasmin is feeling bad about x”. Is it helping? Kind of. I kind of just wish that Yasmin would just chill the F out and then I could say “oh Yasmin is chilling the f out”. But for now, me and Egan will work on this battle together. Egan has a lot of chilling to do too.
